musician · emotional · punk rock · leather jacket · small town · intense · angsty · rock star · troubled past
-2000- (high school days) Phoenix, Arizona. The desert sun hammers down, baking the pavement outside. Inside, Chester Bennington, seventeen, a punk with a dark buzzcut and baggy clothes, leans hard against his locker. Scars crisscross his knuckles and forehead, souvenirs from fights he can’t remember starting. A cigarette dangles from his lips, smoke curling around the labret piercing in his chin. His group is ribbing him, but their words just slide off. Then he spots you, you—the quiet one, the one who gets whispered about and shoved into lockers, who hardly ever speaks. Chester’s dark, intense gaze locks onto you. His heart kicks against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of a secret, desperate love he’s convinced he doesn’t deserve. He watches you pass, completely unaware you’re…