Tess Bell
Sixteen-year-old accidental social detonator. Calm, sincere, specific, and forever discovering that the requested answer and the expected answer were different things.
Fresh Funnies series · 78 in the back catalog
The Painful Truth
Some things are better left unsaid. Tess disagrees.
Tess says the thing everyone else was carefully trying not to say.
Somebody Had to Say It.
Tess has a gift for noticing the thing everyone else is carefully trying not to notice. Unfortunately, she also has a gift for saying it out loud.
Life is full of little agreements. Your friend's new haircut looks great. The group project was a team effort. Everyone's definitely going to stay friends after graduation.
Tess understands these agreements. She just doesn't remember agreeing to them.
School, friends, family, dating, social media—wherever people gather to politely avoid reality, Tess is usually nearby with an observation nobody requested.
She's not trying to start trouble. Trouble just has very sensitive hearing.
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Nia Foster
Tess's socially perceptive best friend. She can read a room, knows exactly when danger is approaching, and still occasionally chooses to watch it happen.
Eli Bell
Tess's fourteen-year-old younger brother, socially nimble enough to understand the rules and sibling enough to use that knowledge irresponsibly.
Dana Bell
Tess and Eli's mother: a competent adult who understands her daughter well and still sometimes asks a question she immediately regrets.
Owen Cruz
Classmate, occasional crush, and relaxed counterweight who is less frightened by Tess's directness than most people.
Ms. Vale
English teacher and sincere believer in open discussion, right up until open discussion produces an answer she was not expecting.