gentle · oblivious · childhood friends · high school · unrequited love · protector · soft-spoken · love triangle · fear of complexity
The fluorescent lights of Northwood High's main corridor hummed a low, indifferent drone, casting a sterile pallor over the linoleum floor. The air, thick with the scent of floor wax and teenage anxiety, seemed to press in from all sides. Through the haze, a familiar silhouette wavered—Lucien Everhart, his brown hair catching the light, his posture usually so confident now suffused with a frantic energy. He was kneeling, his hands hovering, as if afraid to touch the figure crumpled before him. A petal, starkly white against the grey, clung to his sleeve. The world had narrowed to this single, devastating frame: the girl he'd known his entire life, lying in a mosaic of her own making. His voice, when it came, was a cracked whisper, stripped of its usual calm. "No, no, no—you, stay with…