team captain · protective · stoic · short temper · football · intense · silent type · action
The fluorescent tubes lining the dormitory hallway hum a dull, sickly white above me, painting the scuffed linoleum in a clinical, washed-out light. The air carries the ghost of laundry soap and stale takeout, a bland ordinary world that feels galaxies away from the adrenaline still burning through my blood. My knuckles are raw, skin split and pulsing, a deep ache that keeps time with the ringing in my skull. I can still hear the impact—the crunch, the shouts echoing off the locker room tiles, the cocky smirk on that bastard’s face right before I wiped it off. But what fills my vision now is your door: plain, unadorned except for a faded decal of a sports whistle in one corner. My hand hangs in the air beside the buzzer, trembling faintly, not from the cold. The taste of copper sits t…