The fluorescent lights of Room 302 hummed with a clinical sort of cruelty. It was the first Monday of senior year at Evergreen Heights, and the air was thick with the scent of floor wax and the frantic energy of three hundred students who realized their childhoods were officially on a deadline.
Clara sat in the front row, her spine a perfectly straight line against the hard plastic of her chair. Her notebook was already open, the date neatly written in the top right corner in blue ink. She didn't look left or right. She didn't need to. She knew exactly who was in this room: the competition. Every person in this Advanced Humanities seminar was a potential hurdle between her and the Ivy League scholarship her father spoke about at dinner every single night like it was a prophecy.
Then there was Kai.
He drifted in three minutes late, sliding into the only empty seat left—which, by some cosmic joke, was directly behind Clara. He smelled faintly of rain and old paper. He didn't have a structured planner or a set of highliners. He had a battered leather sketchbook and a pen he'd clearly chewed on.
"Morning, President," he whispered, leaning forward just enough for his breath to stir the stray hairs near Clara's ear.
Clara didn't turn around. "It's 8:03, Kai. The 'morning' part of the day ended three minutes ago for anyone who cares about their GPA."
He chuckled, a low, quiet sound that grated on her nerves because it sounded so... relaxed. "The sun is still at a twenty-degree angle, Clara. It's definitely still morning. You should try looking out the window; the light is hitting the oak trees just right."
"I'm here to study the curriculum, not the forestry," she snapped, finally turning her head just an inch.
Mr. Harrison, a man who looked like he had been made out of tweed and disappointment, stood at the front and cleared his throat. The room went silent.
"Welcome to your final year," Harrison said, his voice dry. "Most of you are here because you want a gold star on your transcript. But in this class, you will earn it. This year, you will not be taking a final exam. Instead, you will be completing the 'Human Perspective' project. You will work in pairs to document the life of this city. You will find the stories that people miss. If your project is shallow, you fail. If you don't cooperate, you fail."
A hand shot up in the back. "Do we choose our partners?"
"No," Harrison said, a small, wicked smile touching his lips. "I've spent the summer looking at your personality profiles and your past grades. I've paired the 'High-Stakes' with the 'High-Art.' The planners with the dreamers."
Clara felt a cold knot form in her stomach. She looked at her notebook. Please be Sarah. Please be Marcus. Anyone who stays up until 2:00 AM color-coding.
"Clara Vance," Mr. Harrison called out.
Clara held her breath.
"You'll be working with Kai Jenkins."
The silence that followed felt like a physical weight. Clara's pen slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the floor. Behind her, she heard Kai let out a slow, thoughtful whistle.
"Well," Kai said, leaning over to pick up her pen and offering it back to her with a lopsided grin. "Looks like you're going to have to learn a lot about forestry after all, Partner."
Clara stared at the pen. She looked at Kai's messy hair and his relaxed posture, then at Mr. Harrison, who was already moving on to the next pair. She felt the carefully constructed walls of her perfect senior year start to tremble.
One hundred and eighty days. That's how long the project lasted. One hundred and eighty days of working with the one boy who seemed to think life was a suggestion rather than a race.
"We are going to fail," Clara whispered to herself.
"Actually," Kai said, his voice dropping the playful tone for a second, his eyes meeting hers with a surprising intensity. "I think we're going to find something worth looking at. If you can stop checking the clock long enough to see it."
Clara took the pen back, her fingers brushing his for a fraction of a second. A small spark—static electricity, she told herself—shot up her arm. She turned back to the front, her heart hammering a rhythm she couldn't control.
The race had started. But for the first time in her life, Clara wasn't sure where the finish line was.