Lily of the Valley (Flowering #1.5)

Librarian's note: This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN-10: 1492216690 (ISBN-13: 978-1492216698).

This isn't a sweet and innocent coming of age story. If dirty talk, bedroom toys, and threesomes offend you... this is not your book. There are also no billionaires, strippers, or virgins. This is just the story of typical college kids trying to connect to each other.

"No one tells you about pain. They tell you that it hurts, that sometimes it's consuming. What they don't tell you is that it's not the pain that can kill you. It's the uncomfortable numbness that follows, the weakness in your body when you realize your lungs may stop taking in air and you just can't exert enough energy to care. It's the way taste and color and smell fade from the world and all you're left with is a sepia print of misery. That's when the shift starts - the movement from passive to active. I fall asleep, hoping that the morning will bring back the pain. At least the pain is a thing."

Plagued by a dark past, Jack sees college as a way out. Desperate to escape the area where he grew up, the people who know his secrets, and his own family, he deals with his problems through alcohol and meaningless sex. When he first sees Lily, she's the epitome of everything he hates. Yet something about her makes Jack rethink everything he knows and assumes about other people.

Now, with the help of his best friend and lover, Jack has to decide if he wants to pursue something that he knows will only end badly.

Can Lily be one of the few people who can see Jack for who he really is - or will his darkness be too much for her to handle?