The Beautiful You
Apollo Reyes-Perez is seventeen and adrift after his best friend's suicide, grappling with grief and a changing world. Swimming feels wrong, friends expect too much, and his parents are distant. Life feels stuck until the arrival of new student Amory Hartmann forces Apollo to confront hidden parts of himself, raising complicated questions about identity and the past he's desperate to leave behind. Can he move forward, or will his demons keep him tethered to his darkest moments?
The world didn't stop when Jackson died. Seventeen-year-old Apollo Reyes-Perez found that out the hard way.
Life just kept going, even as his universe of swimming, friends, and family felt irrevocably broken. His friends expected him to be okay, his parents didn't know how to talk about it, and the pool, his sanctuary, now felt foreign and wrong.
Days bled into weeks, then months, each one a painful reminder that time marches on regardless of grief. He was adrift, struggling to understand not only why Jackson was gone, but also who he was without him, and the confusing new feelings bubbling beneath the surface.
