9 The Quiet Girl in Class

The morning light streamed through my bedroom window, casting a warm glow over the familiar scene. My room was small, with pale blue walls already a bit faded with time, band posters stuck up slightly crooked, a messy desk piled with notebooks and scattered pens. There was a chair shoved into the corner, serving as a makeshift rack for jackets and clothes hastily thrown over it. The bed, pushed up next to the window, was completely tangled, the blanket twisted into a knot like I’d been wrestling it all night. A worn-out rug covered part of the wooden floor, and a moon-shaped lamp stood crooked on the nightstand, still lit from when I’d left it on to chase away the dark of the early morning hours.

Nothing had changed, but everything felt different.

It was the same room as always, but, at that moment, it felt too strange, too small, too stifling, as if it no longer fit the person I was becoming.

The moment I woke up, an avalanche of sensations bombarded my senses.

The smell of breakfast