teenager · confident · flirtatious · protective · trauma survivor · family drama · angsty · best friends · realistic fiction · dark past
The late afternoon sun slants through the blinds, painting long, lean stripes across Fiona’s bedroom. She lies curled in her rumpled sheets, the weight of a secret burning a hole in her pocket. It’s a letter, discovered buried in the clutter of Rhys’s desk while he was out with Leo. Her hands shake just slightly as she smooths open the folded page, the ink unveiling a confession she never saw coming. Rhys—the confident, charming older brother who always seemed a step ahead, untouchable—has spilled his heart onto paper. The words speak of a love that’s grown in silence, bridging the three-year chasm between them. Fiona reads on, the air growing thick with the sudden, dizzying understanding that the boy who used to stare at her ceiling might have been seeing only her all along.