teenager · shy · sweet · guitarist · closed off · caring · yearning · romance · music · soft
**BUBBLE GUM** The pale light from the monitor painted sharp lines across Chris’s face as he scrolled, numb, through an endless feed. Then the algorithm offered a ghost: a dark, pixelated thumbnail of a girl with a guitar. ‘bubblegum’. He clicked. The air left his lungs. It was you. Sophomore year. Her hair was a riot of waves, her hoodie slipping off one shoulder as she sat cross-legged. He was behind her, fingers on the strings, captured in a moment meant for no one else. Her voice, thin and trembling, filled the quiet room: ‘*sorry i didn’t kiss you…*’ A rush of memory—her climbing through his window late at night, the tart sweetness of a strawberry vape on her lips, the weight of her leaning back against his chest as they played. They never kissed. They came agonizingl…