#riordanness

The water embraced Xav like a second skin as she pushed off the wall, muscles burning with familiar precision. Each stroke was measured, each breath calculated—this was her element, where every movement made sense. But when she surfaced for air, her gaze betrayed her, flickering instinctively toward the spectator stands.

Emma lounged in her usual spot, bathed in golden afternoon light, scribbling furiously in that tattered notebook. Even from the pool, Xav could see the way Emma chewed her bottom lip when concentrating, the way her fingers smudged ink across the pages.

The final whistle cut through the humid air. Xav hauled herself from the water, rivulets streaming down her training suit as she snatched her towel. Emma's head jerked up at the movement, her face breaking into that grin—the one that made Xav's stomach swoop like she'd missed a step.

"Sorry," Xav muttered automatically, toweling her hair to hide the flush creeping up her neck. "Coach's idea of a cool-down was cruel and unusual."

Emma's laugh echoed off the tiled walls, bright and unrestrained. "You're literally the only person who'd apologize for following orders."

Xav rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress the warmth flooding her chest. She focused on wringing water from her ponytail, hyperaware of Emma's gaze tracing the droplets sliding down her collarbone. The sharp tang of chlorine mingled with Emma's vanilla lotion as she leaned in to pass Xav's water bottle, their fingers brushing—

"You stayed," Xav observed, voice lower than intended.

Emma's shoulder bumped against hers, lingering. "Like I'd be anywhere else."

Xav's breath stuttered. She busied herself with her bag, willing her traitorous pulse to steady. It was absurd—how Emma could unravel her with a glance, a touch, a half-smile.

A sunbeam caught Emma's profile as she hummed under her breath, highlighting the ink smudged on her cheek. Xav's fingers twitched with the urge to wipe it away, to trace the constellation of freckles across her nose—

"See something you like?" Emma quipped without looking up, that infuriating smirk playing on her lips.

Xav's face burned. "I was just wondering how you can read your own handwriting."

Emma gasped in mock offense, clutching her notebook to her chest. "My fanfictions are works of art, thank you very much."

Xav's lips curved unbidden, the tension in her shoulders easing. This was their rhythm—the easy back-and-forth, the comfortable silence between notes.

Yet today the air between them crackled with something new. Maybe it was how Emma's eyes kept dropping to Xav's mouth. Maybe it was how their knees still touched even when the bleachers had plenty of space.

Xav swallowed. The confession burned behind her teeth—

"Zhang! Stop dawdling!" Coach's bark shattered the moment.

Emma's laughter wrapped around Xav like sunlight as she stood, offering a hand. "Saved by coach, huh?" Her fingers laced through Xav's, sticky with soda residue and warm as summer pavement. "Come on, Zhang. Walk me home?"

-

Their friendship had started exactly 317 days ago (not that Xav was counting) when Emma had plopped into the seat next to her in homeroom.

"You look like the only person here who doesn't suck," Emma had announced, slamming her battered notebook onto the desk with enough force to make Xav jump. A pen rolled off the edge, landing in Xav's lap. "Wanna be friends?"

Xav had stared at the pen in her lap, then at Emma's ink-stained fingers, then at the hopeful glint in those grey-blue eyes. She'd been too stunned to do anything but nod.

Now, sitting under their usual oak tree behind the school, Xav watched as Emma rummaged through her bag, sending pens and crumpled papers flying.

"Ah-ha!" Emma emerged victorious, brandishing a granola bar that had clearly lost a fight with her geometry textbook. "Breakfast of champions."

Xav checked her watch with deliberate precision. "It's 3:17 PM."

"Details." Emma tore into the wrapper with her teeth, then immediately gagged. "Ugh! Raisins. Trade me?"

"You haven't even seen what I—"

"Apples and peanut butter," Emma interrupted, already making grabby hands. "Sliced diagonally because you're weirdly obsessive about symmetry."

Xav's cheeks warmed as she surrendered her meticulously arranged container. How did Emma notice these things?

"You're the actual best," Emma mumbled around a mouthful, kicking her sneakers off to wiggle her toes in the grass. A glob of peanut butter clung to her bottom lip.

Xav's fingers twitched with the urge to wipe it away. Instead, she focused on the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves, on the way Emma's laughter sent the birds scattering from the branches above them—on anything but the way her pulse stuttered whenever Emma looked at her like that.

Like she was something precious.

-

The thing was, Xav had always been careful. She kept her notes color-coded, her locker organized.

But Emma? Emma was chaos. She left her shoes untied and her homework until the last minute.

And somehow, against all logic, Xav loved her for it.

She loved the way Emma would send her random reels at 2 AM. The way she would steal fries off Xav's tray at lunch without asking. The way she would rest her head on Xav's shoulder during boring assemblies, her hair smelling like sunshine and strawberry shampoo.

It was terrifying.

-

"Hey, Xav?" Emma's voice was unusually quiet.

Xav looked up from her psychology notes. "Hm?"

Emma was chewing on her bottom lip, a nervous habit Xav had come to recognize. "Do you ever think about... after graduation?"

Xav's pencil stilled. She had thought about little else lately. The idea of not seeing Emma every day, of not knowing who made her laugh, who walked with her to class, who got to see that soft, sleepy smile she had in the mornings, made something ache deep in Xav's chest.

"Yeah," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "All the time."

Emma fiddled with the hem of her shorts. "I just... I don't want things to change."

The words hung between them, heavy with everything they were not saying.

Xav took a shaky breath. "What if..." She hesitated, her courage faltering. "What if they changed in a good way?"

Emma's head snapped up, her eyes searching Xav's face. "What do you mean?"

Xav's pulse roared in her ears, loud enough to drown out the chlorine-scented air around them. She wiped her damp palms against her jeans. "What if—" The words stuck in her throat. She tried again. "What if we got dinner this weekend? Not as... not just as friends." The admission hung between them, fragile as the sunlight glinting off the pool water.

Emma went perfectly still. The notebook slipped from her fingers, landing with a soft thump on the bleachers. Xav watched, heart hammering, as Emma's lips parted—just slightly—before curving into that slow, devastating smile that always unraveled her.

"Jesus, Zhang." Emma's voice was rough with something that made Xav's knees weak. She reached out, calloused fingertips brushing Xav's wrist where it rested between them. "Was starting to think I'd have to spell it out for you." Her thumb traced a burning circle against Xav's skin. "Took you long enough."

Xav's breath escaped in a rush, as if she'd been clinging to it since the first time she noticed how sunlight caught in Emma's hair. "So, Rebekah..." Her voice wavered slightly, the words tasting unfamiliar yet right on her tongue. "This is really a date?"

Emma's answering smile could have powered the entire school. Without hesitation, she bridged the remaining distance between them, her fingers slotting between Xav's with the ease of something meant to be. The stickiness from earlier apple slices made their palms cling together, and Xav found herself memorizing the sensation - this perfect imperfection.

As the sinking sun painted the world in gold and violet, Xav watched their joined hands swing between them. The shadows stretched long across the grass, but for once, she didn't mind the approaching darkness. Not when Emma's thumb was tracing absent circles against her skin, not when the future suddenly felt less like something to fear and more like something to dive into headfirst.