BFB High (with a continuous plot wow)

Chapter 10: A Surprising Confession

"Alright, I'll be heading to the faculty room to eat now," Professor X said as they finished grabbing the last of their things. As he stood up, he turned to Teddy. "Tell Leah I said hi when she arrives!"

Teddy simply nodded in confirmation.

With that, Professor X left, closing the door to give Teddy some privacy while she ate. After a while, Leah came in, seeming to have rushed here.

"Sorry if I kept you waiting long," Leah apologized. "Gym comes before lunch for us juniors, so I had to change clothes and everything before coming."

Teddy decided to pause her eating for now and signed to Leafy that it was okay. However, she soon chose to bite the bullet and signed the question, "What did you call me here for?" She of course had an idea, but she wanted to be sure.

"Uh, I was thinking of visiting Penelope in the hospital after school," Leah replied hastily as she started fiddling with her hands. "I was wondering if you'd like to come too. I know that you didn't have the best first impression of Penelope all those years ago and she was more of a friend of your friend than your friend initially, but you've gotten closer over the years right? And-"

Teddy slammed her hands on the table to get Leah to stop rambling and look up at her. "Of course I'll come with you," Teddy signed, "but you know that Penelope and I became friends long ago."

Penelope's come a long way from elementary school, Teddy thought. Sure, she could be harsh or insensitive sometimes, but so am I at times.

"What's the real reason?" Teddy finished signing, giving Leah a dubious look.

Leah eventually sighed. "I just- I don't know. This whole incident has made me realize that I can't always count on tomorrow, you know? I always try to stay upbeat and positive, but nothing is guaranteed. I can't count on people to always be here and it hurts."

Teddy gave Leah a sympathetic look. The green eyes girl took a deep breath before she continued.

"Imagining not seeing anybody again hurts, but it hurts so much more when it comes to Penelope," Leah muttered. "I can't believe it's taken me this much to know, but... I think Penelope's more than just my best friend. At least, she is to me."

Teddy's eyes widened a bit at this and she blinks.

"I know what you're thinking!" Leah continued. "What about Ferris? I know, I've been crushing on him for so long, and I always thought I was straight, but I don't know! I just don't!" Leah buried her head in her hands. "And what if I'm wrong? What if this is just some kind of grief response thing?"

Teddy slowly got up from her seat and gently patted her on the shoulder. Leah took her head out of her hands to look back up at the younger girl.

"There's nothing wrong with being bi or pan. Nobody should judge you for not being straight," Teddy signed slowly, her expression warm and sympathetic. "And I don't know if this is just grief or not," She paused before continuing to sign, her expression becoming more serious. "... But I don't think this is the best time though. Penelope's life is already complicated right now."

"Right, of course, I should wait," Leah said, nodding. "She's probably in a lot of pain, too. I would just add more problems if I sprung my feelings on her seemingly out of nowhere. And I think I need to sort out my own feelings too." She paused and smiled at Teddy, standing up and hugging her. "Thank you," Leah expressed genuinely.

Teddy just patted the taller girl's shoulder once more. While Teddy didn't like hugging most people, Leah was on her list of exceptions to her "no hug" rule. Eventually, Leah let go and Teddy chuckled and signed, "Want to eat now?"

Leah laughed. "Actually, yes. Gym has made me pretty hungry."

With that, the two girls sat together to eat. Although the mood was lighter now, they both could feel an undercurrent of worry for their friend.

Author's Note: Now that we're past the first day, I can make the time passed in a single chapter longer than a single class period, which makes it easier for me to end chapters on a cliffhanger. I didn't really end on a cliffhanger this chapter, but in the later chapters that I've written as a backlog, I try to end them with a cliffhanger because I'm evil like that.

Speaking of my backlog, since I know I'll be too busy during the school year to write chapters, I've decided to create a backlog of chapters. I've currently set aside three advanced chapters so that I can publish one per quarter/season during the school year. (It's a quarter system and not a trimester one because summer is also a quarter.) However, when I come back later to publish it, I'll have to write Author's Notes, make the picture and image description for the chapter, title the chapter, and maybe make a few tweaks to the actual content of the chapter if I find something that needs to be changed.

I'm mentioning this because I want to ask, is a backlog of three chapters enough? I know in the past, I've simply neglected this fanfiction during the school year, so I don't want to commit to too much, but at the same time, once a quarter seems to barely be an improvement. If you think it's not enough, please let me know what number of chapters I should keep backlogged and how you would prefer for me to pace the updates. I can't promise I'll manage to achieve that number if it's very high though, because I only have a limited amount of days of summer quarter left. I will try my best to reach as close to that number of backlogged chapters as possible.

UPDATE: Turns out I forgot to turn one of the layers in my drawing invisible and I didn't even realize until a day later, oops. I've updated the chapter to have the actual final version of the image, so it doesn't just have random lines on it.