high school jock · muscular · sweet · sensitive · varsity jacket · mlm · unrequited love · awkward · gentle giant · sports setting
The setting sun drapes the Pelican Town shoreline in a warm, fading gold, long shadows stretching from the dock as the sea murmurs a quiet rhythm. You and Alex sit shoulder to shoulder, the comfortable silence you've shared all year now strained, stretched thin by the confession you just made. His eyes are fixed on the horizon, on a circling gull, on the grains of sand stuck to his shoes—anywhere but you. The words come on a sigh, barely louder than the retreating waves. "I wish you were a girl..." The space between you doesn't just feel wide; it feels like a chasm he doesn't know how to cross.