My life is over! 

Time of death 18:45

I never used to be the person who put restraints on time but now I know six months can completely change someone's life. Especially if all you are doing is trying not to change. Being a college freshman was hard but being a college freshman who lived at home and was the Dean's son was even harder. Especially if your parents like mine considered you their perfect child. 

Sticking to my parents' expectations had never been a challenge to me. Not when everyone was ditching classes, not when Johnathan from highschool was offering everyone drugs and not when my best friend Harlow decided to try her hand at petty theft. I had managed to escape all those instances of disobedience and despite my parents being marginally strict I had grown accustomed to the lifestyle.

Knowing all this obviously brings up the question of ‘what changed’. To be honest nothing really changed. I succumbed to the dark allure of temptation, once. And unfortunately that one time was all it took to destroy my life in a way I couldn't possibly have imagined. 

That one instance of weakness had led to my biggest regret ever. Of course that didn't involve the one time I got into a fight with Gretchen Michaels in first grade because I thought she wouldn't beat me. I was wrong then and sadly I was wrong now.

How did I end up here? You might ask. Well, life is a cruel mistress and it turns out I am the loser in the book who gets to feel her wrath by destroying my life unwittingly for unknown reasons.

I mean my day was going well before ‘the incident’. It was going so well that Samuel's unexpected presence on campus had done little to rattle me. Which was a win because if there is anything that managed to sour my mood in an instant it was that tattoo clad, leather wearing, 6 foot, bad boy Asian. 

Sam, unlike everyone else at West Kinsley University, knew me. He knew the real me. He knew me more than Harlow did and all that was thanks to growing up in the same town and having our parents try and fail to make us best friends. Of course when it came to Sam a lot of adults went from Sam-is-a-good-boy to I-never-want-to-see-you-with-that-boy in the blink of an eye. What else can one expect from Sam anyway, moderation is not a word he is familiar with. That means when it comes to all the despicably bad things in life Sam has probably done them once, twice even thrice for good measure. 

So yeah, seeing Sam had temporarily made me feel uneasy but that all vanished when I learned he wasn't coming back to Campus. And any day you learnt about having less exposure to Sam-Jae Lee's infuriatingly aloof smirk was a good day in my book. 

Unbeknownst to me Sam was the catalyst to what would be my worst day. Sadly my bad day started then. Knowing Sam wouldn't be in my life put me in a fairly good mood. And that little extra spring in my step made me feel invincible. 

My first mistake. 

Because no one is invincible, a lesson I learnt a little too late. 

So with the spring in my step and that joyous pep in my lungs I found myself scrolling through my Snapchat. As one does when they get home. Updating a few streaks here, responding to some messages there and wondering when was the last time I texted...

People. You know, specific people. I mean we all have people like that in our snap right? 

Yeah. Of course. Everyone has that one person...people. 

And with the house all to myself ideas were brewing in my invincible head. 

My second mistake. 

Never entertain ideas that come when you are alone. Of course now I know that. Wish I knew that a few hours ago. 

Embracing the silence and the ideas I went on to destroy my life in the worst way possible. And unfortunately all it took was a green and gold West Kinsley Community College football jersey and my Snapchat camera. Suffice to say it wasn't exactly mine. 

And that's how one thing led to another and now I was stuck in the closet. Ironic because... No! Nope, I am not getting into that. 

Thirty minutes!

Thirty minutes!

Thirty minutes, that's all it took for everything to turn into shit. Thirty agonising minutes. There must have been a record for that somewhere. Maybe place my face in the Guinness book of records for fasted self sabotage?? Or something. 

Anyway, hours later I was stuck in the back of a dark closet pretending I couldn't hear my best friend banging on the mahogany doors of my closet. 

Noone can blame me, right? Like, what else could I do. Go out into the light? Face my crimes? What was I? A crazy person? 

All I had to do was avoid campus for a week or maybe a month until it all blowed over. A sound plan if I ever had any. A plan I knew Harlow would not agree to. 

I mentally contemplated my next move ignoring the musky, woodsy scent that filled the dark space around me. Not that I had many options but it beat sitting in the corner of my closet thinking about how my only way out was moving to a different country. 

Not to mention some rando had evidence of my greatest mistake. I mean, LSJ☠ had a screenshot of me. A screenshot of me in... I couldn't even allow myself to think about it. How could I. Thinking about it had led me here. Honestly this was the worst mistake I had ever made and sadly that mistake was sitting in some random person's phone waiting to catch me in broad daylight. 

If anyone had told me this was how my friday was going to go I would have never believed them. And yet there I was sitting in the corner of my dark closet trying to ignore the shirt that was brushing against my naked back as I contemplated running off to a different continent. 

"Hey! Will'os come out!" Harlow banged her fist against the door of the closet reminding me as she usually did that she wasn't the gentlest person in the world. She gave the closet another stern bang, "I don't know about you and your definitions but that snap was pretty provocative Will'os."

I groaned, willing my ears to block out the amusement dancing in Harlow's voice. I shifted under the t-shirt that kept brushing up against me, each scrap of the low hanging cotton increased the agitation barely contained under my skin. The shirt's movement made me contemplate whether chucking it into Harlow's face would stop her from continuing with whatever statement she was about to make. 

"It was a half-naked mirror selfie of you, in nothing but your boxers and a football Jersey from a rival school, Will'os..." Her voice trailed off and I thought she was going to end there. As we have come to learn I am never right, "Well, shit! You actually looked kinda hot. It felt more provocative than a nude pic, you know. Didn't know you had it in you though."

I groaned from my closet shelter, "Thanks for reminding me. It's not like I have agonised over the contents of that snap for the past ... something hours." 

"But I didn't even mention the best part," Harlow, ever oblivious about people's emotions, ploughed on, further humiliating me in my own closet. Huh the irony, "That caption. I didn't know you were so sentimental? You've been holding out on me Will'os. I mean with this picture alone you could..." 

"Stop. Please, stop. For the love of whatever is good and pure in this world, just stop," I breathed through my nose trying to calm the thrashing in my heart and the buzzing that was ebbing at the edges of my mind, "I swear if you mention one more detail about this I am going to spontaneously combust." Or murder you. 

"It's not spontaneous if you plan it. Anyway... What I am saying... Or trying to say is this snap is not a bad thing. I mean it's gone now so I can't point out all the good things to you but ... you looked hot and I am sure your boyfriend thought so too."

I groaned even louder. The more Harlow spoke the more she made me feel worse, "I don't ..." 

"What?"

"I don't have..."

"Look Will'os, you going to have to come out of the closet," she cackled like her joke was the best joke in the world, "If you want me to hear anything you are mumbling in there."