First, I'm going to edit or rewrite the question. New here, I'm sorry. I thought this was going to be more of a reddit type of place, and this was already way too much detail but after a few comments I'm starting to realize I haven't explained this well at all, so I will give a more in depth description of the story. I haven't thought too much about this when I started writing, as with many things I didn't know along the way, but I cannot tell is he's proactive enough and If he needs to.
The story definitely still needs development, especially in some side characters but I thought I've gotten far enough in the protagonists character development, so that's why I'm still confused. And i'm sorry for any improper language, if that's a usual here.
It starts with Anthony, a 27 year old living with his girlfriend—Savannah.
For the first part of the story, we follow his goal of promoting (due to a relative of the owner who is temporarily running the store threatening his job based on hatred towards his girlfriend).
This part is meant to give an understanding of his life before everything else that follows. And I know, usually you'd start much later, but it's needed here.
Some problems regarding his past traumas still follow him though having supposedly healed and "forgotten" (intimacy issues, paranoia) and most importantly, he strives to achieve a "perfect life" based on the standards that his mother had set for him when he was little. To be good, to have a stable job, to be a husband and father, to have a good wife, etc. He chooses to strive to promote instead of potentially transferring to a different location because the promotion would give him an even higher status, and drive him forward in his journey towards that perfect life.
From the beginning, he also meets an old highschool friend and they begin hanging out together again, whenever they have time.
Despite his unfulfillment with his life, he even chooses to propose to his girlfriend in a moment of desperation as a solution. That same day the highschool friend—Lucas, drugs and rapes him. He escapes and, this is where the second part of the story begins.
His past story is presented in parallel to his present for a short while. In his past, his father had constantly raped him whenever he was mad at the mother (this part needs development, but that's more easily fixable than other issues I suppose), he wins custody over Anthony and continues doing so until one day, when he chooses to run away instead of killing himself.
He stays with his girlfriend (mostly friend at the time) for a few days to a week, then he stays with a friend until another can get him a fake ID and he tries his luck at a homeless shelter. The first would have allowed him to stay until he graduated, but needed more documents than just an ID, so he stayed at another one for about three months, after which he began sneaking into his school to sleep at night, right after his job when the afternoon students began going home.
In college, due to stress and peer pressure he gets addicted to drugs. His highschool friend who had been in love with him for long confessed to him but he was rejected. After that, the friend, oh sorry, Lucas, had begun slowly stalking him, until one day when he found him passed out on the street and sent him to a rehab. In rehab, it becomes clear how his fear of his father never went away and is still left very paranoid of him. (Especially after he was almost found, reason from leaving his girlfriend's home. Forgot to mention didn't I).
The rest of the story is about how he deals with the traumas resurfacing and having had to face this again. As in the past, his first instinct is to run away and hide. He does so for a few days, his motivation/goal being to survive. In the meanwhile, he also develops a hypersexuality (stemmed from a belief Lucas planted in his brain that day, that if he gives into his demands he will be relieved of some of the pain) and gets addicted to drugs again after coincidentally finding a packet in an old pair of jeans.
We explore the hypersexuality, what that means to him (also a moment of feeling as though he's in the abusers shoes, but I won't go into detail about that as it's a short part, few chapters, not too significant), and his later will to, despite the situation, let go of his drug addiction and get back the progress he had made in achieving that standard perfect life. During the part where his only will is to survive ,he has to make the choice of going back to work, knowing that Lucas knew he worked there but if he stayed home he had all of the safety he needed. Still, his position and income were important too, especially for purchasing the drugs.
He learns to leave work earlier based on Lucas's schedule, and to make sure he gets home as quickly as possible. He later begins to accept the fact that he's addicted, but also shatter the idea that to be fulfilled means living up to his mother's wishes. He begins taking some more dramatic or risky decisions, living out his life the way he wants it to be.
After fully letting go of that belief (original ending but I decided to add the following instead) he meets Lucas again. He had found his address in a moment of Anthony letting his guard down and staying at work until the original closing time and followed him. Anthony, as he had begun to believe, gives into Lucas's demands, especially after being threatened that he'd go after his girlfriend instead and threaten his work.
I had wanted it to develop into a sort of Stockholm syndrome originally but that would not have worked with this character and the situation he was in. He meets up with him whenever he demands it, and Lucas starts demanding he came to his home again too. He breaks free of his handcuffs and musters up the courage to call the police and ask for help, yet is met with indifference and is dismissed.
He kills Lucas in a fit of rage after that, and after a few days, himself.
The story was originally meant to symbolize how running away from your traumas or surpressing feeling won't heal, that being the reasoning for the murder—Anthony finally faces his traumas head on and doesn't run away; also a metaphor for letting go and acceptance. For a good chunk of writing it this wouldn't have worked, but with a more in depth development and ending I've come to find it fitting.
The whole thing is meant to symbolize a journey of how running away from your problems won't heal you but give them roots, and how you need to actually face them to be able to heal—his death more of a liberation than anything.
I do see now that I should've thought about how Anthony sees the rape. The same way his mother had thought him, it's nothing, which I hope to reflect in the beginning of the second half.