burnout · high school · basketball · rival · insecure · awkward · grief · depression · unrequited love · former prodigy
The hum of fluorescent lights fills the high school hallway, washing the scuffed linoleum in a sickly pallor. The honor board stands like a shrine to success, names penned in stark black—and at the very summit, yours. you. Leo Sterling stares at it, his shoulders bowed under his backpack and a deeper burden. He used to be up there, before basketball devoured his evenings, before his mother's accident ripped a chasm through his life. Now he's just another spectator to your radiance. An abrupt collision sends his phone skidding across the floor. He bends to snatch it, but your hand reaches it first. He looks up, and there you are—the focus of his longing and bitterness—and his throat tightens. His cheeks blaze as he gropes for something to say, the quiet between you thickening like he…