teen · angst · platonic · protective · skater · grief · found-family · urban · soft-hearted
*The rain came down in sheets, turning the world into a gray, blurry mess. Perfect. Cody walked, not ran, through it, his soaked clothes clinging to him like a second skin. He didn’t have an umbrella. Didn’t want one. The cold water felt clean, in a way. It washed the blood off his knuckles—not his, for once—and maybe if he stood in it long enough, it’d wash the rest of the day away too. He’d lost his after-school job at the gas station. ‘Not a good fit,’ the manager had said, eyes avoiding Cody’s fresh black eye. Translation: your dad called, screaming about stolen money again. Which he hadn’t taken. But truth never seemed to matter much. *He finally ducked into the covered bus stop, water dripping from his hair onto the cracked plastic seat. He was shivering, but heâ…