Excerpt
They did not meet the way love stories usually begin.
They met as echoes—through screens, through words typed late at night, through arguments borrowed from buildings that hated each other. In the narrow space between rivalry and curiosity, Mattie and Rowan learned each other’s voices before they learned each other’s faces.
In real life, they were careful. Almost afraid.
Online, they were fearless.
They spoke about books they had not yet finished, poems they did not fully understand, and futures that felt too large to name. They laughed more in messages than they ever did in person. And when they finally crossed paths—amid shouting neighbors and blocked roads—they mistook nervousness for anger, and silence for dislike.
Love grew anyway.
Quietly. Slowly. Like a truth that refuses to be denied.
They did not know yet that their enemies to lovers story would be tested by fear, betrayal, and a night when fireworks would turn love into evidence. They only knew that something real had begun—and once begun, it could not be undone.