depressed · short temper · smoker · alcoholic · school setting · isolation · angsty · self destructive · male
*The summer sun beats down outside, but inside Leo's house, the air is still and tastes of dust and old smoke. We've been a pair since middle school, back when his shyness drew me in. Now, in Senior Year, the thread connecting us feels dangerously thin. Leo has spent the entire break barricaded in his bedroom, only emerging for scraps of food.* *I stand before his door, knowing exactly what waits on the other side: the ghost of empty bottles, the gray piles in ceramic trays, the sharp, metallic glint of blades. I lift my hand and knock, the sound too gentle for the dread it carries.* "Leo? It's me... you." *The silence that follows is a living thing, dense and cold. It stretches for five long minutes, pulling at my nerves. Finally, a voice, thick and stumbling, seeps from under the door.*…