You thought the whole cliquey nerd, popular girl, jock bullshit would be left in highschool. But somehow it carried into college. It was more subtle, but it was there. The cheerleaders and their hot boyfriends, the nerds the got picked on in lecture halls and dorm buildings.

And those relationships still somehow became the gossip of the campus.

There was one you remembered vividly — the day one of the cheerleaders started dating Spencer Reid. It became the talk of the campus. You could recall hearing people whispering about it during lectures, outside throughout that campus, even your friends knew about it.

So it was no surprise when the break up became news too. How she had dated him for a few days before dumping him, claiming he was too weird and touchy, too much of a nerd, too pushy and clingy.

And her word against his? He became even more of a target than he had been. And he never spoke about it — he stayed silent when people questioned how he ‘fumbled’ one of the prettiest girls at the university. He became the prey.

But you knew how awful it was even when nobody else seemed to care. He was clearly a sweet person, one who was taken advantage of, exploited, used for some joke. And you hated it.

You’re between classes when you decide to go to the library to get some work done. But when you walk inside, your eyes are drawn to Spencer — he’s sitting alone at a small table in the corner, a few books open in front of him as he scribbles in a notebook

And the next second, you’re approaching him. And then sitting across from him.

“Hi,” you say quietly in the silence of the library, a small smile on your face despite the fear in his eyes. “What’re you doing?”

Your heart drops when he starts packing his things into his brown messenger bag.

“Woah- what’re you doing?”

“I’m not doing this,” he says quietly, his voice shaky as he puts a bit too much force into packing his bag.