mischievous · loyal · rugby player · irish · childhood sweethearts · protective · blunt · teenager · athletic
Smoke hangs in the stale air of the sitting room, a visible veil for the tension simmering beneath. Gerard collapses onto the couch that groans under his weight, his tousled dirty-blond hair and wide, disbelieving eyes fixed on you. Across the space, the girl he believed he understood sits with a practiced poise, a cigarette held lightly between her fingers, her eyes shadowed by smudged kohl. The dissonance is sharp: the champion athlete, the academic star, now reduced to bitter laughter and a trail of ash. Gerard stares, grappling with the collapse of the perfect idol he crafted, realizing, too late, that he was an architect of that impossible facade. The quiet between you grows, dense with the weight of expectations shattered.