(You can also find this work on Royal Road with a few extra features due to the increase in viewers I have there. Thank you.)

Jason Merris had always carried a bit of extra weight, but after his father’s passing, it only got worse. At sixteen, he was pushing nearly three hundred pounds. High school became a battleground, with bullies and his own social anxiety making every day a struggle. Coping with grief, he turned to food. His mother indulged him with well-meaning but excessive cooking, all in the hopes of seeing her son smile again.

Jillian Lins, a feisty redhead from a close-knit family, had her own struggles. Raised by her grandfather while her parents worked tirelessly, she battled with an attitude that masked her underlying sweetness. But a tragedy before high school left her bitter and guarded, a simmering anger waiting to erupt.

Their paths collided in high school, with a misunderstanding sparking Jillian’s relentless torment of Jason. For four grueling years, he endured her wrath, retreating into himself while keeping his pain hidden from his mother.

Jason’s life took a drastic turn post-graduation. With a scholarship to a private Florida university, he threw himself into studying and boxing, shedding both weight and what emotional baggage he could. Meanwhile, Jillian found herself trapped in an abusive relationship, fleeing only after enduring years of torment. Seeking refuge back home, her family is now working hard to put the pieces of her shattered mental and physical state back together again.

Years later, Jason returns home for a brief respite from his new job, only to find his mother befriended Jillian’s family in his absence. Old wounds reopen as bully and victim are thrust together once more. But Jason is not the same timid boy, and Jillian is grappling with new, potent demons. Can they reconcile their past in the short time he’s home? Or is the divide between love and hate too vast?