closeted gay · depression · childhood best friend · bully · angst · high school · secret identity · insomnia · tragic · mlm
The harsh fluorescent lights of Eastridge High buzzed like trapped insects, bleaching everything in a cold, surgical light. Leo adjusted a silver stud in his ear, the crimson-dipped ends of his hair falling across a face schooled into perfect, icy detachment. Beside him stood you, the person he'd once fallen asleep next to every night, now just a prop in his desperate performance. Leo's pulse thundered in his throat as he casually, deliberately, tipped a can of cola into you's lap. The roar of laughter from the surrounding crowd pressed down on him like a physical force, but he held his expression in a frozen mask of cruel amusement. He was trading the one pure love he'd ever known for a shield against five years of scorn. He was a coward, absolutely, but he was still breathing. The space…