The worst part about homeroom was that all the Year 12 students were grouped together. Normally, this would be fine if it wasn't for Veronica's loudmouth.

Natalie leaned forward in her chair, pretending she was staring closer at her notebook. Except, the words seemed to blur on the page as she strained to listen closer to Veronica's chattering.

Really, Natalie had been entirely focused on her work. She'd been completely committed to studying all through homeroom. There was no shaking her concentration. No, she was all about studying, studying, studying.

That was until a name had burst from Veronica's lips and immediately rendered Natalie's concentration non-existent.

"Lukey is picking me up from school today," Veronica told the girls around her. Her smile only grew as she took in the girls' dazzled gazes. "I wouldn't be surprised if Leon comes too."

Natalie sat straighter in her seat, glancing in Veronica's direction at the sound of Leon's name.

"Have you been texting him?" someone asked, and Veronica laughed, her eyes darting around from face to face. When she was certain that all eyes were on her, her smile grew.

"Of course," she said. "He's just been really busy with school. You know how he is. Besides, he goes to Sierra Grammar. They're super strict there."

Natalie exhaled sharply, her hand sliding to cover her mouth. If Leon was busy with anything, it definitely wouldn't be with school. He'd probably been truant enough times to be held back at this point.

And judging by the way Veronica's gaze seemed to slip anxiously from one person to the next, Natalie could tell she was lying.

She saw the opportunity flash before her eyes. She could expose her lie right now. Maybe get her to show her supposed texts with Leon, or make her call him.

It would be a sort of revenge for the years of teasing Natalie had to endure.

Except—she couldn't say anything.

She couldn't correct her.

She couldn't say a word.

If anyone found out about Natalie and Leon (not that anything was happening between them, she reminded herself with a blush), the rumours would spread across the school until they reached her parents.

And then what? She'd be disowned, probably.

And on top of that, what would she even say? She was Leon's... friend? Sort of.

So, she kept her mouth shut, even as Veronica continued.

"Anyway, they're probably bored of the girls at Sierra's. I mean, seriously. Have you seen their frumpy little uniforms? I've never seen longer skirts in my life. The girls at St Helena's are on a whole other level. At least, some of us are."

Something in the tone of her voice and the way she paused gave Natalie the urge to look up. Trying to be subtle, she glanced upwards, but it was pointless. Veronica was already grinning at her.

"I'll show Leon what a real girl looks like," she continued. Her smile turned venomous as she looked back at the girls around her.

"What about Lucas Morton?" asked another girl. "He's cute."

Veronica laughed. "Cute, sure. But Leon is hot."

A chorus of giggles echoed from the group and Natalie steamed. Her whole face felt hot. She knew Leon was popular—she'd always known. Except, actually hearing it, seeing it; this was hard.

And if Veronica was telling the truth, if she had to witness Leon picking her up at the school gates today—she shook the image from her mind. She couldn't let herself get distracted.

It wasn't like Leon was hers to own. She couldn't expect him to speak only to Natalie. He was probably in class right now, talking to a bunch of other girls; cuter, smarter girls. What was Natalie compared to them?

Hell, she didn't even have his number.

Natalie frowned, feeling defeated. She blinked at her notebook, willing herself to focus on the words she'd scribbled earlier. Nothing was making sense. All she could think of was Leon. Or worse; Leon and Veronica.

She huffed, slamming her notebook shut and pulling out her bottle of water.

She needed to refresh. She needed to focus. And most of all, she needed to clear her mind from these distractions.

She'd be out the school gates the second the bell rang, she decided. And if Leon didn't show up to the nurse's office today, she wouldn't care.

She repeated the words to herself throughout the day, willing them to be true, but by the time she was racing out the school gates, at three o'clock sharp, she couldn't help glancing over her shoulder towards the crowded street, hoping to see a pair of familiar brown eyes.

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She had to accept it.

Leon wasn't coming today.

He was probably off with Veronica somewhere. She didn't want to think about it, but if she let her mind wander too far, the image of Leon and Veronica in the front seat of a car seemed to pop into her mind.

She groaned, refocusing on the page in front of her.

If she really wanted to boost her grades, she needed to erase all traces of Leon from her mind. It didn't help, though, that everything in this room seemed to remind her of him. The band-aids, the icepacks—even the smell of the room brought his slumped silhouette to mind.

She wondered briefly if he had gotten into any fights today, then immediately vanished the thought from her mind.

She shook her head, glaring at her notebook.

She wouldn't think of him.

She wouldn't worry about him.

She barely knew him! They'd probably spoken only a handful of sentences to each other and, what? Natalie had fallen head over heels for him? Not likely. Not if her head had a say in anything.

She picked up her pen, twirling it between her fingers as she willed the words in front of her to make sense. Except, every word that had the slightest approximation to the word Leon seemed to transform into his name. Every lean, line, eon, lone, drew her eye, shifted into Leon, and turned her mind to mush.

Every creak of wood outside the room, every distant voice, had her eyes snapping to the window, the door—anywhere but her notebook.

Natalie huffed, dropping her pen again and covering her face with her hands.

There was no helping it. She needed to force her brain to go back to normal. She needed to forget about Leon. She needed to—

There was a knock at the door.

Natalie's back went ramrod straight as she stared at the daunting handle. She paused, letting the silence linger a moment. Was this what she'd come to? Imagining a knock on the door in her pathetic eagerness to see Leon again?

Except, no. There was another knock. This time, she was sure it was real.

She stood, her feet taking her across the room and to the door before she could stop and think. She pulled it open.

Leon smiled at her.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"Leon," she whispered, her hands flying to her mouth.

He looked horrible.

His entire eye was swollen and bruised. Blood leaked from his forehead to his cheekbone. The split on his lip had opened again and, judging by the way he slumped against the door frame, she knew there had to be more injuries that she couldn't see.

A drop of blood leaked from that cut on his lip and her stomach turned. She thought she could taste her lunch all over again.

"Come inside." Her voice was weak. He heard her anyway and limped past her to his usual seat, which he fell into ungracefully.

Natalie swallowed hard before she spun. She stamped her queasiness down. There was no time to feel sick at the sight of his broken and bloodied face. She needed to help him.

A year from now, she was supposed to be in med school. What kind of doctor would she be if she felt dizzy at every sight of blood?

"What happened?" she asked when she reached him.

He smiled at her again, his lips lopsided and one eye half-shut. "What makes you think something happened?"

"You're not funny," she said. Her voice cracked and she looked away, wrapping an icepack in a paper towel and shoving it into his hands before grabbing another. She didn't know how many he'd need. She'd probably empty the whole fridge.

After handing him too many icepacks for him to hold, she grabbed a disinfectant wipe and reached towards his forehead. There was a shallow cut there, something more like a graze than anything else, but it seemed to leak blood like a rusty tap. She dabbed at it, and he winced. When she pulled the wipe away, it had changed to red.

Leon chuckled, then winced and grabbed his ribs. "I thought that had stopped bleeding."

"I just don't understand," she murmured, reaching for more disinfectant. "How could this happen to you? Who did this? This is—this is really bad."

"Oh, you haven't seen the worst of it yet," he teased. He tugged up the hem of his shirt. Natalie didn't even have the chance to admire his toned chest—she was busy gasping at the sight of bruises and scabs littering the skin there. Before she could look too closely, he covered himself again. "You should've seen them last night."

"Last night?" Natalie echoed. "You mean you got these injuries last night and did nothing about them?"

"Well, it was more like early this morning..."

His voice trailed off as he caught Natalie's vicious stare.

He hesitated, watching Natalie in silence as she bandaged his forehead, then cleaned his lip. His eyes lingered on her too long as her fingertips brushed the corner of his mouth. His breath was too hot on her skin.

When she finished wiping his lip, he shrugged and said, "I came here, didn't I?"

"Here!" she echoed, exasperated. "I can't—I'm not—I don't know what I'm doing, Leon! This is bad. This is seriously bad. Whoever is doing this to you, they can get into some real trouble, you know? We can—we can stop them! We need to tell someone."

"Natalie," he whispered.

She recognised that tone in his voice. She shook her head, sitting back to frown at him.

"Leon, either you tell someone," she started, "or I will."

He stared at her; his mouth clamped shut. For a horrible moment, her heart sunk into her stomach, and she thought she'd ruined everything. She thought he'd glare at her and spit some acidic words and stomp right out of the room, never to speak to her again.

She had the immediate instinct to take her words back. To beg him for forgiveness. To promise to not do anything he didn't want her to do.

But she sucked in a heavy breath and forced herself to keep her word. She meant it.

She couldn't bear this kind of responsibility. He could kill himself with these injuries one day, or permanently hurt himself—and then what?

Leon looked away first.

"I'm a boxer," he said.

Natalie stared at him. She blinked. "What?"

"I box nights," he explained. "At the Golden Ring. My dad used to bartend there, before he died. And then I needed some cash, and his old mates offered me a cleaning job. Eventually, I got interested in the sport and started boxing there too. Now I box more than I clean."

"You... hold on. You're a boxer? Is that even allowed?" Too many questions were racing through her mind now. She needed to sort them out. She needed time to process.

Leon shrugged. "I dunno. Probably not. The boss lets me. People love an underdog, and what's more underdog than a teenager? Brings in some good cash."

"So, this is why you're always hurt?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty used to it. Never bothered me. But then I saw you that day, and I couldn't stop myself. It gave me a decent excuse."

Natalie's face warmed. He always said it so nonchalantly, like it was an everyday thing to say to a girl. Maybe it was, for him.

"I don't understand," Natalie said, refocusing. "Why don't you want anyone to know?"

He snorted. "Are you kidding me? I go to Sierra Grammar. Can you imagine what would happen if one of these stuffy teachers found out? They'd find a way to shut the whole Golden Ring down. And I need that money. No one else will hire me—nowhere that pays as good. Trust me, I've tried."

Natalie frowned. How long had she craved to hear Leon's story? To hear him speak with her like this, in conversation rather than stolen sentences in shadowy corners? And now that she was hearing it, her mind felt overloaded.

"Do you know how much Sierra Grammar's school fees are?" With that, he answered the question that Natalie hadn't even realised she'd been thinking. "My dad worked his arse off to get me into this fancy school. I'm not going to drop out now. This is the only thing stopping me from dropping out right now. This money."

"I'm sorry," Natalie said without thinking.

Leon smiled at her again. He looked foolish, really, smiling at her with that swollen eye and busted lip, but it made her feel warm anyway. She shook her head, snapping the questions out of her brain, and picked up one of the icepacks he'd dropped. She pressed it to his black eye.

"I didn't realise," she continued. "I feel horrible. I won't tell anyone. I promise."

"I know you won't. I trust you," he said. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"You are. For the first time today," she said, without meeting his eye. In her peripheral, his brows furrowed.

"How did you know I skipped school?" he asked.

"You're not wearing your uniform," she replied. It was one of the first things she'd noticed when she saw him. "If you keep skipping, they'll kick you out."

"I know," he groaned. "I just—sometimes when I train at night, or I fight, I get so hurt or so tired I just can't bring myself to go to school."

"But you're at school now," Natalie pointed out.

"Yeah. For one reason only," he said, his voice turning soft. Natalie thought she knew the reason he was talking about, and finally looked at him properly.

He was already watching her.

Natalie felt a shiver run through her entire body. This close, she could see the golden flecks in his eye—his one good eye. She could see the faint scars she hadn't noticed before—the tiny, barely-there lines that dotted his skin.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to stand.

"My mum will be here any minute," she said. Her voice sounded choked. When Leon stood, she was scared to meet his eye in case he was annoyed with her; hurt by her quick dismissal.

Instead, he was smiling at her again, his eyes gentle, as if he'd expected nothing less.

He took her hand and placed an icepack into it. For a moment, his touch lingered. He swiped his thumb across the back of her hand, then just as quickly, pulled away.

"I'm glad I told you," he said quietly. "You're the only person I've ever told. It feels good. Having you know."

Her mouth felt dry, but she forced her voice to work. "Thank you for telling me."

His smile only grew.

"I'll see you soon," he said.

Natalie could only nod as she watched him vanish into the shadows again. Except this time, her heart felt a little lighter.

He may have disappeared, the same way he always did, maybe for days at a time. But now she knew where the shadows were. She knew where he vanished to on the nights when she didn't see him. She knew where he went on the days, he missed school.

Leon Hughes was a wraith. He showed up when he showed up and disappeared when he wanted to, leaving no trace behind. He liked to hide in the shadows, where he knew nobody would find him.

Except now Natalie knew where to look. And ifshe had to, she could always find him, right where he'd told her to look.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

soo i think most of you guys guessed he was a boxer! the cover probably gave it away LMAO but the next chapter will bring some dramaaa

sorry for the slow updates! uni has been killing me, but i'm trying to write as much as possible to hopefully get into a weekly / biweekly update schedule! stay tuned!

also what do you guys think of my new lil social media banner??? im a true wattpader now hehe