Before reading this, please keep in mind that I have zero (0) idea of how boy dynamics work.
(What am I even doing? Nobody is gonna read this)

Cath woke up to the sound of someone singing —incredibly out of tune— from the bathroom. It was an old romantic song about forgotten Aprils and golden times.

She couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming about, but there was the fading shape of a face that she would forget later.

It was earlier than her usual wake-up time, but not early enough to just go back to sleep. So she got out of bed, took a quick shower and dressed for the day, put on some makeup and used the extra time to add soft waves to her, otherwise straight hair.

She still had almost an hour left when she got downstairs for breakfast. 

Her mom glanced up at her hair and smiled playfully.

“¿Para dónde tan arreglada?”

(Where are you going so dolled up?)

Cath raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks. Didn’t know I needed fixing.”

She sat down at the table. Her mom had already set up breakfast — it was just the two of them this morning, the rest of the house either asleep or already gone.

They ate in comfortable silence until her mom set her mug down and asked, almost too casually:

“Have you heard anything from your dad?”

Cath groaned and made a face.

“So, nothing?”

“Do we have to start the morning with cursed topics?”

Her mom gave her a look — not harsh, just one of those expressions that said everything she didn’t put into words.

“Well, we better hurry up or you’ll miss the bus and I’ll get trapped in traffic,” her mom said as she stood and started gathering the mugs and dirty dishes. Cath put away the rest of the food.

Once outside the house, Cath started walking toward the bus stop while her mom drove off in the direction of the city.

Ana was already there, wearing something that looked suspiciously like pajama pants and that mischievous little smile of hers — the one that always meant she’d seen something she wasn’t supposed to and was about to weaponize it.

She didn’t even say hello.

“Sooo,” Ana drawled, one eyebrow raised in full drama mode, “I saw you getting out of a certain person’s car yesterday afternoon.”

“He just gave me a ride home. I didn’t say anything when you used to come back from school with that weird guy from 12th grade, yk, the one with the bad buzz cut.”

Ana gave her a mock offended gasp just as the bus stopped in front of them “we’re gonna talk about that later young lady” 

Once on the bus, Cath put on her cable earbuds and let the strong rhythm of “brutal” replace the sound of chatter inside.

Six blocks down the street James Carter woke up late without any responsible excuse for it. His mom and Eli had already left. He took a shower so quickly he barely registered it and tried to butter a toast while putting on a black hoodie. He was out of the house and in the car with 15 minutes left till school started, his guitar was in the backseat and he turned on the radio, the unsettling tune of “in the lap of the gods” filled the silence of the car.

“I guess that’s fitting with the damn Greek tragedy I got dragged into” he muttered to himself while he started the engine of the car.

He stepped into the biology classroom ten minutes late — hair messier than usual, a crumb of toast in the corner of his mouth, and still smelling faintly of homemade coffee. Sliding into a seat beside Matt before the teacher could ask for a pass, he tried to look invisible.

“Dude, what even happened to you? You look like you fought a comb and lost,” Matt said, giving him a light shove.

“Nothing,” James muttered, stifling a yawn. “Just decided sleep was overrated last night and regretted it this morning.” He added a crooked grin. “Plus, the girls love this look.”

Chris, leaning back from the seat in front of them, scoffed. “Drop the heartthrob act, Carter. We all know you cry at cartoons with your brother.”

“Shut up, Chris. I have a reputation.”

“Yeah. A sunny one.”

“Okay. Christian” 

“Oh, shut up. You know that’s cursed”

“And you still lose the last word because of it every time” Matt added.

This chapter is ridiculously short but it works for now, honestly I think that I aimed too high with the play thing because now I don’t know what to do with it but, anyway. Hope you enjoyed!