Softer than Goodbye
A Love, Transition MM RomanceBy Vincent F. Dunmore
Length7h 28m
About this audiobook
First day of senior year, and the most honest thing about me is a blank page.
I had a plan. Head down, notebook shut, get through the year without anybody looking closely enough at the life I assembled out of things that were almost true.
Then Leo Vasquez drops his backpack on the desk beside mine and slides into the chair like he owns it. Stocky. Dark hair cut short. A crescent-shaped scar above his left eyebrow, pale under the fluorescent light, as though somebody drew it with a thumbnail and forgot to rub it out.
He does not ask permission. He simply stays.
Leo has a talent I have never had: he says the true thing first and lets the room rearrange itself around it. Standing next to him, every carefully constructed sentence I own starts sounding like exactly what it is.
There is a door I swore I would never open. There is a kind of bravery this town rewards and another kind it very much does not. There are bells that stop ringing, a janitor's closet, a lie that saves him and costs me, and a night in autumn when the whole town lights lanterns and everybody stands close enough to be counted.
There is a friend who wanted more and did not say so until it was too late to say it kindly.
*Is that it?*
I stared at her.
*I mean — is that the big secret? Because I figured you were something.* She shrugged. *You never talked about—*
And that is the thing nobody warns you about: that the confession you have been carrying like a live grenade since you were fourteen can land, in the right kitchen, as barely a shrug.
But rumour spreads faster than truth in a town this size. There is a boy weeping in a pickup truck and a ghost in a garage nobody has cleaned out since the funeral. There is Leo's father, with his callused hands and his hard rules, and Leo kissing me in an alley on a Friday night like he was afraid it was the last time.
I know exactly what the truth costs here. I have watched it charged to other people.
Now I have to decide whether being known is worth more than being safe — and whether I can ask him to pay it with me.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length7 hrs 28 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1 - The Lie I Built My Life On
2Chapter 2 - The Door I Swore I’d Never Open
3Chapter 3 - The Wrong Kind of Bravery
4Chapter 4 - The Taste of Ghost Tag
5Chapter 5 - The Night They Light the Lanterns
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6Chapter 6 - The Silence Between Bells
7Chapter 7 - The Man Who Won’t Look at Me
8Chapter 8 - The Friend Who Wanted More
9Chapter 9 - The Janitor’s Closet
10Chapter 10 - The Lie That Saved Him
11Chapter 11 - The Rumor That Spreads Like Fire
12Chapter 12 - The Boy Who Wept in a Pickup
13Chapter 13 - The Ghost in the Garage
14Chapter 14 - The Dinner I Couldn’t Chew
15Chapter 15 - The Hand I Didn’t Let Go
16Chapter 16 - The Morning After the Silence Broke
17Chapter 17 - The Father Who Couldn’t Stay
18Chapter 18 - The Grave That Spoke to Me
19Chapter 19 - The Secret I Found in His Fridge
20Chapter 20 - The Town That Saw Too Much
21Chapter 21 - The Call That Said Stay
22Chapter 22 - The Bed I Didn’t Sleep In
23Chapter 23 - The Thing They Took From Us
24Chapter 24 - The Bridge That Didn’t Burn
25Chapter 25 - The Door I Finally Opened
26The End
27About the Author
28Also by Vincent F. Dunmore. Dunmore
29Acknowledgements
30A Note from the Author
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