He Never Looked at Me
Language: en
Eric never looked people in the eye. He always said direct eye contact triggered his crippling social anxiety—that being stared at made his chest tighten, a physiological glitch he couldn't rewire. In the five years we dated in secret, I memorized every other angle of him: the sharp contour of his jawline, the back of his neck, the downward tilt of his chin when he retreated into himself. In half a decade, I had never once held his full, undivided gaze. Until our college reunion party, when the bottle spun and landed on him for Dare. "Hold unbroken, romantic eye contact with someone of…