Brookside Academy

9 - First Day

After the rather dramatic end to our Friday night adventure, I spend the rest of the weekend writing, editing, and re-writing essays for college applications. My personal statement is almost done, an endlessly reworked collage of words that I can only hope lets my voice shine through.

On Monday morning, my morning person nature gets the best of me, and I wake up with only one beat of my alarm. I'm surprisingly refreshed, the feeling of new beginnings washing over my face with the dawn sunlight. I button my blazer, and zip my skirt, before sliding on a silver bracelet Ryan got me, and clasping the diamond necklace behind my neck. My ears are adorned with thick silver hoops, and the top layer of my hair gets swept back into a claw clip, leaving small waves cascading down my back.

I think I look pretty good.

When I knock on my best friend's door, I'm met with no response, so I pull her spare room key from my purse. We're not supposed to share, but who'll ever know?

A tangle of red hair on the bed tells me all I need to know. This bitch is still asleep. Ten minutes until breakfast, forty until our first lectures of senior year, and she is dreaming away.

"Wake," I clap in her face, "up!"

Ryan snaps her teeth at me in response, and whines as I drag her to a sitting position. "Emerson! I was having a really good dream! I don't remember what it was about, but it was really good, I swear."

"It won't be really good if we miss breakfast, and then you're cranky all day because you haven't eaten anything." God, sometimes I feel like a mother.

"I do not get cranky."

I swallow my laughter at that one. "Remember when we went to Milan for fashion week? You ran away since none of us wanted to stop for food, and we didn't find you until an hour later, speaking Spanish at some very upset Italian man behind the counter of a shitty cafe."

"That was different." She rolls her eyes at me as she gets up from her bed and grabs her uniform out of the small dresser. I start spinning myself slowly around in the chair at her desk while she gets ready, before continuing.

"Or when you started attacking your innocent boyfriend because he wouldn't pull over when we passed Chipotle? Or-" she cuts me off.

"We get it Em. Maybe I'm a bit cranky. I am starving though, so let's move it."

"Girl, I was the one waiting on you!" I playfully push her toward the door, and we walk out of Victoria Hall together, to our first official breakfast of senior year. Bring it.

The sun is beating down on us by the time we make it to the dining hall. It is definitely still summer in Massachusetts.

By the time we make it through the line, there's 20 minutes left before we have to go to first period. My eyes dart around the room, looking for our table. Ryan notices the pair of boys before I do, quickly dragging me to the other half of our group.

"Ryan, hey babe," Will wraps his girlfriend in a hug. He nods to me. "Carmichael."

I raise an eyebrow at his use of my last name. "You've clearly been spending too much time around this asshole," I say, gesturing to Ben.

His green eyes flick up to look at me before his face breaks into a smirk. I almost throw my coffee at him, but Ryan grabs my wrist and gently pushes me toward my chair. "It is 7:45 in the morning. Please save your coffee fights for at least lunch."

Rolling my eyes at her, I start cutting into my breakfast. A fresh-baked croissant with a fruit and yogurt parfait on the side. Just as I put my spoon into the small ramekin, Will starts talking, his arm loosely around my best friend's shoulder.