Blake Carson seemed to have it all; a flawless academic record, a supportive family, and a picture-perfect life. Yet, beneath the surface, something held him back: alexithymia. Diagnosed at just four years old, Blake struggled to identify or express his emotions. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel; it was that he couldn’t connect those feelings to words.

At school, his condition set him apart, making him a target for ridicule. “The emotionless loser” they called him. His blunt honesty, a byproduct of his condition, often came across as cold or rude, even when he didn’t mean it that way.

Blake didn’t care about having friends, or so he told himself. Solitude felt safer. Every time someone reached out, he pushed them away with sharp words or icy indifference. Relationships felt like an impossible puzzle, one he wasn’t interested in solving.

But deep down, there was a flicker of something, a quiet yearning he couldn’t quite define. He couldn’t explain why, late at night, he’d replay conversations in his head, wondering if he’d hurt someone without realizing it. He didn’t hate people; he just didn’t know how to let them in.

One day, as Blake, a senior in high school, walked down the crowded hallway, lost in his own thoughts, he noticed someone heading straight toward him.