"We should I write a story about someone who's anorexic," Bradley tells Leo, as soon as Leo sits down in the seat beside him. English started ten minutes ago, but Leo just walked in a few minutes ago. Bradley had been going over ideas for days before deciding on one he liked.

"What?" Leo laughs a bit before nodding his head. He bites his lip ring, which Bradley has a very hard time not staring at.

"So you agree?" Bradley asks, happily. He grins so wide his face starts to hurt. He blushes bright red before he stops showing emotion at all.

"Of course!" Leo says enthusiastically. "Most people are writing about cliches, you don't see serious things like that being written about, especially by teenage boys." Leo reaches under his desk and pulls out notebook. It has the words "The Book for the Unspoken Words." scribbled across it. Bradley likes the name for the notebook.

"Like the name?" Leo asks smugly. Bradley rolls his eyes to play it off. He twirls his pencil with his fingers before watching Leo write something on the first page of the notebook.

It doesn't say anything important, just their names and the date in pen.

"Should we come up with a plot first or a title?" Bradley asks, before face palming. "Of course we need to work on the plot."

Leo nods his head before biting the end of his pen. Bradley pretends he doesn't find it oddly cute.

They spend most of the period discussing a plot for the story, only occasionally getting distracted by telling their own stories. By the time the bell rings, Bradley can't believe the period is already over.

"See you tomorrow," Leo smiles before walking out of the room. Bradley collects his books before he shoves the stuff into his locker to go to lunch.

By the time he arrives at the table, Hannah's there talking to Matt. Bradley finds it unorthodox but doesn't say anything when he sits down.

"Hey," Hannah greets him. She smiles before going back to her obviously very interesting conversation, where she's laughing about every two seconds.

Corrie sits down next to Bradley, patting him on the shoulder.

"Where's your food?" Corrie asks, concerned. Bradley looks down at his tray: a granola bar, a water, and a small salad. He doesn't see anything wrong with it.

"What do you mean?" Bradley asks. He's a mix of embarrassed and angry that Corrie would call out him like that. The rest of Corrie's crew sits down, like they have for the past few weeks, and mind their own business.

"Your tray looks empty," Corrie notions to his styrofoam tray and then to Bradley's tray. "Is everything okay?"

"Can't I not be hungry one fucking lunch of the year?" Bradley snaps. He immediately regrets it when the table looks at him confused. Most of the jocks look at him like they're ready to bite his head off, and Hannah and Corrie look at him concerned. Usually Bradley is pretty good at controlling his temper, but today is different.

Bradley stands up, shoving his chair backwards. He stomps his way out of the cafeteria. His face grows bright red when he realizes people are looking at him.

He walks to a empty classroom, working on his breathing. He sits down on the desk and leans his hands against his knees. He doesn't know why he's so angry, usually he becomes snappy when he's hungry.

Maybe he shouldn't have skipped—

"Hey, what happened in there?" Leo's familiar scent fills Bradley's nose. It's a mixture of vanilla and mint.

"Don't tell me," Bradley sighs, "you saw that very horrendous scene." Leo sits down next to Bradley, a little too close.

"Yeah, you looked angry." Leo states the obvious. Bradley laughs bitterly.

"I was very happy, that was my happy face." Bradley tries to be humorous. Leo laughs lightly.

"I can tell. The scowl really gave it away."

Leo and Bradley both laugh for minutes on end. When they finally sober up Bradley stands up.

"I should probably go back in there."

"Oh c'mon," Leo whines childishly, "the school supplies is colorful, the homework sheets are very happy, and I'm here."

Bradley looks over his left shoulder at Leo who smiles. It makes Bradley smile in return. "I mean, we could work on our project."

Leo rolls his eyes before reaching into his backpack (which Bradley had no idea he even had), and opens it. Bradley sits back down and watches Leo go to Safari. He looks at Leo with one eyebrow raised.

"Well I don't know anything about anorexia, do you?"

Bradley shakes his head and Leo makes noise that sounds a lot like a noise of triumph to Bradley. Bradley just rolls his eyes and watches Leo type 'what is anorexia' into the search bar. Multiple things pop up and they decide that the website with a ".org" is the most reliable.

Bradley is amazed by the things it tells, and he's even more amazed by Leo, whose even more fascinated with it than him.

•••

"Wait up!" Bradley hears Corrie's voice call out to him. Corrie is running from the school to the parking lot, and Bradley is hit with major de ja vu.

Bradley gets in his car and starts it. He waits for Corrie to get in the car. When Corrie does Bradley pulls out of the schools parking lot and drives towards his home. They don't say anything, neither of them mention what went down at lunch. Corrie doesn't want to pry, and Bradley figures if Corrie wants to know he'll ask.

"No basketball practice?" Bradley asks at a stoplight. There's multiple bunches of snow piled up by the poles, where people shoveled it out of their way.

"Nope, it's supposed to storm hard soon."

Bradley hums in acknowledgement. He steps on the gas pedal when the light turns green.

"You spending it with me?" Bradley asks.

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

•••

Bradley watches the snow fall heavily from his bedroom window. Corrie's in the guest room, asleep. Bradley had spent that Thursday night talking to Leo about the project. They both have done extensive research on Anorexia Nervosa, binge eating, and multiple other things.

They had decided that Bradley would focus on the physiological part of the story: why the character did this or that, what they were thinking about, and Leo would work on the health issues. They figured out they would find a writing technique to plan and start writing Friday.

Now it's 3:03 am on Friday morning and Bradley's still awake. He sighs and walks away from the window. He lies down in his bed, getting under the toasty covers and he smiles to himself. He can't remember the last time he felt so excited.

He can't remember the last time he actually felt something so deeply.

Until this morning, he felt empty.

__________

☒ - unedited

What do you think about Leo and Bradley? Why do you think Bradley blew up at lunch? Did you find any foreshadowing, do you think?

Please tell me if you see any mistakes, I'm the queen of typos.

Read, vote, comment, and please, please share! Tell me what you liked/disliked. Constructive criticism is very, very welcome!

Rant of the chapter: Writers block is a real bitch. Now you rant below!

Dedicated to: @TheWattys2016 ... I've entered that's why lol! Now, choose someone and dedicate it to them!

Next update: soon, i promise.

Teaser: the real shit starts happening soon.

Quick notes:
[ 1 ] Double update even though I was going for triple.
[ 2 ] Comment any suggestions/what you think is going to happen!
[ 3 ] Very short compared to the last chapter but I wanted to give you guys something because I've been gone so long. Love you and I'm still sorry!

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