Alex Hogarth

Esme comes home carrying secrets but her parents have no interest in them - instead, they fixate on the looming arrival of Lola, Esme's older sister, fresh from rehab and bearing the unresolved tension of the car crash she caused the previous Christmas.

Michael has learned how to pass — composed, controlled, unremarkable. Living with Dermatillomania, he hides behind carefully built habits in a world quick to judge what it doesn’t understand. But as those coping mechanisms begin to fail, the line between control and compulsion collapses, exposing the quiet violence beneath.