Natalie sat in the office chair, resisting the urge to stand up and reorganise the shelves for the fifth time. She tapped a pen against her maths homework sitting open on the table in front of her. She'd checked the answers three times now. She was sure they were right.
Maybe she'd check them again—just to be sure.
She finished her homework an hour ago and finished cleaning and restocking the nurse's supplies fifteen minutes ago. She was sure at this point she'd memorised everything in the room.
Three opened boxes of band-aids. Five ice packs. Five hot water bottles. Three chairs. One kettle.
Natalie wanted to count them again.
It had been almost two weeks since she'd last seen Leon. She wondered if he'd even shown up at school—not that she'd ever ask her mum something like that.
Each day, she would come to this tiny room. She would clean and restock and do her homework and double-triple check her homework, secretly waiting for that knock on the door.
It never came.
She glanced at the clock, watching as it ticked closer and closer to the hour.
Soon, her mum would tell her it was time to go, and it'd just be another day without Leon Hughes appearing in her life.
It wasn't like she needed him. She'd only seen him a handful of times, and more often than not, their time together was spent in silence. Really, Natalie knew close to nothing about the boy.
She didn't need him.
She checked the clock again.
She was pathetic.
She ran a hand over her face and stood. She would recount the band-aids and make sure there was enough if the entire school got a paper cut tomorrow.
As soon as she stood, a knock came from the door.
She didn't think. She only held her breath and raced across the room to pull open the door, every step wishing, hoping it'd be—
"Leon." Her voice betrayed her.
He stared at her, his entire body slumping against the door frame.
Natalie sucked in a breath, her hand covering her mouth as she took him in. His face was bruised, worse than before. Fresh, reddish-brown bruises splattered over older, green-blue ones that rarely had the chance to heal. Grazes painted red over the bruises and his lip was busted open, sticky blood drying over his bottom lip.
She was amazed he was still standing.
"Can I come in?" he asked, his voice quiet.
Natalie nodded furiously, pulling the door open for him.
He limped inside, falling into a slouch in the nearest chair. Natalie took her time closing the door, taking this opportunity to look at him completely.
His face wasn't the only thing beaten up. His shirt had been torn and she recognised those patches of reddish-brown against the white of his shirt to be blood. Judging by the way he gripped his stomach; she knew there would be bruising across the skin there too.
She felt queasy, almost lightheaded. Her eyes kept flickering back to his bloody lip and she thought she might faint. She could feel her own mouth throbbing, as if she'd been punched herself.
"Let me call the nurse," she muttered. This was out of her ability. He needed real help.
Leon's hand darted out, grabbing her wrist. He met her eye, shaking his head, just barely, wincing as he did so.
Natalie understood immediately. She knew he didn't want the school to be involved. And as much as she hated it, she had to listen to him. She didn't want to scare him off—she didn't want him to have nowhere to turn to when he was covered in blood and bruises.
She could take care of him.
She fluttered anxiously throughout the room, gathering supplies as she went. Bandages, disinfectant, antiseptic cream, icepacks—and all the while, Leon's eyes followed her every move.
By the time she returned to his side, her face felt like it was on fire.
"How did this happen?" she whispered, more to herself as she began disinfecting his visible cuts. She pressed a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant against one especially bloody wound and she swallowed the queasiness that followed.
Leon shook his head, refusing to speak. She frowned. She couldn't force him to speak. Instead, she focused on cleaning his wounds. She soaked another cotton ball and, with one hand holding his jaw, she dabbed it against his lower lip.
Leon watched her as she cleaned the dried blood from his mouth with careful precision, her gaze never wandering from her work, even as he stared at her. Even as his breath fanned over her fingers.
She reached for the ice packs. "Put this one on your jaw, and this one on your stomach."
Leon laughed, then winced. "How did you know my stomach was bruised?"
She ignored him, starting to apply bandages to his open wounds. "Does this have anything to do with those boys who were yelling at you the last time I saw you?"
The last time she saw her, being weeks ago.
Why haven't you come to see me since? she wanted to ask.
She didn't.
"You're such a nerd," Leon said instead.
Natalie frowned, her eyes finally meeting his. He smiled at her, his eyes flickering towards her homework still opened on the table.
"Studying? After school?" he asked. "Don't you ever rest?"
She wanted to scoff. Rest? She wasn't familiar with the word. Shrugging, she said, "I was just doing my homework."
"Homework," he echoed, his smile growing. "Of course."
Natalie continued working. She disinfected a cut on his eyebrow, wincing more than he did when she applied pressure. Blood soaked through the cotton, and she wanted to gag. Cringing, she wiped it clean and applied a band-aid, protecting it from infection.
Her fingers slid over the plastic of the band-aid, smoothing it out against his skin. Scars dented into his forehead, relics from old cuts he'd gotten before, some still pink and fresh, as if the scab had just come off. Natalie's touch hovered for a moment.
Where did he get all these cuts from? All these scars?
"Who would hurt you like this?" she whispered, the words slipping from her lips before she could stop them.
His eyes snapped to hers and her heart shuddered to a stop. She regretted the words immediately, her voice dying in her throat. He looked at her, an ice pack pressed to his cheek, and his lips twitched into a smile.
"Are you worried about me, Natalie?" he asked.
She didn't try to deny it.
"How can I not worry? When you come in here like this?" she murmured. Her fingers moved from one scar to the next, before pausing over another fresh cut.
Her stomach turned at the sight of the blood. She felt dizzy. She felt covered in it. But she couldn't leave him like this. She grabbed a new cotton ball and pressed it against his forehead.
He winced, sucking in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.
"Sorry," Natalie whispered. "Sorry for all this."
"Why are you apologising?" he asked. She met his eye, and he smiled up at her, through bruises and cuts. "You're helping me, Natalie."
Her mouth closed. She chewed on her lip. She didn't know how to respond. Often, Natalie didn't know how to respond to people. Leon Hughes was not people. He was shadows and mysteries and a million questions on her tongue that he'd probably never answer, because why would he give Natalie the time of day? In front of him, Natalie didn't know how to do a lot of things.
She stayed silent, plastering a fresh band-aid over his final cut.
She paused, stepping back for a moment to take him in. Bruised. Covered in band-aids. Scars jutted out of the plastic she'd stuck across his face, a constant reminder that this would happen again. Again. Again.
Natalie didn't want it to happen again.
But if it didn't—how would she see him again?
"What are you thinking?" he asked. "Natalie."
Her lips twitched. "You say my name after every sentence."
"I like your name."
Her face grew hot. "It's a common name."
"But I like it on you," he replied. "Natalie."
She liked the way he said it. She'd never heard her name spoken like that before—like it was a unique name. A pretty name. Like it was special. She was special.
She swallowed. Her hands busied themselves cleaning the rubbish left on the table.
"My friends call me Nat," she said. Only Nyra and her parents called her Nat. He didn't need to know that.
"I like Natalie," he replied. His hand reached towards her, fingers brushing the back of her hand. Cold. Cold from the ice pack he was clutching. A shiver ran down her spine. "Do you know my name?"
"Leon," she said without thinking. His smile gleamed at her, and she looked away hastily. She felt the need to justify herself. "Everyone knows it. You're famous."
"Famous?" he echoed. "For what?"
She stared at him. He laughed quietly, catching on. His touch retreated from her, returning to the ice pack that he clutched against his ribs.
"Right. My bruises?"
It wasn't much of a question. It was an answer. He knew it was the reason people knew his name. It was the reason people clutched their bags a little tighter when he passed. It was the reason Natalie knew of him, long before she saw him that first day, slumped in the shadows of the hallway.
"Everyone talks about them," Natalie explained quietly. "There are rumours. About where you get them from."
"I bet there are," he said. She could feel his eyes on her. "Do you believe them?"
She shook her head. Shrugged. "I don't know what to believe."
He looked at her like he wanted a better answer and she sighed, turning to him completely.
"I guess I sort of believed you might have been a drug dealer at one point," she admitted.
He flashed his teeth at her. "And now?"
"I don't know. Do you have any drugs on you?"
"Does aspirin count?"
"Even I have aspirin."
"Then no. I'm not a drug dealer."
"Why then?" she asked again. "Why are you always hurt like this?"
Her hand drifted towards his cheek. His grip against his ice pack loosened and it slipped, revealing his skin, speckled with green and blue and purple. All shades of bruises lined his cheek, drifting towards his swollen eye.
Leon's mouth opened and then—a knock.
Someone was knocking on the door.
Natalie's hand flew to her mouth.
The entire room stilled. Tilted. She thought she might pass out or be sick. Or both.
She stopped breathing.
"God, that was a horrible meeting," her mum was beginning to say, the door handle starting to twist, the door opening.
Natalie's eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape, for a way out, for a saviour—anything.
Leon caught on fast.
Her eyes settled on her mother's desk, and he sprung to his feet, ducking under the desk right before the door opened and her mum stepped into the room.
"Jennifer just kept droning on and on about misusing the printer. All because someone printed their kid's assignment using work printers. As if this school can't afford a bit of extra ink." She paused, her eyes settling on Natalie.
She tried to act natural. She didn't know what natural was. She smiled a tight, close-lipped smile at her mother. Her hand rested on her hip, then fell back to her side. She folded her arms over her chest. Was this natural?
"What happened?" her mum asked.
Natalie's eyes darted to the desk—to Leon, cramped beneath it, his eyes worried as they met hers. She forced them back to her mum. Swallowed.
"What do you mean?"
Her mum nodded towards the chair where Leon had dropped his ice packs. "Are you okay?"
"Oh!" Natalie exclaimed. She nodded. Paused. Tried to think of an excuse. "I just stubbed my finger. On... the desk. Drawer. Drawer of the desk. I jammed it."
Natalie grabbed her index finger, almost like an afterthought, and pulled a hopefully convincing wince.
Her mother frowned. Wrinkles etched into her forehead as she gazed around the room, searching for something. Something. Something that was hiding under the table. Something that Natalie could feel looking at her. Waiting.
"Okay," her mum said finally. Natalie could almost breathe again. "Are you ready to leave?"
"Yeah! Yeah. Just let me pack all my stuff up first."
"Okay."
They both paused, mother and daughter staring at each other.
Natalie released a tight breath.
"It might take a while. I can just meet you at the car," she said.
Her eyes glanced towards the desk. Leon was still looking at her. She looked back to her mum.
"There's only a few things, just hurry up," she said, waving a hand as if to say: you're taking too much time.
Natalie shrunk beneath her gaze. She wanted to shrivel up and vanish from the room. She wanted to start the day over and pretend this wasn't happening—that Leon Hughes wasn't hiding from her mother beneath a desk.
But she couldn't.
So, she lied.
"I need to go to the bathroom too."
Her mum frowned. Sighed. Her hands fell to her side and Natalie knew she'd won.
"Fine," her mum said, stepping back towards the door. "I'll meet you in the car. I need to grab something from the staff room anyway. Be quick about it, okay?"
By the time Natalie replied, the door had shut behind her mum and Leon was out from under the desk. He laughed, straightening his shirt as he stretched beside her.
"I am so sorry," Natalie began. Her face was hot, embarrassment hitting her hard.
"Don't be sorry," he said, grinning. "I liked the view."
From where he'd been hiding, most of what he would've been able to see was her legs. As if it were possible, blood rushed to her head, and she grew even hotter. She held her hands to her face, half hoping it would cool her down, and half hoping it would hide her from him. Leon only chuckled at her, reaching out to take her hand and forcing her to look at him.
"Really," he said, "it's fine. Your mum seems nice."
"She is, it's just, if she saw you..." Natalie shook her head. "I'm just glad she didn't see you."
"Glad she didn't see me, a boy?" he asked. "Or glad she didn't see me, Leon?"
"A boy," she replied quickly. She paused, her eyes flitting over his bruises and cuts. "And, I mean..."
He laughed, shaking his head. "I get it. The bruises aren't a good look, hey?"
Natalie frowned. She glanced over his wounds, her frown only deepening. Not only were there bruises and fresh grazes, but beneath them all, scares lined his skin, leaving permanent reminders of—what? Where had they come from?
It was the question that lived on her tongue.
"Where did you go?" she asked.
He met her eye, understanding instantly. "You ask a lot of questions, Natalie."
He always said her name like that. Like it was the most important part of his sentences.
"I have a lot of questions," she continued. "Where are your bruises from? Where do you disappear to? I haven't seen you in weeks."
"You haven't seen me," he replied, "but I've seen you."
"What?"
"You never saw me around your school? Around this school? I'd be in the hallways sometimes. Downstairs, out the window. You never noticed?"
She shook her head, frowning. Her mind reeled back, searching through her memories over the past few weeks. Had she seen him? No. If there was one thing Leon did well, it was remain hidden until he wanted to be seen.
"You never came up to me," she reasoned. He shrugged.
"You told me not to. I never had a chance without us being seen."
"You could've come here," she said. Her voice came out whinier than she'd hoped, like she was complaining that he hadn't visited her. She was complaining. She was angry. Annoyed. Hurt.
You could've come here. I was waiting for you here.
"I couldn't," he replied, as if that answered any of her questions. "But I could today. I'm here now."
"When will you come back?"
He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. "I don't know. Soon. I hope."
He seemed ready to leave, the door separating the two of them. Natalie didn't want him to leave. She didn't want to wait weeks again, pacing the floor, waiting for him to reappear. If he would reappear.
He took another step back. "Your mum must be wondering where you are."
She ignored that. Instead, she stepped forward, as if being pulled forward by his movement. "I'll be waiting for you."
He smiled, really smiled at her. It was everything he wasn't, and yet all he could be at once. No shadow hid in his grin, and it was far from fleeting, and yet she felt as though this was the closest to the true Leon that she'd ever seen.
And then he was gone, back into the shadows,until she could see him again.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Hi!! it was my birthday the other day so here's my gift to you guys - I hope you enjoyed the chapter! let me know what you thought as always, your comments keep me writing!
See you soon <3