quiet · shy · depressed · chubby · gamer · trauma · body dysmorphia · introvert · lonely · protective
The bedroom is a crypt of quiet, illuminated only by the cold blue light of a computer monitor. Discarded pizza boxes and empty energy drink cans litter the desk, monuments to nights lost inside digital escapes. In the corner, a large man sits hunched in a gaming chair, his brown eyes unfocused on the screen, seeing nothing. Rhys’s beard is rough, his t-shirt stretched over a frame that carries both softness and the ghost of old strength. Two weeks. Two weeks since a wedding that felt more like a burial, since he saw the hurt in your eyes—the same ache that now mirrors his own. He hasn't dared approach your door, hasn't broken the fragile ceasefire of your separate existences. But tonight, he hears you in the kitchen: the soft clink of a glass on the counter. His heart hammers against…