Yours truly, Elanah

Sitting Arrangement

The air in the classroom felt different. Lighter, somehow. It wasn't just the usual buzz of students settling in; it was the presence of Ma'am Florence. She actually thawed. It sounds strange, maybe, but that's exactly what happened. The super-strict, unyielding adviser we'd braced ourselves against during the first week had subtly shifted. We'd discovered snippets about her – her past as a nurse, her education at a ridiculously prestigious nursing school where only the brightest and best apparently survived. Knowing that somehow humanized her, made her seem less like a statue of authority and more like... well, like a person.

And here she was, standing in front of us, a list in her hand, reading the names of people assigned to sit beside each other. The reshuffle. It always caused a ripple of anxiety and gossip.

"Chua, Sandra Lee and Anya Madeline Milton."

My breath hitched. Anya Madeline Milton. That was me. And Sandra Lee? Gosh. The main character of the Populars. Not just one of them, but seemingly the sun around which that particular social system revolved.

Sandra Lee.

Her small monolid eyes stared at me for a while as she walked towards the empty desk next to mine and began putting her things down. A simple action, but under the weight of high school social strata, it felt charged.

Sandra Lee is actually pretty brainy, everyone knows that. And yeah, she can be funny, too, when she lets her guard down. But for some reason I can’t quite articulate, I see her as a woman who belongs to the wrong group, a wanna-be, perhaps, in a world she wasn't quite built for. Not that she's not popular, she clearly is. But there's this gentle aura about her, an aura that looks like being touched by the sun rays... not the harsh, hot kind that burns, but the warm one that settles softly on your skin. It’s a curious contrast to her reputation. She talks a lot. She's definitely noisy when she’s with her friends, her laughter carrying across the hall.

How will I navigate this life now? Not just sharing a desk with Sandra Lee, navigating the silent expectations that come with proximity to the Populars, but navigating everything.

As everyone else was busy shuffling chairs and bags, settling down with their new seating arrangements, the words that Ma'am Florence had told me yesterday burned a hole in my head. They pulsed behind my eyes, a silent, urgent command that overshadowed the minor social earthquake happening around me. I needed space. I needed quiet. I needed to process.

The bell for lunch was a relief. I mumbled something noncommittal to Sandra, who was already pulling out a brightly coloured lunchbox, and hurried out. My mission was clear: I needed to buy a new notebook. Something plain, sturdy, just for this. To write down what I had heard from Ma'am Florence. To make sense of it. So I may live... or at least feel like I had a fighting chance.

After lunch, notebook in hand, I found a quiet corner in the library. The air was cool and still. I opened the crisp, blank pages. This felt important, more important than any class note. I took a deep breath, picked up my pen, and wrote, the words feeling heavy and significant as they flowed onto the page:

Starting with.

Lila is....