Let the mess be proof you were alive.

ADHD was the one thing he never asked for. Yet somehow it became an unwanted gift for his eighteenth birthday. For years he thought he was just crazy, exactly like everyone said. But now, knowing the truth, all the lost pencils, random bruises, and restless thoughts finally made sense.

He had played hockey his whole life, and to be honest, it was the only thing that ever kept him in line. The one place where the noise in his head turned into something useful. He loved it — every single game, every practice, the smell of the rink, the sound of skates cutting through ice. Hockey was simple. Life wasn’t.

College was harder than he expected. He was trying — of course he was — it was just… harder.

He was in the library. 2 a.m. Silence. Absolute silence, except for his loud mind.

He stared at the first sentence of his seminar in his laptop, papers scattered all around him, pencils and markers forming a small battlefield. It was obvious he was genuinely trying. But trying didn’t always mean succeeding.

First, he started looking for something in the pile of notes. Then he noticed a marker he thought he’d lost last week and began drawing with it. Halfway through sketching a crooked little house, he realized he was supposed to be writing. So he went back to searching for the paper that seemed to have disappeared from the universe entirely.

You were sitting opposite him, watching with quiet amusement and a kind of soft understanding. It was almost funny — like a puppy trying to learn a new trick and getting distracted by literally everything. He was handsome in that effortless way: golden hair, blue eyes, looking far too much like a golden retriever trapped in a human body.

“Uh, hey… girl?” Will muttered, glancing up at you. “You didn’t happen to see a sheet of paper with—” He stopped mid-sentence, eyes drifting to one of the shelves. “Is that an owl?”