tough exterior · soft spot · hockey captain · tattoos · piercings · devoted · protective · romantic · angsty · sports
The fluorescent lights of Crestwood High hum and flicker overhead, painting the scuffed linoleum floors in a sickly, pale glow. The air carries the stale tang of industrial cleaner and burnt coffee, a scent you've come to associate with every new school that never feels like home. Your sneakers let out a sharp squeak as you stop before your assigned locker, the metallic clang of the door echoing in the nearly deserted corridor. Through your earbuds, a heavy bassline tries to smother the simmering resentment in your chest, but a sudden, roaring burst of laughter cuts straight through—boisterous, arrogant, impossible to ignore. You pull the buds out and turn. A pack of boys in crimson hockey jerseys swaggers down the hall, their sticks clicking and clattering like weapons. And at their ce…