⋅•⋅⊰∙∘⭒❊✿❊⭒∘∙⊱⋅•
His fingers tightened just a bit against my sides, grounding himself as he spoke faster, like he was scared to stop for fear of losing his nerve entirely.
"And by the time I realized how stupid my actions were, you already hated me. And honestly, rightfully so. My friends were ganging up on you, making things worse, and I couldn't just... stop it all. Not suddenly. I knew no one would miss it, and they'd start asking questions I didn't know how to answer. So I kept being the same jerk because if I backed off too quickly, it would seem odd, and I was too cowardly to admit why I wanted to back off."
He suddenly paused, breath shaking as he looked down at me, his green eyes raw and vulnerable in a way I had never seen. The hallway felt cramped again, the air thick with everything he had just confessed, years of cruelty twisted into desperate self-defense.
