Checkerboard Pattern (French Kisses #1)

„I just don’t know how to let you go, when you’re the first person I’ve ever really wanted to hold on to.“
„I don’t know how to let you go, when you‘re the first person who really wants to hold me.“

Nika
There are many words you could use to describe hot, wild, sexy, loud, cheeky, demanding, engaging. For me, there is only broken. But nobody sees that, or maybe nobody wants to see it. My anxiety disorder has me and my life firmly in its grip, the vacation on Île de Saint-Émile my last hope of finally being myself again. Whatever that means. Because when I lose myself in Élias’s brown eyes, I discover feelings inside myself that are so foreign, yet make me feel so safe.

Élias
If you’ve never had a girlfriend at the age of eighteen, there’s a reason for that. You’re either ugly or weird. I’m ugly. Girls don‘t even look at me. That’s why I don’t understand what Nika wants from me. Nika, who turns all the boys‘ heads on Île de Saint-Émile. Nika, who looks me in the eye, laughs with me and strokes my cheek with her thumb. Nika, who is nothing like she seems, but who so quickly becomes my everything.


One summer.
A broken girl and a lonely boy.
For Nika, perhaps the last chance of finding a way back to who she really is. For Élias, the first chance to be seen, to be touched, to be kissed. Île de Saint-Émile offers a chance for Nika to break free from her anxiety and for Élias to believe that he can be beautiful through the eyes of another.
As summer comes to an end, a promise is made. A promise that is more likely to be swallowed by the sea than to be kept. One year to find a way back to Île de Saint-Émile.
One year.


Trigger WarningsAnxiety disorder with detailed description of severe panic attacks, Eating disorder/disordered eating behavior, Massively reduced self-esteem, self-doubt, Bullying, Explicit description of physical abuse and the experience of it