A bullied girl runs into the popular new student. "Still acting like you're perfectly okay?" Noah whispers. It catches me off guard that his voice is trembling. "I'll find out who did this to you." There was a time when I was the most popular girl at school. Everyone at Kingswell Academy, the academy for the rich, knew me as pretty Iris Dawson, child of a famous superstar and a widely known billionaire. Then before I know it, I'm an outcast. Because of one messy thing called love, everything flips 180 degrees. Now I'm the girl everyone hates. All my friends are gone. Even my best friend is gone. And the guy I adore is gone too. All I can do these days is ignore the bullies and get through each day quietly, hoping I don't draw too much attention the way I used to. Everyone at school starts calling me loony The Girl in the Back Row. Or lunatic, which is their favorite nickname. And then he shows up out of nowhere. Noah Sterling, a new student who just moved here from Australia. With his looks, his brains, and his impressive family background, Noah quickly becomes everyone's favorite, especially the girls'. And disastrously, out of everything he could choose, Noah fixes his attention on the single most forbidden and despised thing in Kingswell Academy. Me. Even if the whole school hates the thought. But trying to push Noah away feels like trying to tame a wild lion fresh out of its cage. Noah just doesn't stop. My mother used to say that when a guy is truly into you, he'll chase you no matter what. I think I finally know how that feels. I just don't know what to do with my heart. Because whenever his piercing eyes settle on me, it feels like my heart will burst straight out of my chest.

Sabya has spent years dodging whispers and tripping over feet that were never accidentally in her way. When Ranbir, the boy everyone worships, picks up her scattered books and announces she's his girlfriend, the hallway goes quiet for the first time. But he's proud, rich, and used to girls falling at his feet, and she's not sure she believes a word of it. Now they have to convince the entire campus they're in love, and the hardest part might be convincing each other.

Since the accident at the lake last summer, you and your best friend Jo have been competing over everything, including the new transfer student, Kai. When Jo challenges you to a county photography contest with a city internship on the line, the rivalry stops being about Kai and starts being about the thing neither of you will say out loud. But Kai isn't a prize to be won, and she's watching both of you too closely for comfort.

You're a freshman at a Scottish college, and you've just buried a body. You thought you were alone, but Julian, the quiet guy from your psych class, saw everything. Now he's standing there in the dark, and he doesn't look shocked. He looks like he's been waiting for this. He wants something, and you have to figure out what before your secret destroys you.

You grew up two streets over from Wren and spent four years loving her in the exact same silence she loved you in. After she left town with a packed car and a plan, you held onto the last message she sent, a photo of trees through a dorm window, and told yourself she was just busy. Then her sister calls from the hospital at ten at night. Wren is out of surgery but asking for you, and that request is about to drag everything you never said out into the open.

Two years ago Serena left without a word, and Isabelle has spent every day since rebuilding herself around a new best friend and a quiet routine. Now Serena is back on campus, quieter and wearing Isabelle's old hoodie, asking for a conversation Isabelle isn't sure she can survive having. There's an apology Serena can't finish, a friend who thinks she should walk away, and a question Isabelle has carried like a stone in her chest: why did you leave?

You've spent three years learning not to think about Seraphina. Then she walks back into your campus coffee shop, charcoal on her cheek and a sketchbook in her arms, and every wall you built starts to crack. She left without a word. You stayed, keeping a shoebox of trinkets and letters you never mailed. Now she's back, and she's left you her number on a torn corner of paper, signed with a star the way she used to sign your notes. Calling means letting her in. Ignoring it means letting her go. Again.