Sara and Susan arrived almost at the same time, as if the world wouldn't allow them to show up separately.
Sara was one step ahead, her hair casually but elegantly tied back, a smile already in place, carrying the kind of energy that made someone start greeting people before even taking a seat. Susan was a little more reserved. Same face, same silhouette, but with a colder, more analytical gaze, as though she were sizing up the table before deciding whether to trust it.
"We're here," Sara announced.
"And we're hungry."
"You're hungry," Susan corrected. "I'm running low on patience."
Brittany scooted over to make room for them.
"Welcome to the doing-nothing club."
Chloe raised her glass.
"Rule number one: nobody mentions homework. Rule number two: if a guy approaches, smile and goodbye."
Sara laughed.
"I already like this."
Introductions were quick. Ana and Madeleine, from Sussex. Madison and Chloe, part of the usual circle. Vivian and Brittany, the natural link between them. In less than two minutes, the table had gone from six people to eight without the slightest effort.
And eight, on that terrace, was impossible to ignore.
Vivian, her red hair glowing in the sunlight, green eyes, the presence of a team captain even without a uniform. Brittany, dark-haired and confident, with a sharp smile when she wanted one. Madison, dark hair, clear eyes, the kind of effortless beauty that looked expensive without having to say so. Chloe, expressive and impossible to silence. Ana, gentle, big-eyed, with an understated beauty that still turned heads. Madeleine, composed, with delicate features, as though she belonged to another frequency. Sara, radiant and outgoing. Susan, just as beautiful, but more dangerous in silence.
A group of boys at the next table stopped pretending to talk about football.
"Here we go," Chloe muttered.
"Let them look," Sara said, settling into her seat. "We don't owe them anything."
They talked about useful nonsense: a cheerleading rehearsal that had gone horribly wrong, a teacher who hated people being late "on principle," and whether the ice cream at the plaza was worth standing in line for. Susan, quieter than the others, made brief comments that still managed to make everyone laugh. Ana mentioned that in Newton, nobody dared ask for so many phone numbers in a single afternoon. Brittany replied that in Morris they tried anyway, just with worse pickup lines.
The laughter returned for real.
For a while, the dust on the road and the motorcycles felt like things from another day.
Until he approached.
He wasn't just another guy from the usual crowd. The leather, the way he walked, the overly confident smile… he was with the biker gang. Younger than the bearded one, and the same guy who had stared at them for too long at the park. He stopped beside the table with his hands in his pockets, as though he'd been invited.
"Well, what a coincidence," he said. "Together again. And now there are even more of you."
Madison barely raised her voice.
"We're busy."
"I just want to talk. Hang out. I don't bite."
Brittany smiled sweetly, though there was no sweetness in it.
"What a relief. Still, no."
Sara tilted her head, polite but firm.
"No, thank you."
Susan looked at him once, without any embellishment.
"Goodbye."
The boy kept smiling. He wasn't offended. Or he was pretending very well. His eyes went straight to Vivian, lingering, flirtatious, carrying that cheap persistence of someone who believed a single look was enough to open doors.
"You're the one I find interesting."
Vivian held his gaze for a second.
Then her expression twisted with disgust, clear and undisguised.
"I'm not interested. Leave."
He chuckled softly, raised his hands in a theatrical gesture of surrender, and stepped back.
"See you around."
He headed toward the edge of the plaza, where the rest of the gang was waiting near the motorcycles, as though they had never really left the scene.
At the table, the silence lasted just long enough.
"Disgusting," Brittany said.
"Persistent," Chloe added. "As if 'no' meant maybe."
Madison looked toward where he had gone but said nothing more. Ana tightened her grip on her glass. Madeleine lowered her eyes for a moment, then deliberately made an effort to return to the conversation.
They tried to pick things back up.
Sara told an anecdote about rehearsal. Susan corrected her halfway through, making half the group laugh. Brittany took the opportunity to ask for more napkins. For a few minutes, they were just girls on a terrace again, dividing their attention between the cake and their desire not to think about anything worse.
Vivian was the first to notice the others.
In the distance, near where the motorcycles gleamed in the sunlight, stood three girls. They weren't wearing their uniforms, but they had the same bearing: cheerleaders. From the team. Familiar faces. Far too familiar to Sara, Susan, Brittany… and her.
They were with the gang.
Not at a distance. Not by coincidence. Laughing beside the same leather jackets, accepting a cigarette they weren't even smoking, allowing a stranger's arm to rest a little too close.
Sara stopped speaking midsentence.
"Is that…?"
"Yes," Susan said flatly. "They're from our team."
Brittany clenched her jaw.
"What are they doing with those guys?"
Nobody had a good answer. There was no simple explanation. Madison followed their gaze and understood the size of the problem without knowing all the names. Chloe muttered, "You've got to be kidding me." Ana and Madeleine didn't know the girls, but they immediately read the tension in the four Blackwood girls.
Vivian said nothing.
She didn't point. She didn't suggest approaching them. She didn't come up with a theory.
She simply felt the same chill she'd felt at the park, the same taste of warning that asked no one's permission.
She looked up at the sky.
Between the wires and the blue of the afternoon, the red balloon was floating once again.
Small. Patient. Exactly where it shouldn't have been if the world were normal.
Vivian stared at it in silence.
And this time, even though the table was still full of friends, half-hearted laughter, and sweet rejections for anyone who approached too closely, she understood that the day
hadn't quite
let them go.