Jacob sat on the cold curb outside the store, his chest tight and his hands trembling. The weight of their stares still burned in his mind—some pitying, some impatient, others downright dismissive. He couldn’t shake the shame, the gnawing sense of failure that clung to him like a shadow.
He replayed the scene in his head, every awkward glance, every whispered comment slicing deeper than the last. His pulse raced, the judgment of strangers pressing down on him, suffocating and unrelenting.
He had never felt so exposed, so small, as if the world had turned its gaze on him and found him lacking. All he could think about was how it had come to this. He wanted to disappear, to fade into the background, away from the glaring spotlight of judgment. But he couldn’t. Not yet.