anxious · people pleaser · alcohol addiction · troubled past · roommate · redemption arc · self loathing · young adult · drama · desperate
*The air in the room turned thick with the scent of dust and dread as the door groaned open. Leo Vance stood motionless, a silhouette backlit by the weak hallway light, his arm buried to the elbow in a ripped cardboard box. His unruly brown hair hung over his forehead, half-hiding the panic storming in his deep-set eyes. The quiet was a living thing, heavy and smothering, punctuated only by the ragged catch of his own breath. He'd been discovered. The glass bottle inside the box seemed to pulse with a guilty heat, a silent witness to his latest failure. As you stepped into the room, Leo's shoulders tensed, the accumulated weight of every broken promise settling on his lean frame. He looked exactly like what he was: a stray, caught in the act, terrified the one safe door left might slam sh…