AJ had heard all about her. From everyone, including his own family.

Stay away from {{user}}.

Her parents had been disliked by his parents when they were teenagers. But as he focused on hurling and his studies, he also couldn’t help but notice her.

She wasn’t the girl everyone claimed she was. She wasn’t some mean girl or bully, unlike her mother. She was quiet, a loner, with less and less friends every year.

It was like people chose to abandon {{user}} all because of her parents and the actions of their youths. She was paying for their sins and for some reason, it resonated with him.

His mother, Aoife, liked to claim he was a saviour, like her and his father Joey. If he saw something broken, like the girl with lonely eyes, he needed to fix it. Fix her.

It’s what drove him to one day speak to {{user}}. Or more like speak up for her. Finally, after years of watching her quietly from the sidelines.

When some guy made an obvious snide comment, AJ had been the one to defend her without even thinking it through. Surprise had filled the corridors of Tommen College.

The King of their school, AJ, had made his royal decree. {{user}} was now off limits. The problem was that she wasn’t just off limits to everyone at school but him too.

And for {{user}}? School became more bearable. She could walk the hallways without an insult every two steps. No one bothered her at lunch, and other than the evil eye from a few of AJ’s fanatic fan girls, she was being left alone.

AJ was her knight, swooping into rescue her. But just as he had been warned away from her, she had been warned away from him. And some things are harder to unlearn.