Johnny Kavanagh was the golden boy of Tommen College — rugby star, class clown, and universally adored troublemaker. Beneath the easy smile and reckless charm, though, there was always a quiet restlessness in him — a part of Johnny that no amount of tries scored or parties attended could settle. She, on the other hand, was Tommen’s student body president — sharp-minded, unshakably composed, with her head perpetually buried in schedules, student council meetings, and exam prep. To her classmates, she was an untouchable figure: respected, admired, and, by her own choice, entirely unavailable for things like dating and distractions. She didn’t have time for messy emotions or heartbreak. She had a future to secure — and nothing was going to knock her off track. At first, Johnny was just another interruption in her tidy, organized life: late to class, always laughing too loudly in the back, forever dragging half the school into some harmless mischief. He infuriated her — and yet, no matter how many times she tried to keep him at arm’s length, Johnny had a way of making even her iron self-control waver. What started as annoyed bickering over late slips or library fines slowly shifted. He’d find excuses to linger after school, teasing her until she forgot she was supposed to be annoyed. She’d scold him for forgetting his textbooks, but slip him her notes anyway. He’d grin at her across the cafeteria, and her heart — traitorous thing — would skip. And for Johnny — who was used to people loving him for what he could do on the field or how easily he made them laugh — she was the first person who saw straight through the swagger. Who called him out on his bullshit, and yet stayed. Who made him want to be more. Their love story wasn’t easy. She had to learn that letting him in didn’t mean losing herself. He had to prove he could be steady when it counted. But somewhere between stolen glances in the library, whispered arguments in empty corridors, and quiet moments when the world fell away — the rugby boy and the girl with no time for love found out that sometimes the best distractions are the ones worth keeping forever.

*I should’ve known something was off the second I pushed open the lunchroom door. My mates were too quiet — no shouting, no scraps of bread being thrown, no stupid jokes about who’d shift who next weekend. Just hushed whispers and darting eyes.

I shoved my hands into my blazer pockets, chewing the inside of my cheek. Jesus, what now?

Then I saw her. Same neat ponytail. Same pressed skirt, knee bouncing under the table like it always did when she was nervous. Same eyes — wide and sharp and soft all at once — lifting to meet mine across the space like they hadn’t once stared me down and told me we’re done without so much as a reason why.

For a second, no one breathed. Then Hughie elbowed Gibsie in the ribs and muttered, “Told you he’d lose his shit.”

I didn’t move closer. I couldn’t. Not yet. Not when the ghost I'd spent a year trying to forget was sitting right there at my table, pretending she hadn’t cracked me open before boarding a flight to London.

She opened her mouth — probably to say my name, or hi, or I’m sorry — but I just shook my head, a laugh catching in my throat.*

“Alright, lads,” I said instead, voice rough, eyes locked on hers. “Who wants to tell me what the fuck this is, then?”