| 008. Labels |

  Brandy May was cute. Her Jheri curls bounced as she skipped along. She was super friendly, but she was also the type to dress up in leather jackets and fishnet gloves to seem tough. Not that she could get away with that at Blake’s. The uniform policy was very strict. Blazers. Ties. But the teachers encouraged students to show off their house colours and prefect badges with pride. Xenia thought Brandy was the type to go out of her way to bedeck herself in as many badges as possible just to complete a set.

  Phillip led them to their usual lunch spot, the picnic benches surrounded by oak trees, and Brandy chattered away like a sparrow beside him. Xenia glanced sideways at Leo and caught him staring. He spotted her assessing him and rolled his eyes.

  "Playing matchmaker doesn't suit you," he said as they sat down with the others. Jung-hee's head snapped up and she stared at Xenia with wide eyes.

  "Who's playing matchmaker?" she asked, gleefully. Xenia shot Leo a look. He'd timed that deliberately to cause her grief. "I heard Jessica stormed into your classroom earlier - what were you arguing about?"

  "It was nothing," Xenia said, shaking her head emphatically as Phillip stared at her in shock.

  "That's the first I've heard of it," he said, leaning forward with concern in his eyes. "I know you two don't get on, but that's unusual for you to be bickering in public."

  "Tell me about it," she groaned. "Anyone that's joined for sixth form is going to think I'm somehow involved in your weird situationship." She scrunched up her face and Phillip snorted into his panini. "I really don't need the drama."

  "Let's be honest, Xenia, you and Jess have a weird situationship of your own that has nothing to do with me." Xenia choked on her iced matcha latte.

  "It is not a situationship," she said, unable to keep the horror from her voice. Brandy was laughing at her. "She just resents me."

  "Lots of people resent you," Neil said, joining them and sitting on her other side. Xenia shoved him. "Not everyone picks a fight with you over it." He grinned at Phillip. "Honestly, that's to her credit. I had no idea Jessica had it in her."

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  "You make it sound like she's being brave," Jung-hee said, rolling her eyes and waving her chopsticks at them for emphasis. "When clearly it's just stupid."

  "Jung-hee," Xenia said, laughing. "I'm so flattered."

  “Don't start," Phlllip said, exasperated. Xenia felt a pang of conscience. "I thought we all agreed that we wouldn't talk about my girlfriend if we didn't have anything nice to say." Xenia's mouth dropped open. Jung-hee dropped her chopsticks on the table with a clatter.

  "Girlfriend," Jung-hee repeated loudly. "Since when did it develop that far?! We went to the lake district for one weekend!" Jenna shifted awkwardly on the bench beside her. Phillip shrugged.

  "Maybe the sex was really good," Brandy said mischievously. Causing Phillip to throw chips at her as she shrieked in delight. Jung-hee looked visibly sick.

  "I didn’t need that image in my day,” she said, looking to Jenna for support. Jenna stuttered over a reply. Before meeting Jenna, Xenia had falsely associated stuttering with shyness. But Jenna wasn’t shy. She had a very strong sense of conviction. The stammer was just a speech impediment. It didn’t define who Jenna was. She was so much more than that. More than the pitying looks of strangers who didn’t understand that she wasn’t frightened.

  “You’re staring,” Leo muttered to Xenia under his breath. She realised he was right. It was like she'd forgotten how to breathe.

  She wished Malachai was here - he'd have been the perfect distraction. She couldn't have Jessica become a solid fixture in any of their lives. It was bad enough when they'd been close to Lily. Bad enough to see her cousin's heartbreak. Jessica could do much worse damage.

  She shut the thoughts down.

  Her back straightened, her facial expression schooled into ice and disdain. She looked away from it, and met Leo's gaze instead.

  He could see the mask slotting perfectly into place. He didn't understand her, or specifically he didn't understand why she needed to be unaffected. But he could recognise there was something in the conversation that had triggered it. Something that made her shift into a more professional persona. He wasn't good at changing conversation topics. He worried that trying to would just draw the attention of their friends.

  He quietly looked away and focused his attention outwards. Taking slow, deliberate bites of food. Listening to their laughter. Letting a comfortable silence fall over him and Xenia like an old blanket.

  She slowly relaxed as the conversation naturally moved on in its own course. tangent by tangent. That was what she liked best about Leo. The easy way he gave her space. It was how he had become her best friend over the years. She'd never anticipated making any friends. Let alone someone so precious. She wished there was a way to express how much she loved him. As much as you could love a person, so platonically. The more she knew him, the more she relied on him.

  The more she worried.

  Because he was still a very sick young man, and not a day passed without that moment of visceral terror that he would leave her someday, and her life would never be the same without him.