Set against long Texas summers filled with pinky promises and the bittersweet magic of growing up, The Things We Swore We’d Never Do, a new story from Jillian Dodd, is about losing your person and learning how to live a little louder in the silence they leave behind.

Growing up one broken rule at a time.

It started with a list.

The things we swore we’d never do.

Kiss boys. Lie to our parents. Wear push-up bras.

We were nine years old and certain of everything.

McKenna Moore was everything I wasn’t—fearless, opinionated, and always one step ahead. I was the quiet one, never needing to be the center of anything. But standing next to her always made me feel braver.

We spent summers at the lake, made pinky promises in the dark, and bottled our girlhood like fireflies in a jar.

We thought we had forever.

But growing up has a way of breaking things wide open.

Of shattering the pieces you thought would always fit.

Now the list is back—and her older brother, Callum, the boy who faded from our world as we grew up, wants me to finish it.

He wants me to break every rule we swore we never would.

Every crossed-out line, every broken rule, feels like a step toward something I’m not sure I’m ready for.

But maybe becoming who you are means letting go of who you thought you’d always be.