Description
Gibsie, a loud-mouthed jester, hides his demons behind a shield of humor. He's been the unwavering friend, carrying everyone's troubles on his broad shoulders, but his deepest wound is one only Madeline understands. Their shared past-a messy history of unspoken pain and silent conversations-binds them in a way no one else can comprehend. He sees the cracks in her façade because he has his own to hide. For years, he was a ghost in her life, haunted by the memory of a beautiful, fragile time when they were everything. They were childhood sweethearts, a small, fierce unit against a world determined to tear them apart. She was his first everything, and when trauma ripped them apart, a part of him died with her. He found a quiet peace in Claire Biggs, the walking sunshine who saw the good in him, not the monster he feared himself to be. She was his dependable peace, but he knew peace was for the dead, and the dead couldn't be with the wild. The night he saw Madeline changed everything. She was a faint, pale shadow on a rooftop. All he saw was Madeline, the girl who was the mirror of his own haunted soul. In that moment, he knew what he had to do. He wasn't the funny one or the good-time fuck; he was the one meant to pull her back from the edge. He took a slow, deliberate step towards her, walking back into the mess, the pain, and the violent, tender love that had always been theirs. He chose the darkness, because he would rather face every monster with her than walk into the light without her.
L A N A ' S B O X O F S E C R E T S
