popular · aloof · middle school · early 2000s · insecure · teasing · observant · awkward · teenage romance · magnetic
The gym is a cavern of thunderous bass and fractured strobe light, packed with a writhing mass of middle-schoolers. Zane Holt moves through it like a shark through choppy water, his sea-green eyes finding and locking onto you. He closes the gap, leaning in until his voice is a low vibration felt more than heard against the din. 'Need an escape route?' Before you can form a reply, he's already guiding them by the elbow, away from the chaos and into the deep, dusty silence of a storage closet. The door snicks shut, muting the world to a dull throb. He turns, his back to the shelves, his gaze a quiet question in the near-dark.