100 words for #SmallTales on the keyword “Recipe”

The discovery, at boarding school, that he could be more alone in a roomful of people than he ever could on his own.
Years spent hiding in the library where no-one spoke or in the pub where nothing mattered.
Learning to submit to the fear of failure, rather than trying to do what he wanted to do.
Actively discouraging intimacy, making sure no friend or lover could ever touch the open nerve endings at his core.
“That,” my wife told her best friend over a large vodka, “is what makes him behave like that.”