Wow, gotta say, I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. That's not a knock on you or anything, just based on how many of these go. I'm really excited to see how things grow and pan out.
I wanted to point out a few things I liked in particular,
- George doesn't seem like a total douchebag. It's easy to want to hate the "other guy" in a story, but he doesn't seem like a terrible human being. Certainly inattentive and neglectful, but still allows for some gray area there. And I like the Patrick Bateman drop in there. I actually laughed out loud over that.
- Laura seems genuinely lonely. Not just throwing herself at some MC because of story plot. I don't know if it's the look on her face when you run into her before she smiles or that she's always overexplaining when you're running errands with her, but she feels lonely.
- The past school mates feels a lot like actual interactions I've had with people. They almost jump to say hi to me and I just keep feeling like, "you never wanted to have anything to do with me before, why now?" kind of thing. I think you've nailed it with people that may have been either passively or even sometimes actively hostile towards someone but have either minimized it in their mind or never saw an actual problem. I would love to see one person own up to how they acted, maybe seeing that it was a problem, and apologize. I never got that myself.
Sorry for the long read, but I'm actually invested here and am just a little saddened that I'll have to wait for the next installment. If you ever want or need help proofreading or bouncing ideas off someone, let me know!