Francie slid into her seat with her food as usual on Monday morning, wondering what would be waiting for her. Would Jill be apologetic and contrite? Or would she still be antagonistic and confrontational?

Jill had her French book open and was already taking notes, and didn't look up, even to make her usual face of distaste at the smell of her breakfast. She even turned away a little, showing Francie her rounded back and curly brown hair.

So, Invisible Francie it was to be, then.

Wonderful.

The same wasn't true of Lola, however. She turned around in her seat immediately, agog and eager to talk.

"Francie Santangelo, did you really take Chester Crutches to Sadie Hawkins?"

OMG.

"Yes I did and--"

"Could you please not call him that?" Jill asked coldly, turning around to face Francie and Lola. She addressed her next words to Francie alone. "And how can you let your disgusting friends call him that and call yourself his friend when he's not around? Too bad he doesn't know what a two-faced hypocrite you are!" Her chin trembled as she said these words, but Francie had to admire her bravery.

"You didn't let me finish what I was going to say, Jill," she told her. "You interrupted me before I could finish." She turned back to Lola. "As I was saying, 'Yes I did, and could you not ever call him such a horrible name, ever, please?' I really like him."

Lola stared at Francie. "What do you mean, like, like him like him?"

Francie nodded. "Not that it should matter, Lola. However I feel about him, please don't label people like that."

Lola sat back, lips in a little circle like she was going to whistle, eyebrows raised. "I forgot you're sensitive about that stuff. But really? Like you're going out?"

And Francie, who didn't really consider Lola any type of friend, didn't want her to be the first person at school to know, but didn't see how she could avoid it, short of outright lying to her. "Well, it's not official or anything, but yeah, I guess so," she said, smiling and nodding.

Next to her, Jill put her pencil down. "I don't believe you," she said bluntly. "He would've told me."

Francie looked over at Jill. "Like I said, it's not official, it's not like I asked him or he asked me or anything," she said gently. "Or maybe he just hasn't had a chance yet, who knows?"

"Or maybe you're just not that important to him," Jill said. She picked up her pencil again and turned away.

"Maybe I'm not," Francie said lightly as Madame called for order.

And later, as she was walking to English class, she wasn't sure what to expect. There were couples who were attached at the hip, who held hands all day long and spent every break in a perpetual lip lock, but Francie found them sort of silly and gross. She didn't want to hold Chester's hand all the time. Nor did she want to kiss him every spare moment they had. She'd much rather be able to relax and kiss him in private, when she could really get into it and enjoy it, and not worry about who was watching them.

She was therefore relieved when he walked into class as she was getting settled and merely slipped an arm around her waist and pecked her cheek. "Hey, Francie," he murmured with a smile as he slid his crutches off and took his seat. A few people, who'd seen them at the dance or had heard the rumors and knew to watch had seen, but it wasn't a big deal.

Or at least she didn't think it was until Antonio walked in. He hadn't been at morning practice, so this was Francie's first time seeing him since the dance, and the class got strangely quiet as soon as he walked in, Francie noticed.

He said hello to her as he passed, giving her a smile and a hand on her shoulder as he made his way to his desk, which was strange.

A couple of his friends leaned over to tell him something as he sat down, and he looked back at Francie as he listened, his glance flicking back and forth between her and Chester. He nodded, and Francie saw his mouth make the words, "Don't worry about it, I'm not."

Chester leaned over to murmur, "You said he'd be cool and would not, under any circumstances, come after me with anything sharp, remember? You standing by those words?"

Francie just gave him a look, but class started before she could say anything. As they took notes and asked questions, Francie wondered what they looked like from the back. Could Antonio tell that she and Chester had "made out" over the weekend? Did it matter to him? What was he "not worried" about?

At one point Chester showed Francie his notebook, where he'd written, "You do realize that my legs don't work right, and I couldn't possibly outrun a Brazilian swimmer named Antonio, right?"

She nearly burst out laughing, and had to cover it by pretending she was coughing. She took a drink from her water bottle and stared at Chester.

Stop. It.

After class, they left together, and it wasn't until she saw Jill waiting for Chester that she remembered their conversation from French class. She didn't even have time to warn Chester about it before Jill was upon them, asking, "Chester, does she have to spend every second we're together with us? I like how we used to be."

"I can go," Francie said, gesturing toward where her friends were sitting at another table for the break.

"Thank you," Jill said.

"No," Chester said. "Jill, you can't monopolize my time like this. I like Francie, and she's part of my life now, and I want to be with her, too. You can stay if you want, or you can go, the choice is yours."

"Is she your girlfriend?" Again, Francie saw Jill's chin tremble, and heard the quaver in her voice, but admired her bravery, very much.

"That's not something we've discussed," Chester said, taking Francie's hand as they sat at the table in the courtyard. "For now, let's just say we're enjoying each other's company a lot, okay?"

Francie desperately wanted to give Jill some advice, wanted to tell her that if she kept behaving like this, Chester wouldn't want to spend time with her anymore, so she should be careful. But Jill hadn't asked her for advice, and certainly wouldn't take her advice if she gave it, anyway. So Francie kept quiet.

She saw Antonio watching her from across the courtyard, with Clary Carmichael sitting next to him, or in his lap, more like. He gave her a lazy wave and a smile so white she could see it from where she sat. She waved back. Maybe everything was okay with Tony.

She took her snack out of her back pack and began to eat it, after first offering some of the cookies to Jill and Chester. During swim season Francie ate a lot, and she wondered, given how round her figure was, if she was going to have to watch her diet when she got older.

"Francie, what's the conjugation on this French?" Chester asked, showing her his workbook.

And Francie, whose French was almost as good as her Italian, showed him the correct form, much to Jill's disgust.

"My mother speaks fluent French," she announced loftily. "She's half French. She could've helped us after school."

"My dad speaks fluent French, too," Francie told her. "I mean, probably not as well as your mom. He just learned it when he was growing up in Italy. He taught us kids as he was teaching us Italian."

"Wow, you guys are amazing," Chester said. "I know some Hebrew, and even less Yiddish, and that's about it."

The bell rang and the trio rose. "See you at practice," Francie said, smiling at Chester. She leaned in and pecked him on the mouth, knowing it was allowed, expected, even, and enjoying the look of surprise and joy on his face when he saw her getting closer.

"Bye," he said as he turned to go with Jill.

"Bye, Jill," Francie called, though she knew she'd get no response.

💕 🏊🏻‍♀️ 💕 🏊🏻‍♀️ 💕 🏊🏻‍♀️ 💕 🏊🏻‍♀️ 💕

Swim practice was a strange experience for Francie. By the end of the day, pretty much the whole school knew about her and Chester, and the early practice watched her walk over to sit with him as they were getting in the water. A few of Tony's friends were nudging each other as they watched her walk over to where he sat at his statistician's desk and take her seat next to him, smiling and saying things to each other.

Weird.

Chester put an arm around her and leaned in to buss her hair, smiling at her before and after.

"So how was your afternoon?" she asked. "Did Jill thaw out a little after I left?"

"She's okay," he said. "It's just taking her a little time to get used to the idea that she doesn't own me. I have friends, but they've been her friends, too, up to now. This is the first time I've ever had any kind of friend that she didn't know and approve of, and this is the first time ever that I've had a romantic friend of any kind. That's really hard for her, because, even though there's never been anything between us, I think she always hoped there might be?" He looked at Francie. "And now she has to put that hope away." He sighed. "I shouldn't have let it go for so long. I just figured, who's it hurting? I'm never going to have a girlfriend anyway, so let her dream." He swallowed and looked back at Francie. "Not that I'm some great catch or anything! I just meant, let her think what she wants, it doesn't matter."

Francie sighed. "Except now it does."

Chester nodded. "Now it does. Yeah."

She passed Antonio as she was going to change for her practice, and he again patted her shoulder as he gave her a smile.

"Hey, Francie, you look lovely today," he told her.

"Thank you, Tony," she replied, not knowing what else to say.

And that night, at dinner, she told her family and Ellen, her mother's best friend, who'd come to dinner with her daughter Maya, about the whole, strange exchange.

"Maybe he's just trying to go out of his way to show you and everyone that there's no hard feelings?" Ellen suggested as she took a sip of wine. She turned to Pete. "Oh my god, Pete, tell your family that this wine is the shit, honestly! It's amazing!"

"They sent six bottles, so I'll give you a couple," Pete promised. "I don't know if they'll understand 'the shit,' though."

"If it's the shit, can I try it?" eight year old Maya asked.

"Here you go, baby, but just a sip, and only if you promise not to tell Grandma and PopPop I said 'shit' in front of you, we got a deal?" Ellen said as she passed the glass to her daughter.

"For two sips you got a deal," Maya promised.

"You don't even like wine, you little mercenary," Ellen admonished. "Fine, deal."

The Santangelos laughed as Maya got her sips of wine.

"Can I try the wine, too? I won't even make you keep a secret," Finn declared.

"It's not a special thing for you, passerotto, you have wine all the time," Pete teased, letting Finn taste the wine.

"I know, I just didn't want to be left out," he declared, smiling at Maya. They'd been fast friends since they'd been born.

"Anyway, like I was saying, maybe this Antonio just wants the world to know he doesn't hold a grudge and is fine with the way things are now?" Ellen reiterated.

Francie shook her head. "It doesn't feel like that," she said, taking another serving of chicken piccata. "It's almost like he's told everyone but Chester and me a joke or something. It feels kind of creepy."

"But he's a nice guy, right?" Daisy asked as she helped Finn with his chicken.

Francie nodded.

"You'll know more tomorrow," Daisy said comfortingly, putting a hand on Francie's arm. "Just don't worry about it until then, love."

"You're right, mom." And Francie tried to put it out of her head, to just look forward to texting with Chester later after she got in bed.

Still, today had been a little bit odd, on all fronts.