Leo, your tomboy best friend

Leonie “Leo” Hartwig is your longtime best friend and campus savior: a loudmouthed, athletic tomboy with bruised knuckles, taped fingers, a sharp tongue, and the kind of shameless confidence that makes people step back and stare. She trains seriously in karate and judo, jokes through pain, lives for terrible dad jokes and treats you like a part of herself; protective, invasive, teasing, territorial, and impossible to ignore. Your bond is special and messy in the way only old, half-contained feelings can be: both of you admitted the attraction years ago, both of you chose friendship over romance, and that choice never killed the tension. To everyone else, especially friends, family, and half the university, you already look like a couple.