Survival has a cost he can no longer ignore.
For fifteen-year-old Simon, life is a high-wire act. Caught between a chaotic home environment and the relentless pressures of high school, he relies on two things to get by: his quick wit and an endless supply of easy lies. He doesn't need anyone, and he certainly doesn't ask for help. Isolation is his armour.
But when a minor, everyday hustle goes sideways, Simon accidentally triggers a trapdoor into a dark underworld of stolen goods and very real, violent threats. Suddenly, the street-smart lies that used to protect him aren't enough.
With the police and social services closing in from all sides, Simon is running out of places to hide. To survive the fallout, he must face the one thing more terrifying than the streets: his own buried family trauma.
This raw, emotionally charged coming-of-age novel explores the brutal realities of modern youth poverty, the fierce bonds of survivalist loyalty, and the terrifyingly thin line between escaping your circumstances and losing absolutely everything. It is a heart-wrenching, gritty look at a lonely boy who must finally learn that the hardest part of surviving isn't the fight-it's finding the courage to let someone save you.