CUT TO YOU

Chapter 3 — "Friday"

Avery POV

I have a rule about Fridays.

Fridays are for finishing things. Tying off loose ends, filing completed tasks, setting up Monday so it doesn't have the chance to ambush me. Fridays are productive and satisfying and mine.

This Friday is different.

I wake up at 5:58 a.m. — two minutes before my alarm — and lie in the dark staring at the ceiling with the particular awareness that today is the kind of day that divides time into before and after. I don't know what the after looks like yet. That's the part I don't love.

I'm a before person. I am excellent at before. I have laminated the before.

I get up, get dressed, eat breakfast standing at the kitchen counter because sitting down feels too slow, and I'm out the door by 6:47 — eleven minutes earlier than necessary, which tells me more about my mental state than I'd like to admit.

My mom catches me at the door.

"You okay?" she asks, coffee in hand, reading me the way she's been reading me since I was small — quickly, accurately.

"Partnership announcement today," I say.

She nods. She's heard me process this with measured calm approximately four times this week, which means she's correctly identified that I am not calm about it.

"Whatever happens," she says, "you'll make it work."

"I know."

"You always do." She says it simply, like it's a fact, like she's reading the weather. She doesn't perform belief in me. She just has it, quietly, as a matter of course.

I squeeze her hand on the way out. She squeezes back.

The morning moves in slow motion.

AP Literature: I retain approximately forty percent of what Mrs. Dalton says because the other sixty percent of my brain is already in third period, sitting in the film lab, waiting.

AP Calculus: I will not tell you how much of this I retain.

Priya finds me at my locker between second and third period and takes one look at my face. "You're spiraling," she says.

"I'm processing."

"You have the same face you had before the regional film competition sophomore year."

"I placed first at the regional film competition sophomore year."

"After stress-eating an entire sleeve of crackers in the bathroom." She produces, from somewhere in her bag, a small packet of crackers. "Preventive measure."

I take them. I'm not going to spiral. But I take them.

"You're the best filmmaker in that room," Priya says. "Whoever they pair you with is lucky."

"What if they pair me with someone who—"

"Still lucky." She closes my locker. "Go. You're going to be late."

I go.

Film Production is third period and I am the first student through the door. I have three minutes to sit in bay number two — my bay — and arrange my face into something that communicates calm professionalism rather than the very contained anxiety currently running laps around my ribcage.

I open my notebook. Write today's date. Underline it.

Marcus comes in next, sits down, looks at the underlined date, and says nothing. This is one of his better qualities.

The room fills slowly. Everyone's energy today is a version of mine — anticipatory, slightly electric. Even the people who seem relaxed are performing relaxed in a way that gives them away around the eyes.

Mr. Okafor comes in at exactly the bell. Sets his coffee down, looks at the room, and smiles the way he smiles when he knows something we don't.

"Good morning," he says.

The chorus of good mornings back is really one collective question: can we please just get to it.

He takes his time. Mr. Okafor considers patience a filmmaking skill and he practices what he teaches. He covers project parameters, submission deadlines, technical requirements — all things I've known since June, all things I write down anyway because it gives my hands something to do.

"The partnerships," he says finally, and the room changes quality immediately — everyone straightening, a collective intake of breath — "were determined based on your portfolios, your working styles, and my gut instinct after fifteen years of doing this."

He picks up his list.

I write down every partnership as he announces it. Not because I need the information. Because writing keeps my knee from bouncing visibly under the desk.

Harrison and Mei.

Priya, across the room, has already been paired with a performing arts senior named David and is evaluating him with the expression of someone running a background check.

Sofia and Jordan.

Marcus catches my eye — his partnership announced, cautiously pleased. He gives me a small nod. You're next. You're fine.

Two more. Three.

I stop writing.

Mr. Okafor pauses — or maybe I imagine the pause. Maybe it's a completely normal breath between names and my brain has constructed a dramatic moment out of nothing because that's what brains do when they're full of anticipation and cracker crumbs.

"Avery Chen," he says.

My pen is still. My face is still. My knee has stopped.

"And Caleb Rivera."

The room reacts.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. But I am attuned to rooms the way a director has to be, and I feel the reaction move through it like a current. A few exchanged glances. Someone near the back makes a small sound. The specific quality of a room processing information it finds interesting.

I write the names in my notebook.

Avery Chen and Caleb Rivera.

My handwriting is exactly the same as it always is. I am very proud of this.

Mr. Okafor moves on, unhurried, unaware — or performing unaware, with him it's hard to tell. He finishes the list, talks ten more minutes about the timeline, dismisses us.

I close my notebook.

Marcus is at my elbow before I've stood up. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"It'll be fine. He's talented—"

"I know." I zip my bag with calm, even pressure. "It's a project. We make the film."

He nods. "Okay."

I walk toward the door.

Caleb Rivera is standing near the doorway — not waiting exactly, just there, finishing a sentence with someone, head tilted, easy. He looks up as I approach.

And here is the thing I was not fully prepared for, up close, in actual proximity:

He is looking at me like this is fine.

Not smug. Not apologetic. Just — open. Like being paired with me is a perfectly reasonable outcome and he is prepared to begin.

It is deeply, specifically, profoundly irritating.

Because I have feelings about it. Carefully managed, professionally appropriate feelings, filed under unexpected variables. And he apparently has none. Or he's hiding them better than I am. Either option is annoying.

He turns to me fully.

"So," he says. Easy. Of course.

"So," I say back.

"Partners."

"Co-directors," I correct. "The distinction matters."

Something moves at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile. "Co-directors," he agrees, like he's trying the word out. "When do you want to meet?"

I decided this between the moment Mr. Okafor said my name and the moment he said Caleb's — approximately one second, but I am a fast planner.

"Monday. After school. Library. Four o'clock."

One beat. "Sure," he says. Just that. Easy and simple, like I've asked him something completely ordinary.

He moves past me through the doorway.

I stand there for exactly two seconds. Then I follow, because standing in doorways is not something I do, and I have a lunch period to get to and a best friend with a great deal to say and I need to decide on the walk over exactly how much I'm going to confirm.

Behind me, Marcus makes a sound that might be a laugh, quickly converted to a cough.

I don't turn around.

Jade is waiting at our table.

She takes one look at my face. Sets down her fork. Folds her hands on the table like someone prepared to give this moment its full attention.

"Tell me," she says.

"Caleb Rivera."

Jade's expression does something complicated and swift that she almost — almost — keeps neutral.

"Okay," she says.

"Say it."

"I'm not saying anything."

"Jade."

"I'm literally just sitting here."

"You have a face."

"I always have a face, I have a very expressive face, that's not—"

"Jade."

She picks up her fork. Sets it down. Looks at me with the expression of someone physically restraining the thing they most want to say.

"It's going to be a very interesting semester," she says finally.

"It's going to be a productive semester. With a clearly defined creative vision and a structured timeline and measurable milestones."

Jade nods slowly. "Sure," she says.

She says it exactly the way Caleb said it.

I pick up my sandwich, take a bite, and look out at the courtyard where the September light is doing something beautiful to the oak tree leaves — the kind of light I'd normally stop to think about framing. Instead I'm thinking about the way Caleb Rivera looked at me in that doorway like everything was perfectly, completely, effortlessly fine.

It's fine.

It's all fine.

Monday. Library. Four o'clock.

I have a plan.