Saints and Sinners

The first thing you noticed about St. Augustine's Academy wasn't the chapel or the polished courtyard-it was the ocean. Always there, just beyond the gates, the crash of waves carrying salt into the air until it clung to your skin.

Your father called it a "fresh start," but beginning senior year at a private Catholic school where everyone already moved in perfect rhythm felt less like freedom and more like stepping into a play without a script.

The uniform didn't help. A black skirt, a too-crisp blouse, a deep red vest embroidered with Fides et Virtus. Faith and virtue. You weren't sure you had either.

Students clustered in tight groups that morning, laughter bouncing under the stone archways. You held your bag a little closer, slipping through the crowd no one thought to include you in. The new girl didn't need an introduction-they already had their hierarchies, their unspoken rules.

That was when you saw him.

Leaning against the railing that overlooked the beach, tie loose, hair sunlit and untamed, he looked as if the entire world had been built just to see if it could hold him. When his eyes flicked to yours-brief, sharp-the tide seemed to shift.

You didn't know his name. Not yet. But something told you that by the time this year ended, he'd be the reason St. Augustine's stopped feeling like a prison and started feeling like something else entirely.

I DO NOT OWN STAR WARS OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS