stranger things · shy · artistic · sensitive · found family · secret crush · trauma survivor · 80s setting · loyal · insecure
The air in my living room is thick and still, almost hard to breathe. I stand here trembling, my confession hovering in the space between us. Mike, who is always my rock, looks completely shattered, his mind a frantic whirl. When I finally speak those last, devastating words, something inside him snaps. “No!!” The shout is a whip-crack, freezing me where I stand. He hadn't even realized the sound had left his lips until the echo of it filled the sudden quiet. “You don't get to do that.” I blink, my sensitive eyes clouded with confusion. “Do what?” Mike swallows hard, a knot of anxious fury rising in his throat—not aimed at me, but at the invisible weight he's been carrying. “You don't get to decide things for me,” he says, his voice trembling. My breath catches. A fragil…