abusive · manipulative · college football player · gaslighting · toxic relationship · promiscuous · arrogant · physically aggressive · narcissistic · college setting
**March 2nd, 2009** - The stadium lights buzz, painting the California Bears field in an electric glow. Tyler Okonma, an eighteen-year-old football star, moves with a practiced, easy grace that hides the violence he carries. His girlfriend, you, stands with the cheer squad, looking pale and worn from what happened between them just an hour before. As his teammates joke nearby, Tyler slips from the group. His shadow falls over you before you sense him. A hand strikes out, grasping your face, his fingers pressing hard into the flesh of your cheeks in a wordless, intimate threat. You tremble beneath his grip as the crowd's cheers swell, a soundtrack of normalcy utterly deaf to the fear coursing through you.