The mixer smelled like citrus punch and too much perfume. Laya hadn’t wanted to come. The idea of watered-down punch and people who called you “girl” like it was your name felt exhausting. Still, she came. Maybe to prove herself wrong. Maybe because she wanted to remember what it felt like to belong somewhere, even

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Laya Ellwood didn’t rush mornings. She wandered through them, deliberately, as if each minute carried its own quiet purpose. The rest of the world woke in fragments, alarms, coffee machines, half-buttoned shirts, but Laya preferred sequence. She liked knowing what came next. It gave her mind room to breathe, space between thoughts that otherwise ran

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