The schoolyard was as busy as a beehive.
Voices hummed together, shouts cut through the air, somewhere metal clinked as someone leaned a bicycle too hard against the fence. The sky was pale blue, but cold, and the sun only broke through the gray clouds in bursts. I pulled my jacket tighter around me, the straps of my backpack pressing into my shoulders.
Fiona, Jonas and Mira were already at the usual spot next to the gymnasium. Jonas was balancing an apple on his palm as if he were a juggler on break, Fiona was nervously tapping on her phone, and Mira had her camera around her neck as always, her gaze calm and attentive, as if she filtered life through a lens to better endure it.
"There you are," Fiona said as I approached. The words sounded neutral, almost casual, but in her eyes lay something scrutinizing, a concern she didn't express.
"All good?" asked Jonas, biting into his apple so loudly that the crunch almost sounded like a comment.
"Yes," I lied. As so often.
