Waif's Refuge

Four years ago, one kiss cost Robert his home. Now eighteen, he is ready to stop merely surviving.

At fourteen, Robert shared his first kiss with his best friend, Sam. When his father discovered he was gay, Robert was cast out with nowhere safe to go. He disappeared into the streets along Lake Michigan, where cold, hunger, and hard choices taught him to trust no one.

Now Robert has a chance to build a life beyond the next meal and the next night. Then he meets Mark, a compassionate college art student who sees through his defenses without treating him as broken. Mark offers patience, affection, and the unsettling possibility that Robert might still be worthy of love.

A reunion with Sam reconnects Robert to the boy he was before the streets—and to people willing to offer the acceptance he has never known. But refuge requires more than a warm room. To claim a future, Robert must confront what survival has cost him, tell the truth about his past, and risk believing that some promises can be trusted.

Set against the cold shores of Lake Michigan, Waif's Refuge is a gritty yet hopeful gay coming-of-age novel about homelessness, trauma recovery, faith, friendship, chosen family, and second chances. Written for mature young-adult and adult readers, it is a story about the people who refuse to look away—and one young man learning that surviving was never meant to be the end of his story.