Taming 7

In 1995, five-year-old Claire Biggs slips away from her family's pew at a double funeral to hold the hand of a blond-haired boy named Gerard.

In 1995, five-year-old Claire Biggs slips away from her family's pew at a double funeral to hold the hand of a blond-haired boy named Gerard. His father and baby sister drowned in a boating accident on his First Holy Communion Day—Claire's father Peter pulled Gerard from the water, but couldn't save both children. At the graveside, Gerard tells Claire he can't breathe. That night, sleeping three to a bed in Claire's brother's room, he grips her hand with both of his and won't let go. She promises she never will either. He tells her he loves her most of all. She's five. He's seven. Neither of them knows yet what that promise will cost.

Every night he sleepwalks into her bed, screaming

Ten years after the funeral, Gerard is seventeen, built like a rugby flanker, and known to the world as Gibsie—the class clown, the prankster, the boy who never stops smiling. What nobody sees is that every night he sleepwalks across the street into Claire's bedroom, drenched in sweat, screaming from nightmares he won't explain. Claire holds him, grounds him with her touch, and whispers him back to reality. By morning he slips his comedic mask back on and becomes Gibsie again—charming, irreverent, untouchable. Claire's brother Hugh catches him in her bed and warns her: Gerard is seriously damaged, and loving him could break her. Claire already knows. She's been in love with him since she was five, and she can't stop now.

A dead sister's ghost fuels Lizzie's war against Gerard

At the hotel pool, Claire notices a jagged fresh scar running the length of Lizzie's thigh. Lizzie claims she fell on barbed wire, but Claire recognizes the wound—Lizzie had a history of self-harm after her older sister Caoimhe's suicide six years earlier. The town believes Caoimhe killed herself after being raped by her boyfriend Mark Allen, who happens to be Gerard's stepbrother. Lizzie has channeled her grief into sustained hostility toward Gerard, blaming him by association. Their friendship group walks a tightrope: Claire refuses to abandon Gerard, Hugh can't escape his painful history with Lizzie—they dated through childhood—and their friend Shannon tries to mediate. Claire asks Hugh to talk to Lizzie about the scars. It goes badly.

One crude joke about Claire ignites the rugby table On the first day back at school, a teammate makes a sexual comment about Claire at the lunch table. Gerard is across the table before anyone registers he's moved—dragging the boy onto the surface, fists swinging. The fight escalates into a twenty-man brawl that spills across…