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When nineteen-year-old Avery Matthews begins her freshman year at Westlake University, life is perfectly mapped out-she'll pursue journalism alongside her twin brother Ashton and their two lifelong friends, Connor and Jackson. The quartet has always been inseparable... until Avery meets Easton Reed, a charming British exchange student with a secret-he's actually European royalty studying abroad in disguise. Despite her initial hesitation, Avery falls hard for Easton's intelligence, quiet confidence, and sincere interest in her dreams. By winter break, they're in love, and she's visiting his family estate in England for the holidays.
But things back home begin to unravel. Connor uncovers disturbing information about Hayes Pharmaceuticals, Jackson's family's company, suggesting they've covered up dangerous side effects of a new drug. When Jackson is confronted, tensions explode-culminating in a heated moment where he physically intimidates Avery, shattering the group's foundation. That same night, a devastating car accident on icy roads leaves Avery in a coma for three months. When she finally wakes, everything has changed-while she recognizes her friends and family, her emotional connections to them are scrambled. Most notably, she feels no romantic pull toward Easton, despite knowing they were in love. Instead, she feels an unfamiliar attraction to Connor, someone she'd always seen as a brother figure.
As she undergoes rehabilitation, Avery struggles with guilt, confusion, and the emotional weight of everyone else's memories of who she used to be. Easton remains patient and loving, never pressuring her to feel what she cannot. Connor, equally kind, grapples silently with Avery's shifting behavior. Hoping that familiar surroundings might restore what's been lost, Easton invites everyone back to England for the summer. But the trip only magnifies what's changed. In a quiet moment, Avery asks Connor if he could ever see her differently, but the moment is cut short. Sensing the truth, Easton makes the difficult decision to let her go, acknowledging that her heart no longer belongs to him.
Shattered by the weight of expectation and her own uncertainty, Avery abruptly returns home alone-with Easton's mother's help-seeking solitude to rediscover herself. Ignoring calls and messages, she processes a painful truth: her memories may never return, and the emotions that shaped her past may be gone for good. Yet in that solitude, Avery finds clarity. She realizes she doesn't need to rebuild who she was-she needs to embrace who she is. When sophomore year begins, she returns to campus with a new perspective: ready to face her future on her own terms. With her friendship with Easton evolving into something new, and her unresolved feelings for Connor still lingering, Avery is no longer chasing the fragments of her past. Instead, she's learning to live in the present-and define herself by the person she's becoming.
Fragments of Before is a poignant coming-of-age romance that explores identity, memory, and the fragile yet powerful nature of human connection. When emotions no longer align with memory, can love still endure? And when trauma reshapes our hearts, who are we really?
