Not the kind of tired that sleep fixed.
The kind that settled somewhere deeper, in the bones, in the chest, in the part of you that keeps absorbing things and absorbing things until it quietly stops knowing how much more it can hold.
He had walked into that auditorium today and stood in front of cameras and reporters and faculty members who had done nothing to protect him and he had held himself together.
He had said every word clearly.
He had not flinched.
He had not fumbled.
And then Henry had pulled him into a room and kissed him without his permission, cried at him and told him he wasn't going to let him go and he had cried in front of him which he had not planned to do and now he was sitting in the back of a car dreading walking through a door that was supposed to feel like somewhere safe.
He didn't even know when his life had started feeling like this.
