With Your Friends

by William Grant

Peter Hansen feels like he's suffocating. His home is a battleground for his parent's fights and the lonely world around him in Haverty, Illinois is filled with the problems he could face upon entry into adulthood at the end of his senior year of high school. Everything around him feels like it's slowly closing in and he doesn't know where to look for help. And then the divorce comes. When his parents' marriage finally falls apart, Peter thinks things will get better. What he begins to realize is that the only thing more suffocating than the fighting is the silence of his mother's grief. He struggles to find peace of mind in a group of friends he meets at a local coffee shop. Through these relationships and his budding romance with his new friend, Ryan, Peter must find the air he needs and the beauty in a world where things frequently fall apart.