The sunshine of the section

The Northwood Academy cafeteria was a vast, cavernous creature, echoing with the hum of lunchtime chatter, but Elara Vespers always managed to find the brightest corner. Not by accident, but because the light just seemed to follow her, shining off the golden strands in her hair and sending her smile as a blinding beacon into the drabness of Section E. Section E was, well, average. The students here didn't stress over perfect scores or elite college applications; they worried about passing geometry and which food truck was parked outside after school. It was safe, it was cheerful, and it was perfectly Elara. "You’re going to blind someone with that smile,Elera," grumbled a voice from across the worn plastic table. Lia Holt, Elara's best friend and unofficial guardian, stabbed a fork into her dismal-looking salad with more aggression than necessary. Lia's deep-set eyes were piercing the distance to the far wall, the unofficial, invisible boundary between Section F and where she lay. “Oh, lighten up, Lia! It’s Friday, and Mr. Harrison didn’t assign any weekend reading,” Elara chirped, happily tearing into her sandwich. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Besides, I’m generating enough Vitamin D for both of us.” Lia let out a sigh, a melodramatic, protective motion that Elara knew intimately. "I'm serious, Elara. You're too smart for this world, and I mean that literally. Some kid from Section F is going to think you're a novelty lightbulb and attempt to use you." Section F. The elite. The 5%. The perfect scores, the designer wardrobes, and the general aura of cold superiority. Lia was intensely committed to keeping Elara down to earth—and well clear of them. Section E to Lia was Elara's bastion, a place where her spontaneous, uncomplicated joy could not be misinterpreted or, even worse, taken advantage of. Elara merely giggled, swatting her hand gently over Lia's arm. "You fret too much. They don't even notice us. We're basically invisible over here. And I like being a novelty lightbulb. It means I'm recharging my happy battery!" Lia observed Elara, a gentle, loving expression coming over the defensive scowl. Elara was good. Incapable of being anything but kind, irrepressibly hopeful, and utterly blind to the fact that her sparkling personality was like a magnet—sometimes drawing in not only friends, but trouble. Lia was well aware of one of the golden rules of Northwood: the brightest light casts the darkest shadow, and the shadows were all huddled in Section F. As if on signal, an abrupt silence descended over the room. The Section F lunch bell had sounded, announcing the daily, slow-motion march of the school's elite into the reserved, quiet corner of the cafeteria. Lia's grip tightened around Elara's arm. "Don't look. Don't make eye contact. Don't even breathe in their direction." Elara, on the other hand, did just the reverse. She was attracted, not by the money or the attitude, but by a fleeting, uncharacteristic glint of tension at one of the tables against the far wall. She spotted them: Kael Ashford, dark and foreboding, his eyes chipped ice, ringed with fawners. And Rian Sterling, the epitome of easy perfection, laughing at ease with his own entourage. They were the undisputed kings of Section F, and they were, for a stunning, confusing instant, looking directly into Section E. Not at Elara, precisely, but beside her. A fleeting, biting glance that was instantly covered. Elara experienced a strange, chill knot form in her stomach, an emotion that did not belong in her normal bright world. It was a momentary echo of something she did not comprehend, a fissure in the bright glass of her normal life. They don't even notice us, she'd said. But for that fleeting moment of time, Elara knew, deep within herself, that wasn't possible at all. The intangible barrier surrounding Section E and Section F wasn't guarding her—it was isolating her from a secret she had unwittingly, in some way, belonged to. And her existence, Lia's protective desires be damned, was about to change. What type of after-school activity would Elara participate in that would allow her to blow off steam before things get complicated in her life? To be continued....