Aza Holmes has to reject that thought on a daily basis.

She’s terrified of bacteria. More specifically, she’s mortified that she’ll wake up with C. diff. colitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of the colon caused by bacteria. That’s why she makes sure to remove her Band-Aids, wash and clean her wounds and apply more Band-Aids day-by-day.

The truth is that Aza struggles with anxiety and obsessive compulsion disorder (OCD). More specifically, it causes her to suffer from intrusive thoughts about how everything she touches might be the thing hosting the bacterium that’ll infect her with C. diff. She knows the prospect is unlikely. She even argues with the intrusive thoughts as she walks to change her Band-Aid. But her “thought spirals” often overwhelm her and force her to act anyway.

And, as it often goes, more things in Aza’s life are primed to spiral out of control, too. She and her best friend, Daisy, see a news story about Russell Pickett. He’s a billionaire who has gone missing—likely because someone tipped him off about his upcoming arrest for fraud and bribery. And the FBI’s offering a $100,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.

Well, neither Aza nor Daisy have a clue where the man could’ve gone. But Aza was once pseudo-friends with his son, Davis, and she and Daisy figure they might be able to use the connection to figure out some information to nab that reward.

But when Aza and Davis reunite, well, the two hit it off quickly. They start dating. And Davis convinces Aza to forget the reward so that the two can focus on their relationship.

But then Aza begins to spiral again. Because relationships mean kissing and touching. And kissing and touching means bacteria. And bacteria means C. diff.

And that means Aza can never have a normal relationship.

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She was right to be a little concerned. After all, Emma had never even told her mom, Lana, that she and RJ were dating. But to Emma’s surprise, Lana takes the news rather well.

Then, Emma drops another bombshell on her mother: The wedding is in a month, at a resort in Phuket, Thailand. The wedding’s covered by Emma’s work, a large resort corporation that wants to use Emma’s ceremony to promote their resort and venue.

All things considered, Lana takes that information pretty well, too. In fact, Lana’s rather cool-headed when she arrives at the resort and meets RJ for the first time.

And that’s when she meets RJ’s father, Will. But unlike RJ, this isn’t the first time Lana’s met him.

In fact, unbeknownst to everyone, Lana and Will dated long ago, back when they were in college, before Will allegedly ghosted her out of the blue.

And when Lana sees Will again for the first time in decades … well, let’s just say she doesn’t take it well.

The post Mother of the Bride appeared first on Plugged In.

Solène is not one of those women. Her only interest in August Moon is the fact that it used to be her daughter Izzy’s favorite band. But even teenage Izzy has lost interest since they’re “so 7^th grade.”

But when Izzy’s estranged dad (Solène’s ex-husband) buys tickets for the both of them to meet and greet August Moon at Coachella, she accepts his invitation. And when he backs out of the trip last minute for a work thing, Solène takes his place.

Well, one mistaken trailer incident later and Solène finds herself being serenaded by the 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, one of the band’s members, in front of thousands of people.

A week later when Solène is back home, Hayes shows up at Solène’s art gallery. And after purchasing every piece in the place, they share a kiss.

Solène knows this is a bad idea. After all, Izzy used to practically worship August Moon. Hayes is young enough to be a son to 40-year-old Solène. And frankly, she’s still trying to emotionally process her divorce.

But Hayes is kind, talented and a feminist (which is an important quality in a man for her and Izzy). Not to mention he’s really good-looking. Izzy’s off at summer camp. And Solène is single.

How could dating one of the hottest and most heavily publicized pop stars on the planet possibly be negative?

The post The Idea of You appeared first on Plugged In.

So said Aretha Franklin—the Queen of Soul herself. But for Harriet, Franklin’s words come with a deeper, more literal meaning.

Two years ago, she lost her boyfriend, Max, in a car accident. She herself sustained a traumatic head injury. And now, every time she hears one of her and Max’s songs, she’s transported back to the moment she first heard that song with him.

Only, it hasn’t been uplifting, encouraging or strengthening for Harriet. In fact, it’s pretty much been the opposite.

When Harriet is triggered by a song, she doesn’t just remember Max. No, she feels as though she’s literally transported back in time to those moments. She relives them word for word, detail for detail, touch for touch … until the song ends and she finds herself passed out on the floor or the street or in the hospital.

Harriet has taken precautions to protect herself from these aural triggers. Her apartment is soundproofed. She wears noise-cancelling headphones everywhere she goes. She even works in a library.

But she’s struggling to move on.

Harriet has been purposely triggering herself each night, convinced that if she can find the right song, she can change what happened to Max—that she can somehow save him by transporting herself back in time.

This obsession has pushed Harriet’s friends away. It ended her career as a music producer. And it’s prevented her from moving on in any sort of healthy or reasonable manner.

Then Harriet meets David. He’s suffered losses of his own. He understands her desperation, because he would give anything to see his parents one last time.

But now Harriet is torn. David makes her happy—happier than she’s been since Max passed away. But being with him feels like cheating on Max.

Should she finally process her grief and move on with her life? Or should she remain loyal to Max in the hopes of somehow saving him from his tragic fate?

Note: The following sections contains spoilers.

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Except that nobody can hear it but you.

That’s life in a nutshell for Rudy. What most folks recognize as normal, everyday sounds—dishes clinking in a diner, students typing notes on their laptops—Rudy hears as music.

It’s a condition known as synesthesia.

Sometimes, it’s beautiful. And Rudy really enjoys those little moments where the whole world seems to be in sync.

Other times, it’s detrimentally distracting. A form of torture only perceivable to him. It breaks his focus, interrupts his thoughts and, from his girlfriend Haley’s perspective, causes him to tune out of important conversations about their future.

Well, ex-girlfriend. Haley finally gets fed up with Rudy’s seeming disinterest in anything she has to say and dumps him.

But even as Rudy is still reeling from this change in relationship status, he meets someone new.

Isabella is smart, funny and Brazilian (an important factor since Rudy’s Brazilian mother wants him to marry someone from their culture). More importantly, Isabella seems to understand Rudy in ways Haley never did. She encourages his close relationship with his mother. She supports his love of puppetry and his desire to turn it into a career. She sympathizes with how his synesthesia affects him.

But what really excites Rudy about Isabella is that when he looks at her, the whole world seems to stop moving, and a pleasant little tune starts playing in his head.

The post Música appeared first on Plugged In.

Dawson Gage has loved London Quinn, well, practically forever.

But London—effervescent, free-spirited London—has never requited her “best friend’s” plain-for-all-to-see adoration of her.

Until, maybe, the night she realizes that maybe her lifelong best friend could be more than that. A lingering look, a handhold on the way to ice cream, a sweet smile as she gets out of Dawson’s car and starts across the street.

London never saw the truck. And the driver didn’t see her.

It’s hard to say whose heart is rent more by London’s terrible, senseless death, Dawson or London’s parents, Larry and Louise.

Tears, mourning and the bittersweet possibilities of what could have been haunt them all. The loss is amplified by the fact that London had been set to donate a kidney to Louise, who is slowly succumbing to a kidney disease that will eventually claim her, too, if no donor steps forward.

In the days that follow, a secret slips out. “We should have told her,” Louise tells her husband and Dawson.

“Told her what?” Dawson asks.

London, it turns out, was an in vitro baby.

And there was another embryo. One that Larry and Louise donated to a fertility doctor they knew, agreeing never to seek information about what happened to it.

But Dawson never made such an agreement. And, driven by his own grief and curiosity, he’s determined to find out what happened to this other embryo, this other person—London’s long-lost sibling.

It doesn’t take long. Her name is Andi Allen.

And she looks a lot like London Quinn.

The post Someone Like You appeared first on Plugged In.

What does she want? Well, that depends on the day.

Breaking crockery can be fun. Nuts are awfully tasty. Stabbing out the eyes of a nearby corpse? Delightful. She enjoys what most any young child might enjoy, if given access to crockery and nuts and dead bodies.

But Bella’s not a child. Not fully a child, at least. She is, rather, an experiment.

Not so long ago, the brilliant-but-ethically-indifferent Dr. Godwin Baxter found a young, pregnant, freshly dead woman floating in the Thames River. But the baby inside was still—barely—alive.

What an opportunity! Dr. Baxter thought. And he did what any brilliant-but-ethically-indifferent doctor would do under such circumstances: He brought the corpse home, removed the baby and transplanted the still-living baby’s brain into the body of its dead mother. A bit of chemistry and a few electrical shocks later, and voila! Bella Baxter, everybody.

Granted, it’s not easy to handle a toddler going through her terrible twos in the body of a full-grown woman. And in truth, Godwin could use another set of eyes to track Bella’s progress. So he brings in Max McCandles, a young student of his whose brain (Godwin praises) is straining toward mediocrity. Both are committed to tracking this very lively experiment.

But Godwin, despite his efforts to keep an objective distance, sees Bella as something more than just a breathing scientific inquiry. He feels almost like a father to her. As such, he wants to keep her safe. And that means keeping her with him at all times.

But Bella Baxter knows what she wants. And as her brain matures, she wants more than she used to. She wants to explore the world, explore her own freedom, and explore the pleasures that both might offer.

Girls grow up so fast these days.

[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]

The post Poor Things appeared first on Plugged In.

Perhaps that’s why Bea left Ben’s home in the early hours one morning, even after such a spectacular date. She soon realized that leaving was a bad decision. But by the time she turned around, the damage had been dealt.

That’s because when Bea got back to Ben’s house, she overheard him telling his friend that he couldn’t wait for her to leave—that she was a “nothing” to him. Except, it wasn’t true. It was just Ben trying to save face and bury the feelings he had for Bea when he caught her sneaking away without even saying goodbye.

But Bea didn’t know that.

Well, fast-forward into the future a bit, and the two of them run into each other once more. They’re both in the bridal party for a same-sex wedding in Sydney, Australia. But not even the hot summer sun can melt the icy glares they give each other. And neither can the fire they accidentally start when they begin to fight.

Several observant people around them fear the damage Ben and Bea might do to the upcoming wedding if left unchecked. So they devise a plan to get the angry exes to sleep together, thinking that strategy will resolve their differences.

The two catch on to the plan pretty quick, but they don’t think it’s a bad idea. Not, of course, because they have any interest in actually making up—but because they can use such a strategy to their advantage.

You see, Bea’s parents invited her ex-fiancé to the wedding without anyone’s permission in the hope that she’d make up and get back together with him—something she has no intention of doing. Meanwhile, Ben’s hoping to sway an old Australian flame away from her boyfriend by making her want “something she can’t have.”

So, sure, enemies Bea and Ben will play along. They’ll try to convince the others that they’re desperately in love with each other.

They might even convince themselves.

The post Anyone But You appeared first on Plugged In.

You see, Lisa’s biological mom was murdered by an axe killer. Lisa witnessed it. And the poor girl was so traumatized that she was unable to speak for months after that horrific event. So, Taffy does her best to fix things.

Lisa, however, isn’t really into parties, clothes or high school. In fact, there’s something about graveyards that calls to her. She’ll sit for hours reading poetry, leaning up against one headstone or another. In fact, there’s one particular grave marker—sporting the handsome marble bust of the grave’s dead occupant—that appeals to her most.

After one failed party attempt, Lisa even ends up at that gravesite wishing she could be with that unknown occupant. And then, as a thunderstorm rages, Lisa meanders sighingly home.  

That’s when a muddy, worm-eaten corpse shows up at Lisa’s house. Only it’s walking. And grunting. You know how storms and wishes can be.

Lisa quickly realizes that this shambling dead man is the guy from that grave. (Don’t ask me how she knows. Maybe it’s the smell of the mud encasing his moldy body?) And even though her “wish” was intended to mean she’d rather be dead than dealing with her lousy life, Lisa decides to go with it. So she cleans this creature guy up and keeps him in her closet.

Hey, love has its ways.

The only problem is that the creature here is missing some body parts: a hand, an ear, and, ahem, other intimate bits.

They’ll have to work on fixing that!

The post Lisa Frankenstein appeared first on Plugged In.

That’s when the emaciated and hobbled Jean Valjean is finally released from his prison debts. Nearly 20 years he spent in near slavery—five for simply stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child, another 14 for trying to escape his too-cruel bonds.

Valjean’s misery doesn’t end there, though. Even after parole he must carry and present his papers in every town and hamlet his bare, half-frozen feet can carry him to. Papers that mark him as a former criminal so that none of the locals will offer him work or give shelter to the likes of him. In fact, he’s hounded and beaten like a mongrel wherever he goes. Kindness and forgiveness are but the hopes of fools.

Fortunately for Valjean there is one man who is willing to offer him a bit of both. A priest sees him shivering in a church doorway and invites him in for a meal, some bread, a glass of wine—luxuries Valjean never believed he’d see again.

In spite of this great kindness, however, the marked man can’t keep himself from stealing the priest’s few silver plates and cups. It’s a shameful, ungrateful move born out of desperation. And he should have known that a criminal with a sack of stolen silver doesn’t get far. The authorities nab him and drag him to the church, ready to beat him and send him back to the galleys.

It’s then that Valjean gets his first glimpse of heaven’s grace. Of God’s infinite mercy even in the face of sickening sin.

The priest says that he freely gave the plates and cups to the ex-convict.

“In fact, you forgot the most valuable pieces,” the priest reports, shoving two silver candlesticks into Valjean’s sack. Then the kindly churchman whispers in Valjean’s ear, “You must use this silver to become an honest man.”

“What have I done, sweet Jesus?” Valjean shouts out as he gives lyrical voice to his inner pain and shame. “Is there another way to go?” And as he prays and cries before a church altar, the answer soon comes. Yes, there is another course, that inner voice seems to say. You must be a different man … a better man.

[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]

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