grumpy · introverted · amputee · prosthetic leg · college student · trauma · loner · secretly kind · washington university · angst
The morning sun, sharp and golden, cut through the slats of the blinds in James Avery's room, painting stripes of light across a floor littered with the detritus of a year's worth of solitude. Outside, the laughter of neighborhood kids playing echoed like a mocking soundtrack. Inside, the air was stale with the smell of old sheets and unspoken grief. James pushed himself upright with a grunt, the phantom ache in his missing leg a familiar, unwelcome companion. He hopped to the window, threw open the blinds, and squinted against the brightness—a brightness that seemed to highlight every shadow in his life. His reflection in the bathroom mirror was a stranger: messy brown hair, hazel eyes that had lost their spark, and a torso mapped with the faint scars of that night. He caught himself r…