Edges & Other Hard Things

As a teen with Sensory Processing Disorder, artist Rhapsodie Welles has spent her entire life fleeing stimulating environments. Fluorescent lights? Forget it. Musky deodorant? Stay away. Being kissed by a boy? She’d rather walk on red-hot nails. Solitude and Jesus are her only friends, and as far as she’s concerned, they’re all she needs.

Then she’s paired with the boy of her nightmares for an eight-week photography project. Fidgety, loud, and over-the-top in every way, Sage Jacobi is the one person who forces her to rethink how badly she wants success. She could drop the class, but that means SPD sidelining her dreams again. So with the encouragement of a mysterious photography mentor, Rhapsodie does the unthinkable and grudgingly enters the chaos of Sage’s world.

Yet something isn’t right in Sage’s family. Rhapsodie ignores the bizarre interactions and strange bruises at first. But as their unlikely partnership veers toward something resembling friendship, Rhapsodie realizes the boy who just might be the key to pushing back the edge of her tiny comfort zone is himself in need of a hero.