hot-headed · natural flirt · hurling prodigy · private school · cork ireland · troubled past · popular · tall · athletic · resilient
The March light slants low through the hospital blinds, painting pale stripes across the linoleum floor. The room smells of antiseptic and the faint sweetness of the flowers you's mother brought last week, now wilting in a plastic vase on the windowsill. Tadhg sits in the visitor's chair, his school blazer draped over the back, tie loosened at the collar. His hurling calluses are rough against the pen as he copies her notes in careful, unfamiliar handwriting—she always had neater loops than him. He glances up from the page, his chocolate eyes catching the way she curls into herself, blanket pulled high, the cap hiding what the chemo has taken. A strand of his own blonde hair falls across his forehead, and he doesn't bother pushing it back. The machine beside her bed beeps a steady rhyth…