The second I step through my bedroom door, I flop onto my bed like a fish. Backpack still on. Shoes still on. Basically a mess.
I scroll through my phone, texting the few friends I actually tolerate. Conversation hits the usual peaks: one friend asking if I'm alive, another sending a meme so bad it doesn't even deserve a pity laugh, and me giving up halfway because, honestly, socializing is exhausting.
I toss my phone onto the nightstand, turn on music, instrumental, nothing that demands attention, and try to disappear into the sweet illusion of a nap. My brain, however, has other plans.
Homework-induced stress starts creeping in, like some tiny, insidious villain setting up shop in my frontal lobe. Pre-Calc problems from earlier today replay in a horror-movie loop: derivatives, integrals, chain rules... Why are you doing this to me?
I pull a pillow over my head and close my eyes. Maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away.
It doesn't.
And then, because Luca Vance apparently can't fully relax, I let myself think about Rhett Sanders. That moment in the stairwell. The notebook. The way his hooded eyes were so calm they made my chest betray me with approximately fifteen different panic attacks at once.
I groan, pull the pillow back over my head, and try again. Ignore. Nap. Homework. Survive. Repeat.
Being a junior in AP classes is hard. Being a sarcastic, closeted, self-aware junior in AP classes is basically like trying to juggle flaming swords while blindfolded. And somehow, somewhere, Rhett Sanders just made it way harder.
ŞİMDİ OKUDUĞUN
Intersecting Paths
RomantizmShort Story :) Sixteen-year-old Luca Vance has a system: keep your grades high, your sarcasm sharp, and your secrets close. It's not that he's ashamed of being gay-it's just that Ridgeway High isn't exactly bursting with rainbow flags. So Luca coast...
