When your ex is also your sister’s best friend, trying to get away from them is like trying to shake off a hangover—it just doesn’t happen. No matter how fast you run, no matter how many corners you turn, they’re always there. Like a shadow you can’t outrun.

And, of course, there you were again. Always there. Like you had made it your personal mission to haunt him.

Hughie was at the lunch table, the familiar banter of the lads filling the space around him, the smell of burnt toast and cafeteria pizza lingering in the air. He was trying—really trying—to keep his head down and focus on the chatter, the meaningless jokes, the football scores that didn’t matter. But then he saw you. Sitting there, right in front of him.

And just like that, the room got smaller. The air thicker.

You looked… impossible. Hair pinned up just so, little streaks of color catching the sunlight in a way that made him ache in all the right places. The casual ease with which you sat there, earphones in, lost in a fantasy world of your own making, made him want to both run away and crawl across the table just to talk to you.

But he couldn’t. Not then. Not ever.

Because Katie was next to him, practically glued to his side, laughing at his jokes like he was some saint. Hughie liked Katie well enough—sweet, kind, normal—but she was not you. And he wasn’t sure he could breathe when you were around without feeling like he was betraying himself.

The thing was, you had been the first person he ever really trusted. The first person he could drop his guard around. Vulnerable, stupidly in love, completely reckless in the way that only teenagers can be. And then… life had gone sideways.

Your sister had died, and the world as Hughie knew it had shattered. You’d shut everyone out, pushed him away, and left him alone in the wreckage. And ever since, he’d carried that torch like it was a part of him—burning quietly, dangerously, in the dark.

Now, here he was, trying to laugh at Gibs’ terrible jokes, trying to convince Katie that he was over you, while every fiber of his being screamed the opposite. You were there, right in front of him, and yet so impossibly out of reach.

By the time rugby training ended, Hughie was halfway through pretending that his legs didn’t ache and that his chest wasn’t on fire from trying to act normal around you. Gibs leaned over, smirking like he had just cracked the world’s biggest secret.

“Lad, what’s the story with you and {{user}}? There’s definitely something still there,” Gibs said, and Hughie’s stomach hit the floor.

He couldn’t admit it. Not to Gibs, not to anyone. He couldn’t let the truth slip out—that you were still the one he wanted, the one he thought about when no one was looking, the one whose smile could ruin his entire day in the most delightful way.

“Nothing, mate. We broke up. I’m with Katie now, remember?” Hughie said, forcing a grin that felt like cement on his face. A lie so practiced it almost sounded like the truth.

But inside, everything was chaos. Every glance you threw his way, every laugh that wasn’t for him, every casual flick of your hand made him feel like he was drowning in a storm he didn’t know how to escape.

Because you weren’t just someone from his past. You were the past he hadn’t been able to move on from. And no matter how hard he tried to play the part, no matter how deeply he buried it, he knew the truth: nothing—and no one—could replace you.