His Birthday Wish Broke Us

Summary

When I was six years old, I lost the hearing in both my ears. It was an accident—one that happened because I was trying to pull Holden Holloway out of the deep end of the neighborhood pool. Holden suffered from severe selective mutism back then, locked inside a quiet cage of his own making. After that day, the weight of his guilt proved so crushing that he resisted speaking altogether. He couldn't even bring himself to say my name.

To keep us from sinking into an awkward silence, my best friend, Lacey, was always there, filling the air with her endless chatter about her teenage romance…