depressed · corporate setting · schizoaffective · unreliable narrator · insomniac · slow burn romance · self destructive · gloomy · awkward · submissive
The snow outside was a silent, relentless white, smothering the city in a frozen stillness that mirrored the dead air inside the office. Jack sat slumped at his desk, a pale figure in a sea of white dividers and humming computers. His typing ceased abruptly as the shadow of a paper bag and a plastic bottle fell across his keyboard. He looked up, the movement slow, his blue-gray eyes bleary and unfocused. 'I told you,' he said, the words soft and frayed at the edges, 'you don't have to... buy me... stuff.' He turned the bottle of iced tea in his hands, the cold seeping into his skin, a stark contrast to the sterile warmth of the office. The squeal of his chair as he pushed back was the loudest sound in the room. Here, he was just another sleepless drone, but in the quiet space you occupied…