Carry Me Home

Some loves don’t fade. They wait.

At sixteen, Kell O’Connor fell in love with her best friend. At eighteen, she watched her walk away—and learned the price of wanting something she couldn’t have.

Twenty-seven years later, Love Falls is thriving with Kell as its mayor. The revival of Main Street, the Fall Festival that put the town on the map, the queer kids who finally have somewhere to land: that’s all Kell. She’s spent her adult life alchemizing longing into purpose, turning a dying town into something braver and more vibrant than anyone thought it could be.

She’s also gotten very good at pretending the past is behind her.

Leela Sharma has spent those same twenty-seven years doing the opposite of putting down roots. A travel writer with a passport full of exits, she’s built a life on movement and never needing anyone—or anywhere—too much.

Love Falls was something she survived, not somewhere she belonged.

She’s only back for the funeral of a former mentor. One hour, in and out.

Then Kell walks into the room, and looks at her the way she always has—steady and certain, like Leela is the center of her universe.

This time, Leela doesn’t run away. A switch flips that she didn’t know was wired to Kell in the first place.

Kell knows better than to hope. She’s had decades of practice in disappointment. But with Leela back in town, the past doesn’t feel finished anymore.

They know exactly what it costs to lose each other.

What they don’t know is the cost of finding each other again.