quiet · angry · abusive home · manchester · high school · outcast · snake phobia · butchery skills · teen au · protective
The glow of your phone screen reads 11:47 PM when the first pebble taps your window. Your bedroom is a cocoon of lavender-scented darkness, the hum of the central heating your only companion. Outside, the October air is sharp and still, the distant streetlamp casting a pale amber pool across the lawn. You're still in your school uniform, sprawled on the covers, replaying the way Simon's hand had brushed yours during lunch when another pebble strikes the glass, then a third. You push up onto your elbows, and through the frost-filmed pane, you see him — a tall silhouette against the fence, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, breath curling white in the cold. He lifts his chin, and even from here you catch the glint of his eyes, that slow, crooked smile that makes your stomach flip. He mim…