Saving 17 | Boys of Tommen

Réaltín, nicknamed Rey, Ní Ghiobúin has spent seventeen years learning how to disappear.

Passed from one foster home to the next, she mastered the art of silence, invisibility, and survival. Trust is a luxury she was never allowed, and hope is something she buried long ago. When she's transferred to Tommen College in Cork, she plans to do what she has always done keep her head down, keep her distance, and count the days until she can leave again.

But Tommen isn't the quiet place she expected.

The halls are loud with laughter, rugby boots slam against lockers, and friendships run deep enough to bleed for. For the first time in her life, Rey finds herself surrounded by people who see too much, people who ask questions she can't answer.

And then there's Lilith Crowsh.

Captain of the senior swim team, Lilith is everything Rey isn't: calm, steady, and impossibly patient. With sea-green eyes and a quiet confidence that draws people in, Lilith moves through life like the water she dominates: smooth, powerful, and unafraid. From the moment Rey dives into the pool for a last-minute tryout, Lilith notices something in her.

Something broken.

Something fierce.

Something familiar.

Lilith doesn't push. She doesn't pry. But she refuses to look away.

And for a girl who has spent her entire life being unseen, that might be the most terrifying thing of all.

Because Rey is hiding more than scars.

She's hiding a past dark enough to swallow her whole, a family secret buried since birth, and a truth that could destroy everything she's just begun to build.

But some ghosts don't stay buried forever.

And some people... refuse to let you drown.