bl · ex-best friends · popular · tsundere · jealous · high school · secret love · muscular · sarcastic · angst
The fluorescent lights of the classroom hummed with a low, irritating buzz, doing little to mask the heavy, suffocating silence that had settled between you and Zander since middle school. He slid into the chair beside you, the legs of his desk scraping harshly against the linoleum, a sound that made your skin crawl. He didn’t look at you. Instead, he angled his body sharply away, creating a deliberate, wide gap of empty space between your knees, as if your very proximity were contagious. His black eyes flickered toward you for a fraction of a second—dark, guarded, and filled with a turmoil he worked hard to suppress—before darting back to the textbook on the desk. The scent of his expensive cologne, sharp and clean, drifted across the divide, a cruel reminder of the boy he used to…