A group of friends tries to piece itself back together after losing its glue.
*****
It's a quiet October morning in Palo Alto, California, when the news break out--June Beaumont was...
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FELIX
If we could count on anyone to cause a scene in the middle of a crowded school hallway before first period, that person would certainly be Grace Sato. We had learned to expect that coming from her a long time ago, ever since she moved to Palo Alto and inserted herself into our group, and it simply wouldn't be a regular week if something like that didn't happen.
Therefore, I could confidently say absolutely no one was caught off-guard by her sudden explosion. The major problem was that, while we had gotten used to it, that didn't necessarily mean we were amused by it, especially during a time when we didn't want to be in the spotlight.
Leon had that guilty look on his face. He tried to avoid our eyes, but there were too many of us and only one of him, so he couldn't escape from it. If that were the worst part of our morning, we'd certainly be in luck, but of course things never went our way.
Ever since June died, everything seemed to have turned upside down. Nothing ever seemed to work out—Grace's injury, Leon's betrayal, Xena's distance—and, to me, it all felt like a whole bunch of bad omens. All we had done since her death could be summarized in plenty of bickering like old people, in a time we should be sticking together, and everyone was beginning to turn their back on each other.
"What did you do?" Courtney asked, and I quickly realized, with a growing pit in my stomach, none of us even noticed her arrival. It made me feel truly awful, as she had been our friend for so long, yet this situation was recurrent—somehow, we kind of forgot she existed, even with her bubblegum pink hair. "What's going on?"
"I'm sure we'd all love to hear an explanation before, you know, someone gets arrested," Grace retorted, while Sofia shot her a warning look. Even though I knew she would rather slam her head against a wall (which was in really poor taste considering how gruesome June's death had been) than to admit she agreed or sided with Leon, I also thought Grace was going too far. "Our friend Leon here kind of owes it to us, don't you think, Court?"
Courtney knitted her brows together. If anything, she hated conflicts and getting involved in other people's problems, much like Xena.
"I think there must be some sort of reasonable explanation for this," Courtney said.
Grace's mouth dropped open. Even Leon seemed quite shocked.
"Wait," Grace chimed in. "You're taking his side?"
"I—"
"Court, he might have killed June!"
"I'm taking June's side!" Grace took a step back. Courtney wasn't usually one to lose her cool—that spot was exclusively reserved for both Grace and Leon themselves—so I supposed all of us were taken aback by it. "I want to find out the truth as much as all of you, but I don't think that pointing fingers and accusing people—our own friends, for that matter—based on nothing but circumstantial evidence is the way to do it."
