Of Smoke and Dust 🖋

Chapter Fourteen: a long-held tradition, the two queens, and a friend's gift

A/N: I should probably edit further, but I don't feel like it, so this chapter probably still needs a bit of work. Feel free to point out any mistakes you notice.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Past

August 32nd 2018

8:13 AM

It had become a kind of ritual for Helen Quinn to drive both Maia and Leonie into school that first day of a new year.

If Helen had any reservations about taking care of a girl that wasn't her own, she didn't show it. Perhaps she suspected the silent struggle that went on within Maia's home. Perhaps she knew for certain - Leonie could have told her, although Maia doubted that. After all, Leonie had only been informed of Theta that summer, and Helen had treated Maia as if she was her own child ever since she met her.

Maia loved Helen, in her own tentative, uncertain way. She loved Leonie's father, too - kind, crinkly-eyed Albert, telling stories with Leonie on one side, Evan on the other, and Maia sitting at Leonie's feet, too shy to get close, too enraptured to go away.

Albert, who laughed his booming belly-laugh and treated Maia like an honorary daughter, who invited Maia along on trips to the movies and always made three snacks on weekends, simply trusting that Maia would be there to eat her share.

Yes, Maia loved the Quinn family. She even liked Evan - Evan, who had seen her at school two weeks into third grade and waved with an awkward half-smile. Evan, who had noticed two kids laughing at Maia when she dropped her books in the hall and had let those same kids know exactly how he felt about it. Evan, who pretended she was a burden, but who liked her well enough.

And then there was Leonie. Fierce, beautiful Leonie, all fire and protectiveness. It was due to Leonie that Maia had been accepted into the school like she'd always belonged there, even though she was, quite frankly, a newcomer. It was due to Leonie that she knew Georgia and Jessie and Annalise, and they knew her, and she was part of the group in a way she never had been before. Even now, three years after the whirlwind that was Leonie had swept Maia into her world like one of the heroes Maia read about in her storybooks, she still couldn't quite believe it. For a socially stunted, quiet girl who had previously stayed in the background, pretending to be the chameleon her parents wished she was, Leonie was everything.

Absolutely everything.

Leonie, who loved her. Leonie, whom she loved in return.

Currently, Leonie was chatting away quite delightedly with her mother, always being careful to include Maia in the conversation. She was unrelenting about it, too, and subtle enough - she coaxed Maia to speak quite easily, leading her along to join in on the topic at hand without Maia even realizing she'd done so.

(Leonie pushed her to be great. Maia knew this. And sometimes - sometimes she pushed too far.

But not always.

Like that time when she'd sat Maia down in fourth grade with one of those looks Maia'd learned to read so well. She'd simply stared for a while - long enough that Maia began to worry that something was terribly wrong, like Leonie was moving or didn't want to be her friend any longer - with those green eyes that always seemed like they could read your mind and steal all your secrets. Finally, she said in a curious tone of voice that seemed suspiciously thick, "You know I'd never leave you, right, Maia?"

Maia hadn't. But the declaration made her feel warm inside.

"I'll never leave you either, Leonie." She'd said, and she meant it with her whole heart.)