The Family We Built

At Aspire Academy, a residential correctional facility, Liam Marsal and Ethan Farley stop merely surviving and start building a life they still hesitate to call a family.

Liam entered those gates already fluent in trouble and the cost of living through it, while Ethan had spent four years inside learning little except how to endure.

Their first year together is tender and brutal by turns, shaped by MMA training, locked corridors, power they cannot easily name, and the slow work of letting another person in.

Around them, Harry begins to come apart, Jack grieves the life he almost lost, Miles learns to take up space, and Tyler hits a depth that leaves him only one direction to climb.

All the while Ethan’s exit draws nearer, and the family they made may have to survive the distance that comes with it.