By the time the lunch bell rang, the cafeteria smelled like hot grease and questionable life choices. Friday meant "pizza," which in our school translated to a square of bread, red mystery, and cheese that fought back when you bit it.
Chloe poked my tray with her fork. "That's not pizza. That's a dare."
"It's edible," I said, even though I wasn't sure I believed myself.
Ethan slid onto the bench across from us and immediately stole my milk carton. "Bold of you to assume food," he said. He took a sip, made a face, and set it back like he hadn't just contaminated it with whatever disease he and his video game controller shared.
"You're a menace," I said, pulling it farther from his reach.
"Correction: I'm efficient. You weren't going to drink it."
Chloe snorted so hard soda fizz tickled her nose. "He's not wrong."
I nudged her shoulder. "Whose side are you on?"
"Whoever has fries," she said, already eyeing Ethan's tray. He shielded it with one long arm like a mother hen.
My phone buzzed with a text from Mom. Don't stay out late tonight. Love you. She always texted that on Fridays, like the weekend was a burglar and I was prone to wandering into its van.
I'm not going anywhere, I typed back. Promise.
"Who's the boyfriend," Ethan asked dramatically, craning his neck.
"Your mom," I said. He rolled his eyes and took another sip of stolen milk just to spite me.
Chloe leaned across the table, lowering her voice like she was announcing classified intel. "I have an update."
"On?" I asked.
"Ezra's group," she said, eyes bright. "They're throwing something tonight. Bonfire? House hang? I heard 'fire' and 'playlist' and something about a truck."
Ethan perked up. "Do they even listen to music like normal people? Or is it just ambient money noises?"
I twisted on the bench to look. Ezra's group was exactly where they always were—corner table near the windows, the one with actual sunlight like the building tilted to give them better lighting. Ezra sat at the end, the sun catching on dark hair that never did that awkward fluffy thing normal boys' hair did. He had that posture people get when they know rooms bend for them: back straight, shoulders relaxed, one arm slung along the back of his chair like it belonged to him. Knox was to his right, profile serious, saying nothing and seeing everything. Wesley was mid-story, hands moving, grin sharp. Erica had a perfect manicure wrapped around a perfect water bottle and was resting her head on her hand while pretending she wasn't watching Ezra breathe.
They were the kind of group that made hallways part. Not because they asked, but because people liked watching them. Or because getting in their way felt like stepping into a current.
"I vote we don't go," I said, returning to the safe if tragic shelter of my tray. "Last time someone—" I looked meaningfully at Chloe "—dragged us to one of their things, I lost feeling in my toes and a guy tried to teach me how to shotgun hot chocolate."
Chloe pressed a hand to her chest. "One, I didn't drag. I encouraged. Two, that guy was helpful."
"He was sticky."
Ethan flicked a crumb at me. "We're not going. We weren't invited."
Chloe pouted. "We're inviting ourselves."
I pointed at her. "That is how people end up in documentaries."
Her eyes slid past my shoulder. "Okay, but what if we were invited?"
"If Ezra comes over here personally and says, 'Evelyn, please grace us with your presence,' I'll consider it," I said.
"Consider?" Ethan said, scandalized. "You'd faint."
"I would not."
"You'd sway dramatically and then pretend you meant to do that," Chloe said, nodding like she'd rehearsed the imaginary scene.
"I hate both of you."
"Lies," they said together.
I tried to eat the pizza. It tried to be eaten. We met in the middle.
"Speaking of Ezra's group," Chloe said, which meant she'd never stopped thinking about them, "did you notice how they're always together? Like, always? Even in class, they sit in a clump."
"They're friends," I said.
"They're a cult," Ethan said. "Do you think they have matching robes? Secret handshakes?"
"They probably have a group chat called 'We're Better Than You,'" Chloe said.
I watched Knox tilt his head toward the windows, eyes cutting across the room, and then flick back. He didn't talk much. He didn't have to. Wesley bumped shoulders with him and laughed at something in a way that would've gotten any other pair detention. Erica's laugh came a beat later, polished and obvious. Ezra said something that didn't show up on his face and the three of them settled like that had ended the conversation.
"Rich kids," Ethan declared, like that explained everything.
"They're not all rich," Chloe said. "Ezra's family is… whatever. Old money. Erica's too. Knox, I think his dad runs a thing. But Wesley works at the auto place near my aunt's store. He has grease under his nails sometimes. Which, not gonna lie, is a look."
I wrinkled my nose. "Is it?"
"Hands that can fix things," she said, dreamily. "I'm into it."
"Men who can fix their own terrible personalities," Ethan countered. "That's my type."
"You like girls," I reminded him.
He took it in stride. "Girls with terrible personalities."
I glanced at Ezra's table again, which was a mistake because this time he was already looking. Not like I was a bug under glass. Like I was a door he hadn't realized was in the room. It was one of those three-second looks that feels like thirty, even though if you blink you can miss it.
I didn't blink. My face warmed anyway.
He dropped his gaze before mine did and said something to Knox, who didn't bother looking to see what he'd been looking at.
Chloe elbowed me hard enough to make my tray jump. "He looked."
"No, he didn't," I said, more to my pride than to her. "He looked past. He was spacing out."
"Ezra doesn't space out," Ethan said. "Spacing out is for mortals."
"Then he was checking the clock. Or he was monitoring for fires. He's a concerned citizen."
"Concerned citizens don't have that jawline," Chloe said, puffing air into her bangs with a sigh. "I'm just saying. He's objectively handsome."
"He's objectively impossible," I said, but my heart hadn't gotten the memo and was doing that annoying low thud that means it wants attention.
The bell saved me from further analysis. Students surged like a tide. Tables emptied. Trays clattered. The whole building did that thing where it switched tracks and rattled forward one period at a time.
"English," Ethan groaned.
"Science," Chloe said, equally tragic.
"Math," I said, which earned me twin groans of sympathy.
"Thoughts and prayers," Ethan said, patting my shoulder solemnly.
We dumped our trays, the pizza slab sliding into the bin like it was grateful to be released from service, and got swept into the hallway together. This time of day always felt like we were doing a choreographed dance without rehearsal—lockers, doors, moving bodies, someone shouting someone else's name like it was an alarm.
At my locker, Chloe leaned on the one next to mine and adjusted the scrunchie on her wrist while I fumbled with my combination.
"Are we still on for tonight?" she asked.
"Define 'on,'" I said.
"Me picking up snacks. You picking a movie. Ethan pretending he doesn't cry during sad parts."
"I don't cry," Ethan said, offended. "I leak."
Chloe and I just stared at him.
"Fine," he said. "I cry. You try watching a dog run across a battlefield and not lose your soul."
"See you at seven," I said, biting back a smile.
They peeled off toward class. I grabbed my math notebook, shut the metal door with a thunk, and turned straight into a wall.
Except I'd know walls. This one exhaled.
"Sorry," I said automatically, because when you walk into an Ezra you apologize on instinct.
His hand came up like he might steady me and then didn't. Ezra had manners when anyone was watching. He didn't need to use them to get what he wanted, but he did anyway, which was somehow worse.
"You okay?" he asked, like he'd bumped into me.
"Yeah." I nodded. "Totally fine. Love the architecture in this hallway. Very sturdy."
One of his eyebrows ticked up a fraction. "I've noticed."
I backed up half a step. "Well. Have a… hallway."
"You too," he said, because I'd already made the conversation weird and he was polite enough to meet me there.
Knox appeared at his shoulder like he'd been manufactured from air. "We're late," he said, voice quiet enough that it didn't carry but somehow still cut through the noise.
"Go ahead," Ezra said.
Knox didn't "go ahead." He moved when Ezra moved and not a second before.
I watched them cross the hall together. Wesley joined on the other side, all lazy grin and easy charm with someone in a letterman jacket. Erica caught up with a little jog, touching Ezra's arm like she'd been on pause until she found him again.
Class was starting. I realized I was still standing there in the middle of the hall like a lost character, shook myself, and sprinted for math.
Mr. Dawson had already drawn a siege of numbers on the whiteboard. I dropped into my seat, tried to look like I hadn't arrived with my laces tied together, and opened my notebook. Ithelped that math always felt like someone had handed me a broken map; Mr. Dawson's voice flattened into background, the scratch of pens and the tick of the clock filling up the parts of my brain that didn't want to think. The period passed the way it always did—slowly, then all at once.
After class, he handed back quizzes from earlier in the week. Mine had a 78 scrawled in red at the top, which was either a victory or a tragedy depending on how you measured. I'll take a C+ in math the way other people take a medal.
Chloe waited in the hall to walk to our next class together. "How's the battlefield?" she asked, glancing at the paper.
"Not dead," I said. "Mortally wounded."
"You're so dramatic."
"Says the person who wears false lashes to homeroom."
"These are my natural eyelashes," she lied, blinking like a Disney deer.
Ethan met us at the top of the stairs. "I acquired a new meme," he announced.
"No," we said in unison, which only made him pull his phone out faster.
He showed us anyway. We laughed anyway. That's how it went. The three of us had been doing this long enough that my day was built on the little grooves their routines wore into it.
In history, Mr. Lopez put on a documentary from the '90s that was all grain and voiceover and maps slowly filling like coloring books. I took notes because taking notes made me feel like I was doing something, even when the something was writing, "Spain liked boats," in the margins.
Chloe leaned over and whispered, "Do you think Erica's hair is real?"
"Possibly made in a lab," I whispered back.
Ethan tossed a balled-up scrap of paper at us. It bounced off my elbow into Chloe's lap. She smoothed it open. You're invited to a very exclusive event: watching me get an A in Chem. He'd drawn a little stick figure flexing.
I drew a stick figure crying and passed it back. He tried not to laugh. Mr. Lopez paused the video to sigh at the class as a concept. We all behaved for exactly eight minutes.
I survived gym. Barely. I survived lunch round two—leftovers of gossip and a plastic apple cup that tasted like childhood and chemicals. I survived Spanish with a quiz that tried to murder me in three verb tenses. The school day was not personal. It rolled over everyone the same way.
Last period, Ms. Monroe let us start on our essays. I stared at the blank document on my screen until it felt like the cursor was judging me. When the final bell rang, the sound sliced the room and everyone came back to life at once—chairs scooting, keyboards closing, zippers ripping, someone shouting "text me" like a threat.
Outside, the air had that cool bite the first week of October always brings. The sky was clear enough that if you squinted, you could pretend the whole day had been brighter than it was.
"I'm grabbing chips," Chloe announced, digging in her tote bag to check her wallet. "And candy. And something healthy so I can lie to my mom."
"Carrots," Ethan said. "They cancel out sugar. It's science."
"See you at seven?" she asked me.
"Seven," I confirmed.
We did our weird three-person half-hug thing and split, Chloe heading toward the corner store, Ethan pretending he wasn't walking the same direction because it looked cooler that way, me turning down Maple toward home.
The neighborhood between school and my house was one of those areas that couldn't decide if it remembered being nice. Old trees arched over cracked sidewalks. The porches were more personality than paint. The same dog barked from the same yard like it had been born doing it.
I cut across the lot behind the library to shave off two minutes. A couple of guys were tossing a football back and forth. A girl with headphones sat on the low wall and sang too softly to hear the words. My shoes scuffed leaves. I took the last left and my house came into view—white-ish, one story, a front step that slanted a little.
Mom's car was in the driveway. She'd probably gone in late; Fridays were like that for her at the florist shop. I unlocked the door, breathed in the familiar mix of clean laundry, something floral, and the lemon cleaner she swore could cure anything, and kicked off my shoes.
"Hey," she called from the kitchen. "That you?"
"No, it's a cat burglar," I said, dropping my backpack by the couch. "I only steal throw pillows and jars of pickles."
She walked out with a wooden spoon in her hand, hair twisted up with a pencil, an apron tied over her work blouse like she'd come home and fallen straight into cooking. Mom looked young the way some moms do, where the lines at the corners of her eyes are more from laughing than not sleeping. "You're not funny," she said, trying to hide a smile.
"I am deeply hilarious," I said, plucking a carrot from the cutting board and crunching it. "What are you making?"
"Soup," she said. "It's going to get cold this weekend."
"It's eighty degrees."
"Cold in here," she said, tapping the tip of my nose with the spoon. "Also, soup is good for the soul."
"Did a mug tell you that?"
She grinned. "A decorative sign told me, actually."
I leaned against the counter. "We're doing movie night. Chloe's bringing snacks. Ethan's bringing lies about how he doesn't cry during movies."
"Do you need anything?"
"Just… permission to exist in a blanket," I said.
"Granted," she said, and went back to chopping. The routine between us was a blanket too. It had holes, but it was warm.
"Can I ask you a very serious question?" I said, snagging a piece of celery next.
"Can I veto it?"
"No."
She sighed like I'd exhausted her entire life. "Fine."
"When exactly did you become obsessed with soup?"
She pointed the spoon at me. "When I had a teenager who doesn't eat lunch."
"I ate," I said.
"What?"
"Feelings."
She made a face. "Gross."
"I know," I said. "They're terrible."
She finished chopping, slid vegetables into the pot, and set the spoon down. "You look… something."
"Thanks," I said. "That's specific."
"I mean you look… older, all of a sudden," she said, reaching to tuck a curl behind my ear. "When did that happen?"
"Yesterday," I said. "Twenty minutes after second period."
"Ha." Her eyes softened in a way that melted the rest of my defenses. "Your birthday's this weekend."
"If you bring me soup with candles in it, I'm moving out."
"Rude," she said. "I already bought cake. With frosting you'll hate."
"Perfect," I said. "Balance."
She went back to the stove. I sat at the table and pulled my math out, which was brave and pointless, and pretended to work on it so she wouldn't ask me too many questions. Mom and I had an unspoken agreement where we only told the truth we could carry in one trip.
At six-thirty, she declared the soup done and threatened to cry if I didn't eat a bowl. I did because I like her and also because it was actually good. At seven, Chloe texted I'm outside and then hurry up or I'm eating the gummy bears which I knew was a lie because she hoards those like they're currency.
I grabbed a blanket, yelled to Mom that I'd be back by ten, and slipped out the front door. The air had cooled just enough to pretend summer wasn't clinging on. Chloe's little hatchback was idling at the curb, music low, Ethan already in the back complaining about the radio station.
"Shotgun," I said, flinging myself into the passenger seat.
"I was already here," Ethan said.
"Your legs are too long for the front," Chloe said, pulling away from the curb. "And your soul is too short."
We argued about which movie to watch all the way to my house again and then argued about snacks on my couch. Chloe spread out a ridiculous haul across the coffee table—chips, mini donuts, carrots pretending to cancel out everything else. Ethan picked a superhero movie with no plot and too many explosions, which meant he would cry at the part where the music gets sad anyway.
Halfway through, my phone buzzed with another text from Mom. You okay?
Yep, I sent back. Chloe is a menace. Ethan is leaking feelings.
Be home by ten, she sent.
Yes, yes, soup police, I wrote, and she sent me a rolling eyes emoji that did not exist when she was growing up and yet somehow fit her exactly.
We watched. We roasted the movie. Ethan did, in fact, leak. Chloe dozed off for ten minutes and woke up insisting she hadn't. I pretended none of us had homework. It was small and stupid and perfect in the way small and stupid nights are.
At 9:58, Chloe sighed, stretched, and announced she had to go home because if she missed curfew, her mom would ground her phone, which is worse than grounding your body. Ethan declared the movie "fine" like he hadn't clutched the pillow during the last fifteen minutes.
They left in a flurry of zippers and goodnights. I walked Chloe to the door, waved until the hatchback turned the corner, and then stood on the porch for a second just because the night had decided to be pretty without asking anyone if we needed that.
Inside, Mom had left a dish towel on the oven handle with a sticky note on it: Cake tomorrow. Be nice to yourself. I stuck it to the fridge where we kept the art I made when I was five and the coupons we would never use.
I did my nighttime routine in autopilot and crawled into bed with my book. My eyes did that thing where they moved across the page without sending the information to my brain. I turned off the lamp and stared at the ceiling instead. My birthday wasn't a big one. Eighteen felt like… paperwork. Voter registrations and the right to sign my own field trip form. But labels shift things, even if you pretend they don't.
I set my phone face down on the nightstand. The house settled around me—pipes clicking, the fridge humming, the neighbor's car door thudding shut. From somewhere far off, the sound of a party drifted thinly through the open window—music and laughter and the bass thump that makes your chest remember standing too close to speakers.
For one second, I wondered what Ezra's group was doing. Probably sitting around a fire pretending the night belonged to them. Probably laughing at jokes that weren't that funny. Probably not thinking about the invisible girl three streets over who had memorized which floorboards in her room creaked.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin and let my eyes close. Tomorrow, I'd eat cake and tolerate Mom's singing and decide that adulthood was just doing the same things with more responsibility.
Tomorrow, everything would still be ordinary.
I fell asleep believing it.