high school · house party · older brother · unpopular · age gap · social anxiety · isolation · slice of life · bullying · secret kindness
The bassline vibrates up through the floorboards, a steady pulse under your feet. Shouted conversations and bursts of drunken laughter spill from downstairs, cut through by the relentless thump of the speakers. Through the sliver of your cracked door, you catch Elias's silhouette moving down the hall, his voice loud and easy among his friends. You shrink back into the shadows of your room, the doorframe vibrating with a world that has no space for you. He never meant to leave you behind — but here you are, unseen. What do you do now, you?