Leo Capulet had many a nightmare in his day. It wasn't unusual for Leo to wake up in a cold sweat and with his brain racing.

This one was different, a blank room with a teen's voice screaming at him to find her. Actually, Leo shouldn't be saying 'her'; they have no idea what this person's gender identity is. They shouldn't be making an assumption.

The person just kept yelling at him to 'Open It!' As if Leo was supposed to know what that meant.

He lay on his bed, Debussy playing in their ears as they tried to fall back asleep. It was early, maybe 5:30, Leo didn't have anything to do before school so he lay and tried not to think.

It's dumb but Leo really couldn't stop thinking about the voice. It was strange, but, like, there was no way to know if this was an actual person or just a disembodied voice. What if it was an actual person? If they were looking for Leo, coming for Leo, and what if they found him? What would happen to his parents, to Dahlia?

Leo thought about it, maybe for too long and too hard.

When their alarm went off they stood, pulled a sweater over his shirt and yanked a pair of pants on. They walked down the stairs, past the childish photographs of him and Dahlia, to the kitchen. He grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down, grabbing a spoon and chowing down.

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School that day was 50% less boring than usual. Leo stayed away from pretty much everyone, sat in the back in every class and handed in his homework on time. Dahlia handed him lunch in the hall and Leo headed to the courtyard behind the school to eat alone.

He had pulled out his phone to scroll through Twitter while biting into the chicken wrap Dahlia had handed him.

"Hey, you're Leo Capulet, right?" A guy stood in front of Leo. He wasn't too tall but wasn't short, his blonde hair glistened in the September sunlight and his blue eyes sparkled.

Leo nodded, refusing to talk to this guy he didn't know.

"Right," The guy said. "Sorry, I'm Brand McConahaigh. We have Spanish together."

"Ok." Leo took another bite of his sandwich while trying frantically to stop panicking at this cute guy talking to him for no reason.

Brand nodded slowly, "Uh, do you mind if I sit here?"

He shook his head and watched as Brand threw down his backpack and sat down on the stone wall next to Leo. It was awkward and Leo wanted to crawl into a goddamned hole and hide forever.

"So, uh," Brand began before Leo had enough. He grabbed his bag, his wrap, and headed back inside, away from the attractive, albeit anxiety-inducing, guy.

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"Leo!" He spun around, practically on the balls of his toes to face his sister's friend, Valentine.

He tried not to roll his eyes and turned back around, yanking his backpack out of his locker.

"Hey, so uh, just wondering how you've been," Valentine asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Leo just stared at the blatant flirting with abject confusion.

"Good."

Valentine grinned, "Right, so like, what have you been doing?"

Leo wanted to nope out of this conversation just like the one with Brand McConahaigh but noping out of two conversations in one day would not make his therapist happy. "Nothing."

"Cool, cool."

"Valentine Diaz," Dahlia called from across the hall, she was wearing her 'don't-do-this-to-me-bitch' face.

Valentine rolled her eyes, dropping the strand of hair she was twirling. "Dahlia, come on."

Dahlia glared, "No, you come on, Valentine. Stop bothering Leo, he has nothing to do with whatever you want."

Oh, Leo definitely wanted to nope out of this. He didn't think Lilly, his therapist, would be too upset if he noped out of this bullshit. Leo grabbed his bag and ducked under Dahlia's arm as she gestured aggressively at Valentine.

Leo walked out towards the parking lot. He headed towards Dahlia's beat-up minivan when a car drove up next to him. It was low to the ground, Leo didn't know enough about cars to call it a sedan but he thought it might be.

The window rolled down to reveal a person with long curly brown hair. "Hey, you're Leo Capulet, right?"

What is it with everyone knowing his name? Only people who are friends with his sister know his name around this school. This is the second person this day who knew his name, was looking for him.

"I'm Rue, Rue Miller."

Leo sighed, "Okay?"

"Right, dude, sorry. I wanted to ask you if you've been hearing voices?" Rue asked out of the driver's side window of her car.

Wait. What?