The next day, Lucas Morton wasn't the only boy waiting outside of her school.
Nyra was busy with some kind of music practice, so Natalie was alone, making her way to the school gates when she saw him.
The first warning sign should have been the crowd of girls blocking the exit—more than there were yesterday when Lucas was alone. But Natalie's thoughts were deep in the assignment she'd received last period, and so she didn't notice until she'd reached the edges of the crowd and her eyes met his.
Leon Hughes, waiting outside of her school gates.
The pair leaned against a car together like something out of a fashion magazine. Except they weren't models, and they weren't wearing high end brands—they were just a pair of teenage boys in wrinkled uniforms, their ties missing, and blazers long gone.
Natalie froze.
He hadn't noticed her yet. No, he was busy scrolling through his phone. Lucas, beside him, chatted eagerly with the girls around them.
Natalie couldn't help but feel a little relieved. At least it was Lucas giving them attention, not Leon—but she quickly banished the thought for her mind. She couldn't let herself get excited; let herself start imagining impossible scenarios that would get her hopes up all for a fantasy.
She took a moment to stare at him from far away. She'd never seen him like this before—outside of his school, in the sunlight. Surrounded by girls she'd grown up with.
She'd never seen him with a girl in general, and Natalie was once again reminded that she knew nothing about him. For all she knew, he could have a girlfriend already. He could be here for her.
His bruises had faded, only slightly, and he'd removed the band-aids from his skin, exposing his scabbed cuts to the air. Natalie thought she could remember every curve, every brush of skin she'd felt while dressing those same wounds less than a day ago.
Another thing she noticed—he was popular. Popular, like the main character of a cheesy teen flic. If she didn't know better, she might have thought he were a celebrity.
The girls around him seemed to gravitate towards him. While Lucas was the one talking to them, their eyes seemed to flitter towards Leon, their smiles growing each time they peered at him, as if hoping he would be peering back.
He never did. His eyes were fixated on his phone, and Natalie's relief only grew.
Lucas spotted her first.
His eyes seemed to drift over the faces of the girls around him, almost scanning, searching, until they landed on her. Slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted, and his elbow twitched, digging just barely into Leon's side. So slightly that Natalie wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't so tuned into him.
Leon certainly noticed.
Instantly, his eyes shot up to hers.
Natalie's heart throbbed so heart, she thought she might collapse. The two stared at each other for a moment, until he pushed off the car and stepped forward.
Her stomach sank.
He wasn't going to talk to her, was he? Not here. Not in front of everyone.
She threw a worried glance over her shoulder, her eyes landing on the window that she knew led into the principal's office—her dad's office.
She had to get out of here.
Ignoring his sharp gaze, she tucked her chin and pushed past the edges of the crowd, hurrying down the road.
Her own name had never scared her. Not until today.
"Natalie!"
She sped up, ignoring his voice, praying it hadn't been as loud as she thought it was.
"Natalie, wait!"
Apparently, Leon Hughes couldn't take a hint.
Natalie only walked faster, suddenly wishing she hadn't ever told him her name. The people she passed seemed to stare at something behind her and she had the awful feeling that Leon was following her down the street, right in front of her school.
"Natalie!"
She couldn't help it. She had to look over her shoulder. With that one look, his entire body seemed to change, his expression brightening at gaining her attention. But that wasn't what she was looking at. Her eyes drifted past him, over her shoulder.
Most of the girls were still distracted with Lucas, a master of grabbing attention, but out of the few girls staring after Leon, one girl was decidedly staring right at Natalie.
Veronica Brown.
Her eyes shot back to Leon as he reached forward, his fingertips just inches away from her wrist. Natalie's whole body jumped into motion as she grabbed his arm, shoving him around the corner and against a brick wall.
"What the hell? Are you crazy?" she sputtered, eyes darting around to ensure they were alone here. "We can't be seen together. Especially not here."
Instantly, his expression soured.
Where before he was looking at her with wide eyes that seemed to take in her entire being, hungrily darting from her eyes to her mouth, to her collarbones; now he was frowning, staring at her with something between disgust and betrayal.
Her grip on his shoulders loosened and she stepped back, remembering herself.
"Because of my reputation," Leon muttered.
Natalie frowned at him. "What? No, because you're a male."
His eyes cut to her, his brows lifting slightly at the statement. "What do you mean?"
"You're a boy!" Natalie exclaimed. She shook her head, calming herself down. "This is an all-girls school, first of all. You're not supposed to be here. And if my dad found out—"
"Why would your dad find out?"
"Because he's the principal," she said.
Leon's eyebrows shot up. He blinked at her. Then, as if realising how close the two were, his expression softened, and his entire body seemed to slink closer towards her.
Natalie sucked in a breath, immediately taking another short step back.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I wanted to see you," he replied.
Natalie refused to admit that the words sent her heart spiralling. She didn't want to think about them too hard. She didn't want to think about him at all—especially not here, just metres away from her dad, and Veronica Brown, and the entire school where she was exactly who Leon didn't know who she was.
She would be humiliated if Leon discovered just how unliked she was. It wasn't that people disliked her. No, she never did anything severe enough to be outwardly disliked. She never did anything at all.
She wasn't disliked, just unliked. Constantly existing in a state of neutrality, where nobody liked her, and nobody disliked her.
It was embarrassing. Where Leon attracted attention no matter what he did, Natalie couldn't get attention even if she tried.
At school, she was just Natalie Chen, the principal's quiet daughter who only had one friend. With Leon, she was—she didn't know who she was. But what she did know was that she didn't want her school reputation tainting whatever image he'd formed in his head of her.
Natalie shook the thoughts from her mind. She'd worry about that later. Right now, she needed Leon far away from her school.
"I'm going to your school now," she said.
"I wanted to see you sooner," he replied, stepping closer. He murmured her name like it was the oxygen he breathed, "Natalie."
Her entire body felt like it was on fire. She didn't want to start overthinking his words, but how else was she supposed to take them? She shook her head. Blinked hard. Took another step back.
"Don't come here again," she said. "At least, not for me. I can't have my dad see us together."
Her dad. Her classmates. She didn't want anything to spoil her secret—what could she call it? Friendship? —with Leon Hughes.
"It won't turn out good for either of us," she finished explaining.
"But I just wanted to see you—talk to you—"
"Exactly." She sighed, glancing back towards her school. It was only a matter of time before someone came past. Or worse, if someone came looking for them.
She remembered the look on Veronica's face as she walked away. She didn't want to get on her bad side now, with less than a year of school left.
Natalie had lived their twelve years of classmate-ship in close-to-silence.
She never did anything to provoke Veronica, not even when she'd pinched her eyes up at her in childhood innocence. Not even when she'd excluded her from every lunchtime truth or dare in Year 7 pretentiousness. Not even when she'd beaten her out for school captain and condescendingly sneered, "Maybe there's been a mistake?"
There was no mistake. They both knew that. Veronica was more liked. More popular. More pretty. Everything that Natalie was not. And it didn't matter how many exams she aced, how many awards she won, she never had a chance at school captain.
She'd never have a chance with Leon.
Not if Veronica had a say in it.
A thought struck her suddenly like lightning.
"How did you find my school anyway?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Your uniform. I asked my friend Lucas about it, and he said it's St Helena's."
She looked down at her uniform feeling stupid. It was so obvious. Her navy plaid skirt and white blouse may have been a common combination, but the St Helena's blazer was hard to miss, with its bright logo embroidered over her heart.
She couldn't imagine him having a conversation with his friend and bringing her up. It made her chest feel funny, the idea that he talked about her in his free time.
She frowned at him. "Is that why he was here yesterday too?"
Leon laughed a breathy sort of laugh and shook his head. "Maybe. He wanted to scout you out. Your Instagram profile is private, and you don't have a Facebook account. He wanted to see you in better quality than a tiny circle on a screen."
"And you?"
"I just wanted to see you."
It was like he'd covered her in gasoline and set her alight. She thought she might die if he said those words again.
She wanted to stand here and talk to him all day. She also wanted to end this conversation as fast as possible and never speak to him again. She didn't know what she wanted to do. She didn't know how to react.
She closed her eyes for a moment and said, "Look, I need to get to my mum's school now."
She glanced back towards her school. If she peeked around the corner, she could see Lucas Morton still leaning against his car, the crowd of girls still surrounding him.
"I think those girls are waiting for you," she added.
"Them?" Leon asked. He didn't even glance in the direction Natalie had looked in. His eyes stayed steady on her. "I don't care about them. I came here to visit you. If you're leaving, then so am I."
There it was again. Words that Natalie didn't want to read into, but there was no other way to read them. He'd come here to visit her. No boy had ever come to visit her at school before.
She wanted to scream that she wanted to see him too and hear him say her name and discover all of his secrets, but even the thought of it made her blush.
"Right," she said, her face warm. "Bye then."
She rubbed her face, feeling awkward under his stare, and turned to continue walking. Except, his footsteps followed and there he was, beside her—almost. He walked a few steps to her side, lagging behind just slightly.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Words refused to form. She continued walking and so did he. She turned the corner and so did he. She crossed the road and so did he.
There was no denying it. He was officially walking with her.
"Are you following me?" she asked five minutes into her walk.
He shrugged. "I'm just going back to school."
She pursed her lips, accepting it as his answer. Her steps never slowed. She'd memorised this path over the years. She knew every tree, every house, every shop she passed.
Except now, with Leon's steps in sync with hers, the streets felt different.
Every time she turned her head to gaze into shop windows, she could see Leon there in her periphery. She could see him there in the window reflections, staring right back at her.
She felt hot. She felt suddenly like she wasn't supposed to be here, on this street, walking with a boy. Did this count as walking with a boy? She wasn't sure. She couldn't think straight, not with the sound of his shoes on the pavement behind her.
She decided to stop turning her head. She didn't need to see the tips of his school shoes in the corner of her eyes. Instead, she focused straight ahead, her eyes remaining steady on the tree-lined road that led to her mother's school.
It had never been a long walk, but with Leon behind her, it felt like a marathon.
It wasn't until she was just a few blocks from the school that she turned to look at him.
She didn't realise it at first, but someone was calling his name.
"Hughes?"
It was his last name. Maybe that was why she didn't realise it at first. Leon existed in her mind solely as Leon or Leon Hughes, never just Hughes.
But now, here someone was, shouting his surname from across the street.
"Hughes! Hey! OI! Hughes, turn around!"
Her gaze fell to the source of the voice. A boy. No, a group of boys. They looked like delinquents to her, all around her age but not wearing uniforms. They sat around the front of a store, blowing out clouds of sweet-smelling smoke as they shouted in Leon's direction.
She tried not to stare, scared that she'd be dragged into this situation, but she couldn't help from noticing how completely intimidating they were. Their shirts seemed to hug their bodies from how their muscles bulged, and she knew if she stood beside them, they'd tower right over her.
Her heart raced. Were these people the reason he was always covered in bruises?
A flicker of recognition lit in her mind. One of the boys—the shorter, skinnier one—looked familiar. It took Natalie only a second to figure out where she recognised him from. This was the boy that had been yelling at Leon yesterday. The boy she watched from the sick bay window as he grabbed Leon's shirt collar and shouted in his face.
She turned to Leon, her stomach somersaulting each time the group called his name again. She didn't want to be involved in any kind of fight. Surely, he'd know what to do. Surely, he'd do something.
Except, he never responded.
He didn't even look fazed. Instead, he was staring straight ahead, ignoring them like they were the wind and he had places to be.
His eyes landed on Natalie's and his lips twitched up momentarily in a smile that was so characteristic of Leon Hughes; her heart leapt into her throat at the thought of being on the receiving end of it.
"Hughes! Stop ignoring me!" one of the boys shouted.
Leon only continued walking. Natalie decided if he could ignore them, she could too. She turned back to the road and kept walking.
The group didn't stop shouting his name until they reached the end of the street and turned the corner, making the final stretch towards Sierra Grammar.
Natalie's blood pulsed through her entire body. Her mind raced. She wanted to ask him about the group of boys. She wanted to ask him a million things.
But when they reached the school gates, he stopped.
She turned to him and found him smiling at her again, and her stomach lurched—this time because she knew he would vanish again, back into the shadows where he came from. It was a smile in the form of a goodbye.
"I'll see you next time, Natalie," he said.
She watched him walk away, feeling strangely like she wouldn't see him again; not for a long while.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
when i write this story i like to imagine it as a webtoon or some dramatic k-drama for some reason hahaha
sorry for vanishing for so long, I went overseas and then I got super sick when I got back but I'm finally recovering! I hope you liked this chapter! As always, let me know what you thought!!!
i promise i'll see you a lot sooner than last time hehe thanks for reading <3