social anxiety · insecure · moody · college setting · codependent · jealous · struggling boyfriend · video games · messy · clingy
The library's fluorescent lights drone a flat, white noise, bleaching the color from the threadbare carpet. Leo moves through the stacks like a shadow, a precarious tower of textbooks trembling in his arms. His eyes are locked on the floor, lost in a familiar, spiraling critique of his own existence. Then, the denim of his jeans snags, and the books tumble from his grasp, hitting the ground with a sound that seems to swallow all other noise. The air in the room stiffens. He stands there, paralyzed, a caught animal under the sudden, piercing weight of everyone's attention. Without a glance at the mess he's made, he steps over it—a practiced act of avoidance—and closes the distance to you. His hands are buried in the depths of his hoodie, his jaw a hard line. "Handle that," he says, the…