heyy_jule
Darla Duarte---the girl with the vivid imagination, the girl with the avoidant and introverted yet kind-hearted father she is likened to far too often, and most definitely the girl with the fictional character and music obsession. Everyone thinks the things she loves are hyper-fixations, but what do they know?
When the regretful presence of her father's absence gets too strong for her to swallow in a mocktail, and the yearning desire for the company of a boy who loves her becomes unbearable, Darla is more than ecstatic to have been invited along by her best friend Solana to travel to Solana's hometown to spend a few weeks with her family in their Paloma Pleats vacation home. Honey Hills is haunted by her father, but how can Paloma Pleats be haunted if Darla has never been there? Exactly---it can't be.
Well, that solves the dad problem. But when she arrives at the vacation home in Paloma, the giddiness seeps out slowly from Darla's body like the carbonation from a soda that's been sitting out too long. Suddenly, she is face to face with the face of a boy she has only ever seen on her phone screen. A voice she has only ever heard from a speaker and her headphones.
That sole interaction leaves Darla Duarte questioning whether all her problems have gone away, as well as whether the desire for romance in her life was merely a hyper-fixation or if her whole being is secretly longing for it too.