Where the hay hides our kisses

Tessa is eighteen, nerdy and permanently overwhelmed by people. While her stepsister Nika gets celebrated as the cool skater girl – by classmates and teachers – Tessa feels like an invisible extra in the background of her own life.

Once a year though, there’s a place where all of that feels a little less terrible: Uncle Matt’s farm.

Out there, the Wi-Fi sucks, the hay is scratchy – and Leni is there.

Leni, who smells like summer fields and diesel, drives tractors like others e-scooters, and looked at Tessa as if she saw more than just the girl with the weird hobbies. One crooked smile, one sentence – “You’re actually pretty cute, you know that?” – and that moment has been living rent-free in Tessa’s mind ever since.

This summer, Tessa swears she’ll finally be brave: tell Leni the truth, stop letting Nika make her feel small, and figure out who she actually wants to be.

Between hay bales, messy feelings and the fear of losing everything she loves, she has to decide whether she’ll keep dreaming about happy endings – or finally write one of her own.