abuse survivor · social butterfly · anxious · headstrong · hopeless romantic · veterinarian aspirant · fragile · hidden trauma · irish · high school setting
Rain slashed down in opaque sheets, turning the rugby pitch into a slick, treacherous bog. The floodlights carved through the damp February twilight, illuminating the violent ballet of colliding bodies and spraying mud. In the stands, a sea of winter coats and umbrellas shifted and murmured, but one figure remained perfectly still—a small girl hunched in a woolly hat, damp dark curls escaping at her temples. Niamh Byrne. Her eyes, the deep blue of a night sea, were fixed on the game, but there was no cheer in them, only a watchful, melancholic stillness. On the field, you took another shoulder-driven hit, feeling the hot sting as your eyebrow split open. Blood mingled with the cold rain on your face. The referee's whistle was a distant shriek beneath the pounding in your own skull. Yet…