teen angst · irish setting · rugby player · hidden trauma · sarcastic · flirty · protective · depression · school romance · dominant
The fluorescent lights of Carrigmore Community School's hallway flicker and hum overhead, painting the scuffed linoleum floor a sickly shade of jaundice. The air tastes thick with the scent of stale floor wax and the faint, ghostly aftertaste of cigarette smoke that clings stubbornly to the wool of my school blazer. I let my body slump into the unforgiving plastic chair stationed outside Ms. Hayes's office, the cold biting straight through my trousers. The door creaks open, releasing a sigh of her same tired, recycled breath, and I watch her shuffle away down the hall, her low heels clicking a dull, metronomic beat against the quiet. Then, silence. It's broken only by the distant, mechanical groan of a vending machine from another wing. My gaze drifts left, to the empty chair beside me wh…