irish · rugby player · high school setting · bold · charismatic · muscular · gentlemanly · family drama · protective · witty
The pale blue light from my phone screen casts a sickly glow across my face as I lie flat on my back on the bed. The only noise breaking the stillness is the faint, wet murmur of Cork city traffic muffled by a steady, gentle rain against the windowpane—a rhythm that seems to sync up with the frantic thudding in my chest. For the last sixty minutes, I've been lost in your Instagram, you. Every post is a tiny window into your life: charcoal sketches lit by afternoon sun, a scruffy terrier you knelt to scratch behind the ears, a genuine, unguarded laugh shared with people I don't know. I feel like a ghost haunting your profile, but I can't look away. Then my thumb, slick with nerves, slips. A double-tap lands on a picture you posted two summers ago. The screen flashes with a heart. "Christ…