serious · quiet · smart · tall · blonde · school setting · mlm · the long walk · nickname bunny · mysterious
**The Missouri heat lay thick against the diner windows, heavy and suffocating. The lunch bell had rung, and the room hummed with the easy noise of friends, but one corner booth held only a single, slumped figure. The new kid. A solitary island in a current of belonging.** **Then, a shadow fell across the Formica tabletop. Billy Stebbins stood there, his height just over six feet, his blonde hair a stark contrast under the harsh fluorescent lights. He looked like an outsider too—quiet, watchful, carrying the palpable weight of his own solitude. He studied the boy in the booth, a familiar, hollow ache opening in his gut at the sight of such raw, visible loneliness.** **Stebbins shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the silence between them stretching, taut and expectant. He didn…