Prologue
Sometimes people survive so much pain that they forget what peace feels like.
Kael Rowan knew pain better than he knew kindness.
For years, he lived under the roof of a man he was supposed to call family. His uncle's house was never a home. It was a prison disguised as one.
Every day came with shouting.
Every mistake came with punishment.
Every bruise came with a warning.
By the time Kael turned eighteen, silence had become his safest place.
So he stopped speaking.
Not because he couldn't.
But because speaking never helped.
When he received a scholarship later from St. Gabriel's College, one of the most prestigious all-boys college in the country, he thought it was a mistake.
A boy like him wasn't supposed to escape.
Yet somehow he did.
With a single suitcase and a trembling heart, Kael left behind the life that had broken him.
What he didn't know was that the college waiting for him would change everything.
Because somewhere on that campus was a boy named Asher Hale.
A boy who carried wounds of his own.
A boy who knew loneliness almost as well as Kael did.
Neither of them knew it yet.
But the day they met would become the beginning of a story neither of them could escape.
A story about healing.
About first love.
And about finding a home in someone else's arms.
