Care For Me ✔️

12

L I L Y

Lessons fly by and before I know it, it's lunch time and I'm following Emilio to the cafeteria to meet our friends.

I fill him in on what happened in gym after he asked, apparently everyone's heard about it by now. I'm not embarrassed anymore, though, which I've got Ace and Alex to thank for. They reassured me. They helped me.

I think I'm still in the stages of disbelief when I think about that. They were there when I needed someone, something I've never experienced before. They didn't need to step in, I'm no one to them, yet, they done so anyway. And I couldn't be more grateful for that. For them.

Finally reaching the cafeteria, Milo and I head towards the table our friends always sit at, finding one more face than we usually would. A face I recognise all too well, considering it's almost a mirror of my own.

"Leo," Emilio beams, dropping down in the chair across from him, leaving the one directly beside him free for me.

Leo greets Emilio with an almost smile, before turning to me with a strange expression. "I'm really sorry about Melissa, Lily." His drops his eyes from mine, lips falling with them. "I can't believe she said that shit to you. You can talk to me whenever you want. And if you don't want to, then that's okay to."

"You've n-nothing to be sorry for." I say, dropping down in the free seat. I twiddle my fingers together nervously, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. "It's me w-who should apologise. I-I didn't mean to cause any issues b-between the two of you." I tell him honestly.

Truthfully, I think he could do so much better than someone as cruel as Melissa. Leo, in the short time I've known him and from everything Emilio has said, seems sweet and kind. Everything that Melissa is not.

Leo lifts his head and looks at me, eyebrows furrowed like he's confused. Then, out of nowhere, he laughs. "Issues between us?" He wheezes, even Emilio and Atlas join in with a few snorts of their own.

"They're not a couple, Lily." Luke tells me, amusement clear in his tone.

"They're not?" I blink. Huh?

"Lily," Leo sobers up. He smiles at me, shaking his head. "There's no issues between her and me. Shit, I don't even know the girl."

"I... I'm so confused." I mumble. "Why did she seem so... a-angry?"

Why was she so mean to me if she's never even spoken to Leo?

"Oh, hun," Maya cooes. "She was angry because she thought you were trying to cut her grass." I tilt my head as if to say: cut her what? Maya clarifies. "She thought you were trying to flirt with him. She was jealous because she has a crush, Lil."

"Oh," I scrunch my nose up. "Gross."

Laughter fills the air and I flush. I hadn't meant to say it like that, or mean it like that. I quickly turn to Leo, eyes portraying all the apologies I'm about to spew, hoping and praying he's not offended.

"I-I am sorry, Leo." My cheeks feel so hot that I'm afraid they might melt. "It's just weird. We look so similar, doppelgängers, you know? It w-would be like crushing on my-my brother."

Emilio and Leo share a look before Emilio let's out a laugh and Leo mutters something under his breath that I don't catch. No one but Milo seems to have heard him, even then, I doubt he would've understood. I'm pretty sure it was the same gibberish as Alex spoke earlier.