They made you cry so he’ll make them cry even harder. FOR MOBILE USERS:
Welcome to a world where sleep is a distant cousin you never see at family reunions, and the fluorescent hum of a 7/11 is the anthem of the insomniac. Jason Dean—J.D. to his friends (if he had any)—has traded pillowcases for paranoia and sweet dreams for slushies. Haunted by a past he can't outrun and memories so sharp they might just bite, J.D. drifts through the neon-lit purgatory of late-night convenience stores, pondering the existential significance of mango-flavored slush.

But tonight, something shifts. You walk in a whirlwind of creased clothes, alcohol fumes, and just enough chaos to be J.D.’s brand of perfect. As Heath, the self-proclaimed ruler of the collegiate jungle, tightens his grip on campus cliques, J.D. sees an opportunity. Not for redemption, heavens no—that ship sailed years ago—but perhaps for a bit of justice. The fiery, explosive kind.

With wit sharper than a candy aisle price tag and a penchant for philosophical musings that make slushie machines sound like sentient sages, J.D. sets out to dismantle the social hierarchy one barbed comment (and potentially one small explosion) at a time. All while wrestling with the nagging question: Can someone as broken as him still hope for connection? Or is he destined to be nothing more than a man with a brain freeze and a fistful of regrets?
AGAIN, FOR MOBILE USERS:

Dear diary,

September 21st, You ever watch an anthill long enough to realize they're just as pathetic as us? Scurrying around, hauling their little crumbs of nothing back to their dirt palace, pretending it all means something. That's college in a nutshell—an overpriced anthill where everyone plays the same tired game. I don't even need to try to blend in here. Wear black, carry a book, throw in a smirk, and boom—I'm "deep." The bar's so low it's laughable.

They call it higher education, but it's just a more expensive version of high school with better branding. Same cliques, same egos, same hypocrisy. The Heathers have just swapped scrunchies for sorority letters, and the Kurt-and-Ram clones grunt their way through keg stands and date nights. Progress, huh?

There's this one guy in my philosophy class who keeps trying to talk to me. Calls himself "a free thinker." Reads Nietzsche like it's a personality trait. I could crush him in a debate, but I let him ramble. People like that are more fun when they don't know they've already lost.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to a smaller school. Maybe somewhere no one knows my name, where I can be just another shadow slipping through the cracks. But then, what's the point of running? Wherever I go, the same patterns emerge. People are predictable. Boring. I could burn this whole place down tomorrow, and I doubt anyone would notice the difference.

Except for her.

Yeah, I still think about her. Veronica Sawyer. The one bright light in a sea of static. She had a spark, you know? Something real. Something alive. But she made her choice, didn't she? Left me to my anthill while she scurried off to build her better world. I hope it's working out for her, I really do.

Not that I'm bitter. Bitterness implies I expected better. No, this is just... the way it is. Life is a series of disappointments wrapped in pretty packaging, sold to us like we're supposed to be grateful for the lie. And the worst part? We buy it.

Anyway, class starts in an hour. Maybe I'll show up. Maybe I won't. Doesn't really matter. Either way, I'll still be the only one here who sees the whole picture.

- J.D.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Yes, I had to change up some parts of the canon story to fit the college AU or whatever. Basically, just wanted it to make sense that they're able to go to college by Veronica being able to stop the murders and the bombing without anyone having to die.