Chapter 1

First Day Version of Me

By seven twelve in the morning, I have already changed my shirt twice.

The first one made me look too flat. The second one made me look like I was trying too hard. The one I end up wearing is a pale blue baby tee my mom said was “cute and simple,” which is mom language for not offensive enough to start a fight before school.

I stand in front of my mirror and pull the hem down again.

My hair is straight for once. Not perfectly, because I had to do it myself and the back still does this weird bend near my shoulders, but enough that it looks different from middle school me. Better than middle school me. Hopefully. I put on mascara, wipe one clump off with my thumbnail, and lean closer to the mirror.

I look older.

Not older older. Not like the girls on TikTok who somehow look sixteen at thirteen and twenty at sixteen. Just less like the version of me everyone at West Ridge Middle already decided they knew.

Mom knocks once and opens the door before I answer. “We need to leave in five.”

“I’m ready.”

She looks me over in that fast mother way that somehow notices everything. “You look nice.”

Nice is not the word I want, but I take it. “Thanks.”

She steps farther into my room and reaches over to smooth down one side of my hair. I hate when she does that. Not because it hurts, but because it makes me feel nine.

“First day,” she says, smiling like that should fix it. “Fresh start.”

I nod like I believe in fresh starts more than I do.

Downstairs, Lena is eating a waffle with her hands, one foot tucked under her on the chair. She is eleven and still fully in the stage of life where she can look terrible on purpose and not care. Her hair is in a crooked ponytail and she has syrup on her chin.

“You look weird,” she tells me.

Mom turns from the counter. “Lena.”

“What? She does. Like older weird.”

I grab my water bottle. “Thanks, I think.”

Dad folds the newspaper he barely reads anymore and stands. “Big day.”

That is another useless adult phrase. Big day. Fresh start. You look nice. Like I am going to Bellrose High wearing armor instead of a shirt I already regret.

On the drive there, I keep checking my phone even though Ellie texted me last night that she’d meet me by the front entrance at seven forty-five. I already know what the screen looks like. Still, I check again.

Nothing.

Bellrose rises up at the end of the road all brick and glass and too many windows. It looks less like a school and more like a place where people become the version of themselves everyone else remembers. The parking lot is already full enough that kids are walking in from every direction. Some with backpacks slung off one shoulder. Some carrying iced coffees. Some laughing in groups like school is an extension of their summer instead of the start of a new social ranking system.

Mom slows near the drop-off line. “Text me if you need anything.”

I unbuckle. “I won’t.”

She gives me a look. “That was not the point.”

“I know.”

I get out before she can say anything else. The heat hits first. Then the noise. Car doors slamming. Girls calling out to each other. A boy on a skateboard getting yelled at by one of the assistant principals before school has even officially started.

I adjust my backpack and look around for Ellie.

The first thing I notice is the girls.

Not because I want to. Because it is impossible not to.

Some of them already look finished. Like they woke up with perfect hair and tiny gold earrings and clear skin and knew exactly what to wear without pulling every shirt they own onto the floor first. One girl has on gray leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that somehow looks expensive even though it is probably the same thing I own three versions of. Another girl wears a black skirt with sneakers and a white tank under a zip-up hoodie, and she looks effortless in a way that makes me instantly suspicious because nothing about being a girl has ever felt effortless to me.

Then there are the confident girls. The ones who walk like they are expected. Like the building was waiting for them.

I hate that I can tell who they are so fast.

A group of upperclassmen passes by laughing too loudly, and one of them flips her hair back over her shoulder without even looking around first. That is confidence. Or at least the performance of it. Same thing, maybe.

I spot Ellie near the front doors and my stomach unclenches for one second before tightening again.

She looks different too.

Not in some dramatic movie makeover way. Just in all the small ways that matter. Her hair is a shade lighter, like she spent enough time in the sun this summer for it to count. She is wearing hoop earrings that I know her mom never used to let her wear. Her eyeliner is smudged in a way that somehow looks intentional. She is standing with one hand on her hip, checking her phone, and she looks more sure of herself than I expected.

For a second I wonder if she feels the same thing when she looks at me. Like she knows me, but not all the way.

Then she sees me and smiles, and it is still Ellie. Mostly.

“There you are,” she says. “I thought your mom was doing the thing where she takes first-day pictures from twelve angles.”

“She did. I barely survived.”

Ellie laughs. “Mine made me hold my lunchbox like I’m in second grade.”

That gets a real laugh out of me, and just like that, I feel a little better. We start toward the doors together, shoulder to shoulder, the way we always used to. But even in those first few steps I notice that we are slightly off. Not enough for anyone else to see. Just enough for me.

Inside, Bellrose smells like floor cleaner and air conditioning and too many people.

The hallway is louder than middle school hallways ever were. Bigger too, obviously, but not just physically. It feels bigger in consequence. Like things that happen here will follow you longer.

We stop near the main office to look at our schedules even though we already checked them online.

“I have first period with Ms. Donnelly,” Ellie says. “English.”

“I have biology.”

She winces. “At eight in the morning is mean.”

“Maybe I’ll dissect a frog and die.”

“That would ruin the rest of your day.”

I smile, but it comes half a second late.

A girl from our middle school, Kiara, walks by with two other girls and says hi to Ellie first. Not on purpose, probably. Or maybe on purpose a little. Ellie says hi back easily, like she is already sliding into the shape of high school. I lift my hand too late, and Kiara gives me one of those quick up-and-down looks girls do when they want the information of staring without the rudeness of being caught.

I suddenly become aware of my shirt again.

“You look cute,” Ellie says, and I almost ask if she means it or if she can tell I am unraveling. “I like your top.”

“Thanks.”

“Mine was a panic choice.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It absolutely was.”

But it wasn’t, and we both know it.

A bell rings, not the start bell, just one of those warning bells, and the hallway shifts. Kids move with purpose now. Teachers stand in doorways pretending to smile.

“I’m this way,” Ellie says, holding up her schedule.

“Right. Me too. For now.”

We walk until the hall splits, then stop awkwardly for a second like we have forgotten how goodbye works.

“Text me at lunch?” I say.

“Obviously.”

She says it casually, like of course, but something about it still lands funny. Maybe because we used to never have to say things like that out loud. We just knew.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay.”

I head left. She heads right.

I tell myself that is normal. Of course it is normal. This is high school, not elementary school. People have separate classes and separate lives. I know that. Still, I feel it for the next ten steps, this tiny weird pull in my chest, like I have just stepped onto a moving walkway and she has not.

Biology is on the second floor, room two fourteen. I get there too early and still have to take the only seat left in the second row because apparently half the class got here before me and already knows where they belong. The girl next to me has long dark braids and a neat stack of pastel notebooks. The girl in front of me turns around, smiles, and says, “Do you know if he assigns seats?”

I shake my head. “No idea.”

“Cool. I hate assigned seats.”

She turns back around before I can think of something else to say.

Mr. Turner starts class with one of those forced icebreakers where everyone has to say their name and one thing they did over the summer. By the time it gets to me, I have had enough time to reject every possible answer.

“Um, I’m Maya, and this summer I went to Clearwater for a few days.”

That is what I say. Not the part where I spent half the summer on my bed watching girls on my phone explain how to be effortlessly pretty while eating cereal from the box. Not the part where I promised myself high school would be different. Not the part where I practiced smiling in the mirror to see which version made me look least nervous.

Just Clearwater.

“Cool,” Mr. Turner says, as if it is.

By third period, I have a map of Bellrose in my head and a growing one in my chest too. The girls who already know each other from cheer or volleyball. The boys who talk too loudly because they are trying on confidence like a costume. The quiet kids who seem calm but are probably just better at hiding it. The teachers everyone immediately decides are strict or cool. The bathrooms that already feel claimed by different kinds of girls.

At lunch, I spot Ellie at a table near the windows with Kiara and two girls from our middle school friend orbit. Not exactly our group, not exactly not. She waves me over, and relief rushes through me so fast it is embarrassing.

I slide into the empty seat beside her.

“Your biology teacher hot?” Kiara asks before I’ve even set down my tray.

I blink. “He’s like forty.”

“That’s not a no,” one of the other girls says.

They laugh. I laugh too, even though I am not fully in sync with the joke yet.

Lunch moves quickly. Too quickly. Everyone is talking about schedules and who has what class and how crowded the hallways are and which boys got taller over the summer. It should feel familiar, but instead it feels like standing half a second behind a conversation and trying to jump in without making it obvious.

At one point Ellie starts telling a story about getting lost near the gym earlier, and I jump in to finish it because I already know how she tells stories. I know where the funny part is supposed to go. But Ellie pauses, glances at me, and then keeps going in a different direction.

Not meanly. Just differently.

That tiny moment should not matter.

It does.

By sixth period, my feet hurt, my hair has started bending at the ends again, and I have become convinced that every other girl in the building knows some rule I missed. Still, there are moments. Small ones. A girl in algebra complimenting my pen. The girl with the braids in biology asking if I want to be lab partners this semester. A senior holding the side door open for me like I actually belonged there.

When the final bell rings, the whole school seems to exhale at once.

Outside, the air feels even hotter than it did this morning. Kids spill into the parking lot, louder now, more themselves. Or maybe just more tired. I stand near the curb waiting for Mom and watch people reunite in groups like magnets finding each other.

Ellie comes out a minute later and walks toward me, adjusting her backpack.

“So?” she asks.

“So,” I say.

She smiles. “Helpful.”

“I think I survived.”

“I definitely did. My English teacher already loves me.”

I narrow my eyes. “Traitor.”

“It’s not my fault I’m likable.”

That sounds like old Ellie, and I grin. “I’m telling your mom you said that.”

“She knows.”

We stand there for a second in the late afternoon noise. A car honks. Someone yells across the lot. A group of girls near the entrance takes pictures with the school sign in the background, already posing like they know this year belongs to them.

Ellie follows my eyes. “They’re doing too much.”

“Way too much.”

“Although maybe we should’ve taken one.”

I look at her. “You wanted a first-day picture?”

“No. But now that other people did it, suddenly yes.”

That makes me laugh again. A real one.

Mom’s car pulls into the line. I step closer to the curb, then hesitate. “Text me later?”

Ellie nods. “Yeah. Obviously.”

Again with obviously.

This time I do not know why it bothers me. Maybe because it sounds like reassurance and distance at the same time. Like something can be obvious and still not mean what it used to.

I open the car door and get in. As we pull away, I look back at Bellrose through the window.

This morning it looked like a place where I might get another chance. Now it looks like a place that has already started deciding things.

“How was it?” Mom asks.

I keep watching the school until the building disappears behind a row of trees.

“It was fine,” I say.

And that is not a lie. Fine is just a word too small for all of it.

Because the truth is, I feel both things at once.

Hopeful enough to believe I could still become someone new.

Behind enough to know other girls got there first.