To the two boys I like: Burn me the safe way
After a devastating car crash in England claims her father and two younger brothers, seventeen-year-old Elena Hart and her mother flee their shattered life for a coastal town in America, hoping distance will dull the pain. But grief doesn’t fade—it follows.
At elite Pacific Crest Academy, Elena collides with two opposites who both feel like lifelines and threats:
Liam—the golden boy with a gentle smile and steady hands—offers safety, quiet comfort, and the kind of kindness that makes her almost believe she can heal.
Then there’s Noah—Liam’s childhood best friend . Arrogant, bruised, and dangerously sexy, he fights in illegal underground cages, chasing pain like it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Torn between the boy who feels like home and the one who feels like chaos, Elena is drawn deeper into secrets, stolen kisses, and a dangerous pull she can’t ignore. One wrong choice could break her heart all over again or finally set her free.
Which boy will she choose when staying safe means losing the only thing that makes her feel alive?
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Chapter: Weighty ThoughtsThe night air was crisp, cooling the lingering heat on Elena’s cheeks as she and Liam walked down her street.The dinner at the Carter's house had felt like a marathon, but now, out here under the dim orange glow of the streetlights, everything was quiet. It was just the two of them. Their shoes made a rhythmic, comforting clicking sound against the clean asphalt.Liam was walking close, his shoulder occasionally bumping gently against hers. His fingers were laced through hers, his palm large and warm, holding onto her with a kind of steady, unbothered certainty that made her throat feel tight.He was still buzzing from the evening, a happy, relaxed smile playing on his lips."My mom really loved you, El," he said softly, his voice a low rumble in the quiet night. "I mean, I knew she would, but she was practically beaming when we were clearing the table. And Maya? You’re officially her favorite person now. She’s probably going to demand you come over every single weekend to fix her le
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Dinner and DeceptionThe clinking of heavy silver against fine porcelain felt like a countdown. Elena kept her eyes pinned to her plate, watching a small puddle of rosemary gravy slowly overtake a slice of roast chicken. The dining room was beautiful, bathed in a warm, amber glow from a crystal chandelier that looked far too expensive for a casual Thursday night. Everything here was intentional. The matching linen napkins, the heavy crystal water goblets, the quiet hum of the central air conditioning keeping the suburban humidity firmly outside.Directly across the mahogany table sat Richard Carter. Liam’s father looked exactly like a version of Liam who had spent twenty-five years in corporate boardrooms, his hair graying slightly at the temples but carrying that same broad-shouldered, unyielding presence."So, Elena," Richard started, setting his fork down with a small, precise click against the porcelain. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, his sharp eyes locking onto her with a kin
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Ticking BombEvery step up the staircase felt like ascending a platform toward an execution. The walls were lined with more photographs, a visual timeline of a perfect life. Liam as a chubby baby. Liam holding a little league trophy. Liam grinning with his arm around a tiny, toddler-aged Maya. There was no sadness here. No secrets.Maya dragged her into a bright, messy bedroom filled with stuffed animals and bright pink plastic toys. A half-finished lego structure sat in the dead center of the carpet, looking slightly lopsided."See?" Maya said, dropping to her knees on the rug and pointing to the plastic bricks. "Liam tried to fix the roof but his hands are too big and he just smashed the front gate. He's so clumsy when he's not playing sports. Are your hands small, Elena? Can you fix the gate?"Elena slowly sank down onto the floor, tucking her legs beneath her skirt, her binder resting against her knees. She picked up a small white lego piece, her fingers trembling slightly as she tried to foc
Last Updated: 2026-06-02
Chapter: The Formal FoyerIt was a complete copy-and-paste job. Elena sat on the edge of her mattress for a good ten minutes, staring at the flashing vertical cursor on her phone screen until her eyes went blurry. Her thumbs felt like lead blocks. She typed out six words, deleted them, then typed them out again.“I think I caught a flu, sorry.”She sent it to Liam first. The blue bubble popped up, neat and clean. Then she navigated over to the purple folder, opened the second chat window, and pasted the exact same sentence into the bar. Send. A cold, mechanical shortcut to buy herself twenty-four hours of breathing room.It worked. That was the pathetic part. It actually did the trick without a single hitch. Liam replied almost instantly with three paragraphs of pure, agonizing worry, telling her to drink hot lemon water and rest up for the weekend. Noah didn't reply at all for three hours, just sending a single letter back later that evening. “K.”Both of them stayed exactly where her calendar app wanted th
Last Updated: 2026-06-02
Chapter: The Screen of Two SidesThe kitchen was too bright.Wednesday afternoon sunlight poured through the massive bay windows, hitting the white marble island and making everything look sterile. Clean.Elena poked at her food with a heavy silver fork, her appetite completely gone, though she forced herself to keep up appearances.Claire was sitting right across from her, sipping her green tea and eating slowly. It was supposed to be a quiet, normal afternoon. A small breathing room before the evening chaos.Then the phone buzzed.The sound was sharp, a violent rattle against the solid stone counter that made Elena’s shoulders lock up instantly. She didn't move. She didn't breathe. Two seconds later, it gave a second, identical vibration.Elena reached out, her fingers slick against the glass as she slid the phone toward her lap, keeping it well below the edge of the island, out of her mother’s direct line of sight.She tapped the screen, her heart instantly doing that familiar, heavy thud against her ribs.The fir
Last Updated: 2026-05-30
Chapter: Kisses That Shouldn't Happen"Congratulations. I heard the rumors."The words dropped like heavy, cold stones into the quiet space beneath the old south stairwell. Elena froze, her foot hovering right above the third concrete step.Noah was leaning back against the metal handrail, his hands deep inside the pockets of his dark hoodie, his ankles crossed loosely. He had been waiting for her. He knew exactly which route she took to get to the chemistry labs after the second bell, the one hallway the seniors mostly ignored because the lights were constantly flickering.Elena's throat went entirely dry. She dropped her heavy binder a few inches, clutched it tight against her stomach, and looked at him. Her mouth opened, but for three seconds, nothing came out. The digital image from the school feed was still burned into the back of her eyelids."Noah," she started, her voice coming out a thin, desperate whisper. She took a step closer to the shadows under the landing, away from the open corridor. "Listen to me. The
Last Updated: 2026-05-30
Chapter: Shadows and StaticThe phone vibrated against his thigh. A harsh, mechanical buzzing that felt like a drill against his bone.Sophia.It had to be Sophia. She was thousands of miles away, probably sitting in some sterile, overpriced hotel suite, executing their flawless, strategic plan for him to take back the company.He didn’t answer it.He didn’t even pull the phone out of his pocket to check the caller ID. He just stood there in the dark, cavernous kitchen, staring completely blankly at the spot on the marble counter where Diane had just been standing. The heavy, intoxicating scent of her orange blossom perfume was still hanging in the cold air, completely suffocating him. It coated the back of his throat. It tasted like absolute ruin.The vibration finally stopped. It timed out, leaving behind a heavy, crushing silence that was somehow infinitely worse.Marcus turned around and walked out of the kitchen. His legs felt entirely hollow. Walking up the grand, sweeping staircase of the villa felt like
Last Updated: 2026-07-02
Chapter: Playing the Nice GuyIt was somewhere around two in the next morning. Maybe closer to three. The antique clocks in the villa were completely out of sync, their heavy, rhythmic ticking just echoing down the dark, cavernous hallways like a countdown to his own execution.Marcus was standing in the middle of the massive, industrial-grade chef's kitchen. He hadn't turned the lights on. The only illumination was the harsh, pale LED glow spilling out from the open door of the sub-zero refrigerator.He felt ill. The toxic, suffocating jealousy from dinner hadn’t faded. It had just curdled. It had sunk deep into the lining of his stomach, sour and heavy, making his hands shake so badly he had already dropped an empty water glass into the stainless steel sink. Thankfully, it hadn't shattered.He leaned heavily against the cold marble of the center island, rubbing the heels of his hands brutally into his bloodshot eyes. He was losing his mind. He was actually, genuinely losing his grip on reality.Anger wasn't work
Last Updated: 2026-07-02
Chapter: The Dining Room DismissalMarcus sat on the far right side of the dinning table. He kept his head completely down. His chin was practically resting against his collarbone. He just focused entirely on the intricate, stupid blue floral pattern painted onto his antique porcelain dinner plate.Because if he looked up, he was actually going to lose his mind.Diane was sitting directly across from him. Just five feet of polished wood and flickering candlelight separating them. She wasn't wearing a formal evening gown. She wasn't wearing a modest blouse. She wasn't wearing anything even remotely appropriate for a quiet family dinner with the patriarch of a global shipping empire.She was wearing a slip dress.It was silk. A dark, liquid crimson color that looked exactly like freshly oxygenated blood under the heavy crystal chandelier. And it was tight. So incredibly, offensively tight. The fabric looked like it was literally painted onto her skin, clinging violently to the swell of her hips and the heavy dip of her
Last Updated: 2026-06-28
Chapter: Stolen SnapshotThe sun was just completely aggressive the next morning. It didn’t give a single damn if Marcus had spent the entire night tearing his own mind into tiny, bloody shreds. It just blasted right through the thin linen curtains of the guest room, bright and hot and completely unforgiving.Downstairs, the villa was already humming with that sickening, wealthy kind of noise. The board retreat had officially started. Marcus could hear the faint, awful clinking of silver spoons against expensive porcelain coffee cups out on the main breakfast patio. He could hear the low, confident murmurs of men who actually had control over their lives. The smell of dark roasted espresso and warm butter drifted up through the floorboards. It honestly made him want to throw up.He hadn’t slept. Not even for ten minutes.Every time he had closed his eyes, the heavy, suffocating darkness behind his eyelids just immediately filled with wet black lace. He just kept seeing the way the pool water slicked her dar
Last Updated: 2026-06-28
Chapter: The Lingerie SwimSophia’s voice wouldn’t leave his head. Two weeks. We’re doing it now. The words just bounced around the empty chambers of his skull like loose coins, heavy and annoying and completely loud. A strategic marriage. A quick fix to get his signatures back. A shield to block the woman currently sleeping just two hallways down from him.It was all supposed to make perfect sense on paper. He was supposed to feel relieved, or maybe a little bit powerful, or at least like he had a plan. Instead, he just felt sick. The kind of deep, oily nausea that settles right into your bones after you realize you’ve sold the last piece of yourself to a machine that doesn't even care about your name.The main villa was completely suffocating tonight. Because of some stupid, drawn-out board retreat his father insisted on hosting for the weekend, Marcus had been forced to take his old bedroom on the second floor. He couldn't remember the last time he’d stayed here overnight. The air in the room felt thick,
Last Updated: 2026-06-27
Chapter: The Accelerated VowThe hotel room smelled of expensive travel leather, heavy London rain clinging to wool, and the sharp, clinical bite of Sophia’s signature perfume. It was a suffocatingly upscale suite tucked away in the hills above Cannes, the kind of place where the thick drapes were specifically designed to block out the Mediterranean sun, keeping the world permanently dim and quiet.Sophia didn’t look like someone who had just spent four hours trapped on a private flight. Her hair was pulled back into a flawless, severe twist. Her tailored traveling coat was neatly draped over the back of the sofa, entirely devoid of wrinkles. She looked like a woman who had everything under control.Until she looked at him.The moment Marcus stepped through the door, her eyes locked onto his wrinkled linen shirt. She tracked the faint, sticky bourbon stain near his cuff, then moved up to the raw, bloodshot look in his eyes.She stopped dead in the middle of the plush cream carpet. "You look like a corpse someo
Last Updated: 2026-06-27
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