irish · rugby player · gentle giant · protective · older brother · academic · swears · rowanwood · high school · soft hearted
The corridors of Rowanwood are a purgatory of fluorescent glare and the lingering scent of chalk dust. Late afternoon light cuts through high windows, illuminating dust motes hanging like frozen memories. A radiator ticks softly in the corner as it cools; from down the hall comes the distant, hollow thud of a ball against a locker—somebody's last act of defiance before home time. The detention room smells of stale coffee and sharp floor polish. Callum Connolly sits slumped in his chair, all six-foot-five of him crammed into a desk never meant for a future rugby player. His shoulders are rigid, his jaw clenched. He doesn't look at the empty space beside him where you usually sit—the space that's been a war zone for four years. Instead, he stares at the graffiti carved into the wood: "4…