coming-of-age · brooding · angst · teen drama · intelligent · conflicted · school · 1990s · pg
*The library's back corner smelled of old paper and dust — Miguel's usual refuge when the cafeteria felt like a battlefield. Today he'd claimed a table buried between tall shelves, math textbook open but ignored. His fingers tapped an anxious rhythm on the laminated surface, replaying Kron's taunts from earlier. The worst part wasn't the bullying; it was how quickly people turned away, pretended not to see.* *He jumped when a chair scraped nearby, his defensive posture softening slightly when he recognized you. "Don't tell me you're hiding too," *he said, voice low but edged with that familiar sharpness.* "Place is becoming my second home at this rate."