Secrets slip, drinks spill, and the cracks get harder to hide. Bergan’s dinner with her mom spirals into quiet dread, Dakota palms pills at a party, Bobby loses his stomach, and Owen loses his home. In a haze of homecoming dresses, blaring bass, and borrowed couches, the kids try to hold it together as everything starts to fall apart. Because sometimes growing up isn’t loud, it’s just lonely.

First smokes. Last summer mornings. One busted Volvo and way too much teenage static. As Chloe, Bobby, and Beathan stumble through the first weeks of school, things start to crack. Secrets drop, friendships shift, and no one’s really ready for what’s coming. Parties blur, the days drag, and freedom feels just out of reach. It’s 175 days ‘til graduation, but who’s counting?

As summer stretches on, lines blur between connection and distance. Bergan opens up to Owen on a quiet afternoon that feels like a turning point, while Bobby tries, and fails, to keep up with a group that’s slowly moving on without him. Dakota’s caught between frustration and resignation as her mother stumbles back into the picture, and Chloe, desperate for a high, finds unexpected kinship next door. By the river, on front porches, and under the fading glow of August sun, the group tries to hold on to their summer.

In the slow heat of mid-July, friendships deepen and quiet tensions rise. Owen wrestles with ghosts of the past and a growing crush on Bergan, while Beathan plays middleman between feelings and fear. Dakota endures another strained dinner with her mother, and Bobby finds fleeting peace on a hazy pizza run with Ben. As the group drifts between couches, basements, and blanket-covered lawns, it becomes clear that growing up isn't marked by milestones, but by the moments that almost slip away.

This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the messiness of real life, the characters and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

At the ruins deep in the woods, Bobby finds fleeting belonging, Beathan drifts toward something real with Sadie, and the group bonds over beer and smoke. But by the Fourth of July, the fireworks aren't just in the sky. Tensions ignite at a house party, secrets surface, and one misfired mortar changes everything.

This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the messiness of real life, the characters and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Bobby and Bergan’s easy summer afternoon takes an unexpected turn when a chance encounter at the café forces both teens to confront the weight of family histories and fragile new connections. Meanwhile, Chloe returns from California with her own baggage, caught between nostalgia and indifference, as the night spirals into weed, pizza, and Bobby’s hesitant first step into belonging. Across town, Beathan faces his own crossroad on the basketball court, where an older friend challenges him to imagine a future beyond the limits of their small town.

This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the messiness of real life, the characters and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

A blistering summer night at the old train station sets the stage for chaos, music, and unexpected connections. Beathan collides with Sadie under the fading sun, Bobby retreats into the solitude of his darkroom, and Owen and Gage grind out riffs in a basement that feels more like home than anywhere else. Between bloodied noses, whispered secrets, and the buzz of guitars, lives drift closer, and further apart, against the relentless backdrop of small-town heat.

This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the messiness of real life, the characters and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

It’s the last day of school before summer—the air is thick with endings and anticipation. As the past and present collide, we move deeper into Mecklenburg’s tangled web of memory, grief, and the slow ache of growing up.

This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the messiness of real life, the characters and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.