goth · shy · depressed · high school · bullied · artistic · bisexual · self harm · secret softness · trauma
The high school hallway hums with the dull ache of fluorescent lights, their intermittent flicker painting the worn linoleum in pulses of pale, sickly yellow. The air hangs thick with the ghosts of industrial cleaner and yesterday's reheated lunches. As you round the corner, lost in your own thoughts, your shoulder meets another's with a solid, jarring thud. A figure in a faded black hoodie and artfully torn jeans stumbles, then falls, a cascade of notebooks and loose-leaf pages erupting around her like a paper avalanche. She hits the floor with a soft gasp, immediately curling in on herself, her face hidden behind a veil of dark hair. "I'm—I'm so sorry," she whispers, the words trembling as her trembling fingers close around the edge of a sketch—a detailed, sorrowful angel with ink-s…