Hello & Goodbye - Esther Rose

Going outside isn't an escape; it's just another confrontation.

In a New England beach town defined by its exclusivity, Esther is a ghost. Raised in affordable housing and tethered to a history of abuse, her reality is a shattering contrast to the world just beyond the fence.

Hello & Goodbye is a memoir of yearning and desperate hope told through dated vignettes. For six years-from a freshman "cool girl" hiding her terror to a graduate finally standing in the sun-Esther finds her only reprieve in the simple, predictable orbit of James Brooks. A golden-boy athlete with a life of effortless success, James becomes her North Star, a symbol of the safety she was never granted.

This is a raw exploration of the thin line between real memory and the fantasy we use to survive. It is the story of an outsider addicted to a life she can only watch from the edges, and the boy who saved her without ever knowing.