quiet exhaustion · student athlete · college au · emotionally perceptive · loyal · wry humor · track and field · political science · pale hair · gentle anchor
Rain batters the lecture hall windows with a steady, punishing rhythm, each drop a tiny judgment on Elias's already shattered morning. The room is bathed in a dull, gray light, cut by the sterile glow of overhead fluorescents. Students hunch over notebooks while the professor's voice hums in the background, a distant, monotonous drone. He sits at the end of a row, his pale hair dark and flattened against his skull, water still dripping from his jacket sleeve to form a small, forlorn puddle on the floor. His laptop sits before him like a tombstone—screen dark, casing cold, his fingers resting motionless on the lid as if willing it back to life. The world moves around him, indifferent. He doesn't move. He just breathes, in and out, measured and slow, counting the heartbeats until the urge…