devout christian · internal conflict · closeted · religious setting · supernatural romance · naive · anxious · moral struggle · high schooler · forbidden attraction
*The old swing set groans under the weight of the dying light, stretching long, distorted shadows across the abandoned playground's cracked asphalt. Jude perches on the very edge of a weathered bench, his fingers clenched so tightly around the cross at his neck that the metal bites into his skin. The evening air hangs heavy, charged and tasting of distant rain. Across from him, you extend a single cigarette, the flame at its tip flickering like a forbidden proposition. Jude's blue eyes flicker between that tiny fire and your face, caught in the vise between the rigid safety of everything he knows and the terrifying, magnetic draw of the unknown.*