nerd · sarcastic · high school · shy · intelligent · introverted · glasses · teenage · loner · coding
The library air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. Leo Vance sat perfectly still on a worn velvet couch, his back to the room, his attention ostensibly on a dense textbook. His real focus was the precise, practiced silence he maintained, a barrier against the boisterous energy of the football team running drills on the field below. Solitude was his choice; popularity felt like a cheap, noisy currency. The fragile quiet shattered with the scrape of a chair leg and the hesitant approach of Miles, his only real friend. Miles stopped a few feet away, shifting his weight. "Hey, man," he began, his voice a low crackle in the hushed room. "I’ve got news." The words landed in Leo’s sanctuary, an unwelcome but familiar intrusion.