“Good morning, Sophie.” I give her a smile before turning and scanning the room. I spot my friends almost immediately in the back, an empty seat waiting beside them.
Mel turns toward me, smiling. “Good morning, Mads.” Her warm presence immediately calms my nervous system. Liam leans back beside her, one arm draped easily over her shoulders. “You look like you just ran a marathon,” he adds.
“I basically did.” I drop into the seat and pull the books from my bag just as Sophie steps to the front.
“Alright,” she says, clapping her hands lightly. “Nursing students, please quiet down and open your books to page sixty-seven.”
The morning classes blur together in medical terms, messy diagrams, and chemistry experiments that make my brain feel like it’s melting.
Liam and Mel walk next to me as we head outside to the campus grass field, their fingers loosely intertwined. They have been together since forever. Forever being the first year of high school.
“—did you hear what Sophie said about oxygen saturation?” I ask, picking up where we left off. “I swear my brain shut down the second she started doing math.”
Liam lifts his free hand. “I know, right?”
“Yeah, I got lost in the last five minutes,” Mel says.
“Lastfive minutes?” I raise an eyebrow. “Sophie lost me in thefirstfive.”
Liam snorts as we drop onto our usual bench in the middle of the grass—the one we’ve basically claimed since freshman year—and start pulling out our lunches. Mel pauses, glancing at my empty hands. “Please tell me you at least brought something.”
Before I can say anything, Liam digs through his backpack, pulls out a wrapped sandwich and holds it out.
“Here,” he says. “I figured.”
I laugh. “You’re the best.”
We’re barely a few bites into our sandwiches when Kiara appears in front of us. One look at her face and I know she’s seconds away from committing a crime.
“Liam,” she says, pointing at him like it’s a warning, “you better have a sandwich for me too. Otherwise, Iwillcommit a crime today.”
Told you.
She drops onto the bench beside me with dramatic force, dark curls bouncing as she huffs, “I swear, if one more guy in class says something dumb about ‘female strength,’ I’m going to lose it.”
Liam, unfazed, hands her a sandwich and Kiara sighs like that sandwich solves all her problems and takes a huge bite. “This is exactly why I’m a lesbian,” she says with her mouth full. “All men should just leave the planet.”
Liam presses a hand to his chest. “Ouch.”
“Nah, not you, Li. You can stay,” Kiara reassures him, in between bites. “But only because you’re basically a walking vending machine.”
“I’ll take that,” Liam says proudly.
“What about me, then?” Noah steps into view behind us, dropping his bag next to the bench and sitting down beside Kiara, who immediately rolls her eyes. “Ugh. Fine. You get an exception.”
“You’re forgetting someone.” Ryan now also appears beside the bench, voice light with teasing. “I hear I’m not allowed on this planet?”
Kiara considers him for a second, then sighs. “Okay. Fine. You’re the absolutelastexception.”
“I’m honoured,” he says, taking a seat next to Noah.
The three of them are in the police program together, so the banter between them comes easily. Mel, Liam and I joined college for the nursing program two years later. Our schooloffers a wide range of programs—everything from business and law to fashion and design—which works out perfectly, because otherwise the closest places where we could study nursing and police training would’ve been four hours apart.
I lean back against the warm wood of the bench as the conversation drifts. Kiara and Noah try to convince Ryan to join them for their marathon training.
“Not a chance,” Ryan answers, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m already fast enough.”
Kiara lifts an eyebrow. “Confident much?”
