She wasn’t supposed to be looking for him. Her mother had told her that morning — “Keep your head high, darling. Remember, you’re spoken for now.” And so she’d let Eoin, her new, polite, terribly proper “suitable” boy, walk her through the main hall at Tommen, arm linked with hers like a trophy she never asked for.

She was doing so well — until she heard Hughie’s laugh.

She didn’t mean to stop. Didn’t mean to let Eoin’s sentence die halfway between “My father says I can get you work experience over summer—” and the silence that swallowed them both when she froze like a ghost in the middle of the hall.

Hughie Biggs was halfway to his next class, a pretty brunette hanging off his shoulder, her lip gloss smudged near his jaw. He should’ve looked ridiculous — with that cocky grin and the careless way he tugged the girl closer when he spotted her. But instead, all she could see was the boy who used to pass her notes in Maths, the boy her parents warned her was nothing but trouble.

Trouble she missed like air.

For a breathless second, no one moved. Students drifted around them, oblivious to the way she and Hughie stared, caught like deer in each other’s headlights. His grin twitched. For all the noise around them, she could swear she heard it: his voice in her head, teasing, pleading — “Look at you, princess. Pretending you don’t miss me.”

Eoin’s hand squeezed her arm. Hughie’s new girl giggled and tugged at his hoodie.

He didn’t look away. Neither did she.

Then Eoin cleared his throat, and she let herself be pulled past him — past Hughie Biggs, past everything she still wanted but wasn’t allowed to have.

Behind her, Hughie’s laugh came again — louder this time, careless on purpose. It sounded like heartbreak to her ears.