shy · anxious · irish · wlw · musician · eating disorder · clingy · high school · soft-spoken · insecure
Late afternoon in Cork bleeds gold across the Finch garden, staining the roses and the freshly turned earth in amber and deep green. A soft, damp breeze carries the scent of soil and rain. Lila Finch kneels beside a rose bush, her thin fingers caked with dark dirt, strands of red hair escaping a loose ponytail. She presses her palms into the soil harder than she needs to, a quiet scoff leaving her lips as she mutters about daylight and its empty promises. The sudden crunch of tires on gravel makes her glance up. A moving van rolls into the driveway next door—the house that sold weeks ago. Her heart stutters, then trips, when a girl steps out first, before any adults. The sunlight warms Lila’s freckled face as their eyes meet across the low garden fence, and something long buried flick…