First Bell, First Cracks
The alarm clock reads 5:47 when Ella's eyes open on their own, thirteen minutes before the shrill electronic bleat she's dreaded all summer. She lies still for a moment, staring at the water stain on her ceiling that has always looked, to her, like a rabbit mid-leap. Somewhere outside, a sprinkler ticks against pavement in rhythmic little gasps. The house is silent except for that sound and the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs, and for a few precious minutes, Ella lets herself believe the day hasn't started yet.
Junior year. The words sit heavy in her stomach, like a stone she swallowed sometime in August and never quite digested. Everyone talks about junior year the way people talk about hurricanes — something you brace for, something that reshapes the landscape whether you're ready or not. She's heard the horror stories from Sam's older cousin: the SATs looming like a guillotine, teachers who stop coddling you, the sudden expectation that you know exactly who you are and where you're headed. Ella doesn't know either of those things. She barely knows what she wants for breakfast.
She reaches for her sketchbook before her feet even touch the floor. It's tucked between…
