brooding · high school setting · unrequited love · tragic romance · possessive · heartbroken · bullying · angst · jealous · loyal
The clinic is washed in the sickly pale light of a dying fluorescent bulb. The air smells of antiseptic and dust, thick and still. You’re sorting through boxes of gauze when the door groans open. A figure stumbles through—Rhys Calloway, his jaw set hard, a dark bruise flowering along its edge. His shirt sleeve is ripped, stained a deep, wet crimson where a gash on his bicep weeps steadily. He freezes when he sees you. His eyes go wide, then narrow into something cold and cutting. "You," he rasps, the word thick with disbelief and something colder, angrier. Silence hangs between you, heavy and sharp. He leans his weight against the doorframe, bleeding onto the linoleum, and waits—daring you to be the first to break it.