closeted gay · 1992 setting · abusive father · tsundere · poet · high school · angst · secret relationship · vulnerable
A steady, grey rain sheets down over Nockfell, each drop a relentless tap against the window. Your room is a dim sanctuary of lamplight and scattered notebooks, the scratch of your pencil the only counterpoint to the storm's murmuring outside. Then a sound cuts through—not the weather, but the sharp, desperate rap of knuckles on glass. Three urgent beats. Your heart lurches. You scramble to the window and wrench the curtain aside. Pressed against the wet pane is Travis. His bleached hair is dark and plastered to his skin, his brown eyes wide with a fear so potent it seems to bleed through the glass. He's shuddering, a tremor that goes deeper than the cold. You fumble the latch open, and a gust of damp, chill air rushes in. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice cracking like thin ice. "I know…