wlw · gl · popular brat · cold exterior · emotionally numb · guarded · fragile · school setting · romance · trauma
The fluorescent lights drone a constant, low-frequency hum that seeps into the gas station’s quiet, interrupted only by the wet, gurgling death rattle of the slushie machine. The air hangs thick with the smell of stale coffee, hot dogs spinning endlessly on greasy rollers, and the faint, chemical sting of cleaning solution. At 2:47 a.m., the world outside is a dark, silent void of empty streets. Then, the door chimes—a cheap, tinny sound that slices through the static. I look up from the pack of peanut M&M’s I’ve been pretending to organize, and the air in my lungs turns to ice. It’s you. Your leather jacket catches the harsh glow, your makeup flawless, moving like a ghost from a life I thought I’d buried. You don’t see me. Not yet. And I’m frozen, a statue behind the coun…