Leila, her mother, and her twin sister relocate after a family tragedy that's left them all damaged in different ways. Finding herself at a new school partway through her senior year, she is paired up with the ever-annoying Zach. Leila passes him of...
The words still haunted her. She could remember her dad's voice—the monotone he had used, portraying none of the love Leila had grown up knowing. That's what had happened when he got sick, though. Her dad had slowly left, until he was nearly a stranger to his family. When he had died, they didn't grieve: they had done so months earlier.
That didn't make his absence any easier.
* * *
I'm just saying, he's got nice hair, Angela signed. And that Italian jawline is exactly your type.
Leila stared at her sister blankly.
I don't think a jawline can have a nationality. Angela shrugged, and thoughtfully looked ahead.
Does he have a sexy accent? She asked. Leila cringed.
Please don't. And no. He, like, pronounces h's really softly sometimes, and rolls his r's a bit occasionally. It's not sexy. Again. Don't say that. Angela laughed, clearly unbothered.
Yes, they were talking about good old Zach Boisclair. Leila suspected that Angela was into him, or at least was charmed by him, because she had been spending a lot of time trying to fill in the gaps of knowledge about him that Leila had over her.
You should probably leave for school, Angela said. You have French first, right? There was a twinkle in her eye, which Leila ignored as she closed her bedroom door.
Yes. I'll see you later. She called out a goodbye to her mother, who was possibly already gone, as she left through the door.
* * *
French was sort of similar to Spanish, because they were both romance languages and Latin-based, but Leila didn't seem to be given any reprieves for her knowledge of the latter. The class wasn't very advanced, but everybody else in it had had at least some former French education. Sitting beside Zach, Leila had been forced to accept his offered help.
He seemed nice enough. Leila thought that she might've overreacted to his first time meeting Angela—his reaction had certainly had something to do with the fact that she was deaf, and he seemed uncomfortable when they signed, but he had been pleasant to both of them ever since.
Zach was also not the intimidating, all-American popular guy she had first thought he was. The school didn't necessarily have a defined "it crowd," and although he probably would have been part of it if it did, she was realizing that he had a small group of friends, and everybody else just knew him because of the small population, and liked him because he had a welcoming personality.
The more she talked to him, the more she realized that he also had a very introverted side to him. Or something. Zach was generally very cheerful and happy to talk, but sometimes he just seemed a little bit closed off. Like now. They had been in class for twenty minutes, and he had only briefly spoken to her to help define a few words in the text they were reading.
"How was your night?" Leila asked, eventually becoming uncomfortable in the unfamiliar silence. French, at least, was a class that he was usually extra talkative in.
"It was fine," he smiled at her, but the glint in his eyes didn't accompany it. "Sorry, I'm just pretty tired. Couldn't sleep."
"Bad dreams?" She teased. "I once had a recurring nightmare about a bouncy castle." He huffed out a forced-sounding chuckle.
"Nothing that terrifying, fortunately," he replied. "Just leg stuff."
"Oh." She didn't think there was anything else to say about the matter. She hadn't asked further about it since the first day they met, and he hadn't offered anything up, but she didn't think it had been that long since he had lost it. He had obviously recovered enough to rely on a prosthesis for daily use, but she knew that people with prosthetic legs tended to have a much less pronounced limp than he did, after they had had years to adjust. She wondered if it ever hurt.
Her phone buzzed, so Leila busied herself with a conversation with her sister because yes, that counted as socializing.
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"Hey, what are you doing this weekend?" She asked Zach. He pulled out his phone, presumably checking his work schedule.
"I've got a grand total of zero plans. Project?" She nodded in relief.
"Yeah. Um, do you think your parents would mind if we went to your house? My mom's apparently having a few friends over, so Ange and I want to, you know. Give some space." He didn't say anything, which she was grateful for. Leila was pretty sure that he had put a few pieces together to figure out that her dad had passed away, and he was perceptive enough not to ask. That about summed up their friendship, she supposed.
"Yep, works for me. They're probably working, anyway. We can figure out when on Friday night, I guess."
With that, they went back to working in silence until the bell rang. Without saying anything, the two of them gathered their things and walked to Calculus together. It was becoming a routine, over the last few weeks, for them to do this. It was weird having three of her classes with one person, though. Her old graduating class had over 300 people, while this one had less than 50, so the same people tended to show up in her classes.
"Did you do the homework?" One of Zach's friends, Jordan, ran up behind them. "I'm pretty sure she's gonna kill me. I had ball, but it's the third time this week."
"Nah, I didn't," Zach replied nonchalantly. Leila and Jordan stared at him. "What? It's one night." Jordan eyed him warily.
"Hey, man, you okay? You always do the homework." Leila didn't say anything, but she felt the same. Zach took pride in the fact that he always had everything done, because nobody else ever did. He just grinned and rolled his eyes to Jordan, though, and they had gotten to the room, so she took her seat.
He was probably fine. And, on the bright side, there were only two more days until the weekend.
//
heyo, it's been a hot minute. wow. sorry, guys. there's too many excuses and i'm not gonna write them all here (i made a post on my profile if ur into it lol), but essentially, i got busy and didn't write. but i've got the next few chapters already written, and i'm gonna actually keep writing, so i'm gonna try to (actually) maintain a regular upload schedule. yep. look at me, setting deadlines for myself.
i'm getting kinda excited abt this too!! bc i've been trying to let y'all (wow how southern of a canadian from the west) get to know the characters a bit more, and i don't want to just blab their entire backstories out all at once (gotta have that slow burn), but it's been getting increasingly harder to like, write about zach without sounding like i'm holding back, but also without saying everything about him. anywayyy, thanks to anyone who's still here!!
