A Coming-of-Age YA Romance in 2025—With a Spin

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Coming-of-age stories can be a lot of fun. It’s exciting to see characters come to understand the world and their place in it as they learn more about who they are and what they want.

I wrote a YA romance that I would consider a coming-of-age story. It’s the tale of a high school sophomore named Chloe who’s deeply in love with a junior at her school named Mordecai. Meanwhile, her good friend Simon is in love with her.

Simon is constant and reliable. Mordecai is complex and unpredictable. Simon is a good friend. Mordecai is a complicated friend. Simon struggles to tell Chloe how he feels. Mordecai knows how Chloe feels, but hasn’t shared how he feels about her. Simon is often there to pick up the pieces after Mordecai breaks Chloe’s heart. Mordecai’s seeming indifference to Chloe’s feelings results in him breaking her heart often.

But Chloe loves Mordecai. And she only sees Simon as a friend.

And because of Chloe’s parents’ “no dating until senior year” rule, she won’t be allowed to date until senior year.

But when she is finally allowed to date, who will she choose?

I leave that decision up to you.

More About This Teen Romance

This story is called “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?” And what makes it a different kind of coming-of-age story is that there are two endings. Rather than me telling you who Chloe picks, when you reach a certain chapter, you get to decide whether you want Chloe to choose Simon or Mordecai. And the way Chloe “comes of age” is different depending on the partner she chooses.

I think this adds a unique perspective to the idea that the relationships we have help to define who we are. Even I marveled as I was writing the second ending and started to discover just how different Chloe’s life path becomes merely by choosing a different partner. But it just felt natural for her path to change the way it did.

Making the Transition to Adulthood

As I talk about in this post, one of the things that can be intriguing to see in high school young adult stories is how teenagers are making the transition from childhood to adulthood. Teenagers are soon-to-be-adults, and they can find it challenging to go from being kids to being adults who have to deal with adult stuff and make adult decisions.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 15 that shows Chloe’s struggle with this transition. In addition to showing some of Chloe’s thoughts about it, the sample shows part of an IM conversation she has with Simon. (Her IM name is Simplesnowflake and Simon’s is Simonsayz32.)

There comes a time in every high schooler’s life when it hits them that they’re not going to be in high school forever. For me, that day came when my English teacher had us write an essay about our life goals.

In answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, I know I want to be an English teacher. But I’ve never really sat down and thought about my future in the broad, general sense of what person I’ll be ten or twenty years down the road. I haven’t even thought much about what college I want to go to.

My main goals are to earn straight As every quarter, score high on my AP tests, and convince Mordecai to ask my parents’ permission to date me. There isn’t much there that I can put in an essay about life goals, so I’ve been forced to ask myself some deep, scary questions that end up leaving me more anxious about the future than ever.

One day after bombarding myself with some of these questions, I sign on to IM and Simon messages me.

Simonsayz32: hey
Simplesnowflake: hey
Simonsayz32: so i noticed u were a little down at school today
Simplesnowflake: yeah?
Simonsayz32: yeah
Simonsayz32: any particular reason?
Simplesnowflake: I don’t know
Simplesnowflake: it’s just everything I guess
Simonsayz32: what do u mean?
Simplesnowflake: like I feel really stressed about everything
Simplesnowflake: school and life and the future and everything
Simplesnowflake: it’s like everything is happening so fast
Simplesnowflake: and soon we’ll have to make big life decisions
Simplesnowflake: plus all the homework we have
Simplesnowflake: it’s just too much

Chloe feels overwhelmed at the thought of making those big decisions about the future. She feels overwhelmed at the thought of moving forward, especially as she’s still dealing with her present responsibilities. I can imagine that many teenagers—if not all—go through something like this at some point.

I think this is one reason people enjoy coming-of-age stories. We all understand the struggle that comes with making these kinds of transitions. And we like to see how characters handle it.

Chloe’s Friendships With Simon and Mordecai

One thing you might notice as you read the story is how different Chloe’s interactions with Mordecai and Simon are—and not just because she has a crush on Mordecai.

Simon is the one who tries to encourage Chloe to play and be a kid for as long as she can. In fact, when Simon first meets Chloe’s parents, all of them bond as they play board games—Chloe included. While she does enjoy playing these games with her parents, she also has this deep love for Mordecai that pulls her into his world. And in his world, while they can enjoy some playful banter, Mordecai is the one leading Chloe toward more adult stuff.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 22 that shows how Chloe longs to be a child again.

Mordecai and I chat for a few more minutes before I sign off and go do homework. But as I’m taking my binder and books out of my bag, I think about how often now I genuinely wish I could go back to being a kid. The closer I get to having to make decisions about college and my future, the more I want to go back to when other people made all my decisions for me.

Even as Chloe longs to return to childhood, it’s interesting how she gravitates toward Mordecai when he’s the one pulling her more into the adult world. Meanwhile, Simon tries to encourage her to play, but she only sees him as a friend. Maybe the reason is because of something else she says in that chapter: “…if I went back to being a kid, I would go back to life without Mordecai. And, frankly, that seems like no life at all.”

Noticing this difference in Chloe’s two friendships might make you curious about what a romantic relationship with these two guys might be like for her. And that curiosity might help inform your decision about which one you want her to pick.

How to Read the Story

Because this isn’t a traditional high school romance, I’ve designed it so that you’ll need to join the What Happens After You Confess membership to experience it. And just so you know, although it’s the length of a young adult romance novel regardless of the ending you choose, it’s presented as a sequence of blog posts—one chapter per post.

If you’re excited to dive into this love story, go ahead and click here to learn more about the membership and to join.

Final Thoughts

“What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?” is a new coming-of-age YA romance. And it comes with a spin. While it shows how high school sophomore Chloe and her friends navigate the transition to adulthood, it also allows you to explore how Chloe’s life changes depending on the partner you choose for her.

So, if you’re looking for a new high school YA romance featuring this kind of transition and you like the idea of being in the driver’s seat of this love story, I look forward to seeing you in the What Happens After You Confess membership!

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you would like to sample more of my story-writing style, feel free to click here to read some short stories that are currently available.