Of Smoke and Dust 🖋

Chapter Sixteen: a bold move, a retaliation, and an unwanted new 'friend'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Past

January 1st 2019

11:30 AM

Juleen was sitting at Leonie's table at lunch that day.

At first, Maia didn't even register her being there; she was halfway across the cafeteria, intending to sit down at her usual place, when she realized that no, the chocolate-haired intruder was not, in fact, Aislynn Jeyne, the only girl who routinely sat with them that had that particular shade of brown hair. Nor was it slightly-lighter-haired Vivian, who she could also have explained away - Vivian had recently moved here, and Leonie had taken her under her wing almost immediately. Or even Annalise - determinedly neutral though Anna was, she still had to sit somewhere, and she seemed dead set on repeating Maia's routine from third grade. Leonie one day, Juleen the next - Maia didn't know how she did it and still kept that cheerful smile. It had to be exhausting.

But no. It wasn't Aislynn, or Vivian, or Annalise.

It wasn't Georgia, partaking in a new hobby that included copious amounts of hair dye.

It was Jules, and that made everything so, so much more complicated.

She was smiling; a sharp, vindictive thing that Maia was used to seeing on the face of her best friend. Her lunch tray was placed neatly in front of her. She was sitting...

...in Leonie's seat.

"Hello, Maia!" Jules beamed. Maia did not.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why, can I not sit with friends? Aren't students here supposed to be inclusive?" She shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the lady on lunch duty, who just happened to be standing nearby, talking to Lucy Kate.

Maia would bet anything Jules had something to do with that, too.

"Of course you can." Maia gritted her teeth, pasting on a smile before the lunch lady could look over at them. Getting the adults involved never worked out well.

"Sit with me, then." Jules patted the seat beside her. Maia froze, glancing around in the desperate hope that Leonie would materialize somewhere to fix this. Unfortunately for her, the only class she and Juleen shared - Spanish - took place in the period directly before lunch, and, also unfortunately, just happened to nearly always get out a good four minutes before the other classes. Leonie, in Math, wouldn't arrive for some time still.

Maia's fists clenched.

"Sit." Juleen said again, and this time, it was not a request.

Maia sat.

Her knuckles were white against the edges of her lunch tray. She wanted to flee - to move - but with the lunch lady right there, and with Juleen right here, she could not.

This table was Leonie's. If she ran now, Leonie might never forgive her.

"Juleen. It's been a while."

"It hasn't." Jules - who seemed to exist only to make Maia's life difficult - tapped her fingers on the table. They were painted purple, as always. Jules's favorite color. "And you know it's Jules. Juleen makes me sound...old." She grimaced. Maia watched her warily.

"Well...Jules." The name felt uncomfortable on Maia's tongue, slippery and heavy and somehow wrong, just like a lie. She'd called her Juleen for awhile now, just like most everyone in Leonie's camp did. To say Jules now almost felt like a betrayal. "Don't your friends want you to sit with them?"