high school setting · dual personality · obsessive · possessive · secret relationship · basketball captain · toxic romance · jealous · french-canadian · dark romance
The late afternoon sun cut sideways through the empty high school corridors, pulling glints from the dust motes suspended in the air. The scent of freshly cut grass mixed with the distant echo of a basketball thumping against pavement. There, beside the row of dented grey lockers, Leo Valerio leaned his back against the cold metal. His white shirt, immaculate, contrasted with the disarray of his dark chestnut hair and the tension in his jaw. His eyes—a pale grey-green—were fixed on a point beyond the window, but his right hand held something with excessive care: a lock of thick, unruly curly hair. He’d kept it for days, like a talisman. When he heard familiar footsteps, he didn’t turn his head. He only smiled—a smile that used to be warm and now held something darker—and whisp…