Lizzie's family relocates from England to Ballylaggin and moves into Catherine's family estate.

Mark Allen begins entering Lizzie's bedroom at night, sexually abusing her and claiming he is fixing her mental health.

Lizzie meets Hugh Biggs on the school bus when he gives her an invitation to his Halloween birthday party.

Hugh welcomes Lizzie into his close friend group after she bravely bites their neighbour during a Halloween prank.

Mark's father Keith marries Gibsie's mother and moves in across the street, officially making Mark and Gibsie stepbrothers.

Gibsie's father and younger sister drown during a boat celebration after the boys' First Holy Communion.

Lizzie is hospitalised and formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder following a series of mental health evaluations.

Hugh asks Lizzie to be his girlfriend at the end of a summer camping trip, and she happily says yes.

Mark forces a brutal abortion on Lizzie after impregnating her, just before her family is due to leave for America.

Hugh's mother wakes him in the night to reveal that Caoimhe has died, shocking him since he believed Lizzie's whole family was already abroad.

At Caoimhe's funeral, Lizzie screams that Mark killed her sister and begs Gibsie to publicly confirm what he knows.

The police close their investigation into Caoimhe's death after finding no evidence to contradict Mark's account.

On Hugh's 16th birthday, Lizzie tries to initiate penetrative sex and Hugh refuses, telling her she is too unwell for him to agree.

Hugh walks in on Lizzie having sex with his rugby teammate Pierce at a house party and ends their relationship.

After completing in-patient psychiatric treatment, Lizzie tells Hugh she loves him but urges him to stay with Katie and walks away.

From early childhood, Lizzie Young endures undiagnosed bipolar disorder and years of sexual abuse at the hands of Mark Allen, her sister Caoimhe's boyfriend. She finds unexpected safety in Hugh Biggs, a loyal and loving boy who becomes her closest friend and eventually her boyfriend. Their relationship deepens even as Lizzie's mental health deteriorates under the weight of Mark's abuse and her refusal to stay on medication. A cascade of tragedies — including a forced abortion, the suspicious death of Caoimhe, and a failed police investigation — destabilises Lizzie further and tests Hugh beyond his limits. After Lizzie's infidelity fractures their trust, both are forced to reckon with whether love alone can overcome trauma and mental illness. The pool ends with Lizzie completing in-patient treatment and choosing to let Hugh go so that both of them can finally begin to heal.

The central story of Lizzie's trauma, diagnosis, and doomed romance with Hugh.

Lizzie speaks aloud for the first time on her fourth birthday, counting the candles on her cake.

Caoimhe comes home thrilled that a boy named Mark Allen asked her on a date on her first day at Tommen College.

Lizzie has a panic attack while alone at Hugh's Halloween party and Hugh sits beside her, holds her hand, and talks her calm.

After Hugh explains that anyone who touches her inappropriately is a monster, Lizzie attacks Caoimhe and accuses her of letting the monster in.

Hugh rides his bike to Lizzie's house to find her exhausted in bed after a medication change and tells her that normal is just a made-up word.

Gibsie quietly asks Lizzie if Mark ever hurts her, and the two children silently agree to keep what they know between themselves.

Hugh shoves Mark out of Lizzie's bedroom during Caoimhe's birthday party, locks the door, and tells Lizzie that Mark is just a bully.

Hugh and Lizzie share their first kiss inside a hidden sea cave they discover during a camping trip with Hugh's family.

On New Year's Eve, Lizzie confesses to Hugh that she now clearly remembers Mark sexually assaulting Caoimhe multiple times.

A police officer interviews Lizzie about her accusations against Mark and warns her against making false allegations, repeatedly citing her bipolar diagnosis.

Mark ambushes and violently rapes Lizzie on her walk home from school on what had been a hopeful first day back.

Hugh spots fresh self-harm scars on Lizzie's thighs during the school bus ride and confronts her until she admits she stopped taking her medication.

Lizzie visits the bridge where Caoimhe died, pauses at the edge, and briefly contemplates jumping into the river below.

Unable to speak about their broken relationship, Lizzie plays Fleetwood Mac's Silver Springs for Hugh in the middle of the night.

Lizzie undergoes electroconvulsive therapy as part of her structured in-patient psychiatric treatment programme.

This pool traces the quieter but pivotal moments that define Lizzie and Hugh's shared history, from Lizzie finding her voice as a small child to the first kiss that transforms their friendship into romance. Alongside those tender beats, the pool reveals how danger accumulates around Lizzie — through Caoimhe unwittingly introducing Mark into their lives, through the self-harm Lizzie hides in silence, and through a violent rape she later convinces herself was a hallucination. Hugh's loyalty is tested repeatedly as he confronts Mark, comforts Lizzie through depressive episodes, and tries to support her through events he cannot fully understand. The institutional failures surrounding Lizzie become painfully clear when a police officer weaponises her bipolar diagnosis to dismiss her accusations entirely. The pool ends with Lizzie deep in in-patient treatment, undergoing electroconvulsive therapy as she begins the hard work of rebuilding her mental health.

The milestones, friendships, and quiet revelations that shape Lizzie and Hugh's world.

Lizzie's father agrees with the doctor to begin medication and therapy for Lizzie, overriding her mother's objections.

While the family visits England for cancer treatment, Lizzie admits to Caoimhe she hears voices and Caoimhe desperately begs her to tell no one.

Mark visits Lizzie's home for the first time and plays a monster-chasing game with her, charming her entire family.

During babysitting at the Biggs home, Hugh spots Claire sitting on Mark's lap and instinctively pulls her away, sensing something is deeply wrong.

At the swimming pool, Hugh promises Lizzie she will always be safe with him and she gleefully jumps into the deep end to test it.

Lying next to a grieving Hugh in his darkened room after the drownings, Lizzie presses her hand to his wet cheek and promises they will be together no matter what.

Lizzie begins secretly self-harming after accidentally discovering that cutting her skin provides unexpected relief from emotional pain.

Listening to Caoimhe and Mark's violent nighttime argument, Lizzie finally understands that Mark's abuse is real and not a recurring dream.

Mark finds Lizzie alone on the swings after Caoimhe's death and threatens to hurt Hugh if she does not stay silent.

Hugh goes to the library and reads several books on bipolar disorder after Lizzie's parents insist he is too young to understand her illness.

Hugh persuades both families to let him spend an entire summer sleeping at Lizzie's house to support her through her grief and depression.

Lizzie leads Hugh to a hidden room inside the old Tommen College library and pushes for a more physically intimate relationship.

After weeks of avoiding each other following their breakup, Lizzie and Hugh have a sexually charged encounter at her house that ends with Hugh overwhelmed by guilt and shame.

Lizzie's father walks in on her having sex with Pierce, strikes her, and her mother collapses with a heart attack upon witnessing the confrontation.

Sitting at her recovering mother's hospital bedside, Lizzie tells her father she is ready to voluntarily enter a psychiatric treatment facility.

This pool focuses on the hinge moments that quietly determine Lizzie's fate — the parental decisions that leave her unprotected, the charm offensive that allows Mark to embed himself in her family, and the protective instincts Hugh acts on without fully understanding why. The drowning deaths of Gibsie's father and sister deepen the bond between Lizzie and Hugh even as grief destabilises everyone around them, while Lizzie's secret self-harm signals how deeply the abuse has taken root. A pivotal nighttime fight finally shatters Lizzie's belief that her abuse is imaginary, leading to the unravelling of Caoimhe's death and the threats that keep Lizzie silent for years. After failed treatment, a devastating breakup, and an escalating mental health crisis, the pool ends at the moment Lizzie finally chooses recovery — a turning point made possible not by perfect love, but by the accumulated weight of what she can no longer afford to lose.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that alter the course of Lizzie's life.

Chloe Walsh

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