Cathal O’Sullivan wasn’t expecting to save anyone on the last day of school.
But when he pulls Elliot Chen back from the edge of a busy road, the moment doesn’t just change Elliot’s life, it rewrites Cathal’s.
Elliot is brilliant, sarcastic, and stuck in a body shaped by spinal muscular atrophy and a life that feels like it’s already decided. Cathal is sharp, restless, and broke: a working-class kid with top A-levels and no clear way out. Neither of them were looking for love. But love, it turns out, might be looking for them.
Over the course of three extraordinary days, the boys find themselves trading poetry, secrets, and a quiet kind of hope neither of them thought they’d ever get. But when the world you’ve known tells you not to want too much, not to expect a future, not to reach, how do you build one anyway?
Tender, poetic, and unflinchingly honest, You Are Near is a story about choosing to stay, learning to ask for more, and finding something like heaven in the most unexpected place of all: one another.
A novel of first love, survival, and the courage to stay.