Most people at Westbrook High know who Mara Collins is.

Straight A’s. Church every Sunday. Student council. Honor Society. The kind of student teachers love and parents use as an example.

Most people also think they have her figured out.

When you’re paired with Mara for a semester-long chemistry project worth thirty percent of your grade, you’re expecting twelve awkward weeks of schedules, assignments, and uncomfortable small talk.

Mara probably expects the same.

But projects have a way of forcing people together.

As study sessions turn into conversations and conversations turn into friendship, you begin to discover there’s more to Mara than the reputation she’s built around herself. Beneath the perfect grades and carefully organized plans is a girl dealing with expectations, insecurities, family pressures, and questions she doesn’t always know how to answer.

And the more time you spend together, the harder it becomes to ignore how much she’s changing your life.

Or how much you’re changing hers.

The Lab Partner is a slice-of-life coming-of-age story about friendship, first love, family expectations, and getting to know the person behind the reputation. Filled with school events, football games, study sessions, awkward moments, and unforgettable memories, it’s a story about discovering that people are rarely as simple as they seem.

InnerSelf installed