Cleo had been staring up at the ceiling long before the alarm went off.

But when it did, she tossed over and groaned anyway, just for the heck of it. She reached out, nimble fingers crawling over the display of seven 'o clock, seven 'o clock, and pressed it down.

She listened to the silence for a long moment, before kicking up her sheets and pulling herself upright onto her carpet.

She ran a hand through mussed curls, infected with the hearty disease of sleep. She sniffed, stretched, then yawned.

She heard her mother's shout through the door, muffled but still identifiable. Cleo hurried over to her closet and pulled on her thin dressing gown before plodding down the stairs to report for breakfast.

"Morning, sweetheart," Her mother greeted her with a small, quick kiss on the cheek before rushing off to pile bacon on somebody else's plate or fill a different glass with low pulp orange juice.

She sat herself down, staring into her plate and taking a sip of her drink. "So, a new year of school, Kimmy."

Kim glared at her, shoving eggs around with her fork, looking like she'd rather be stabbing it into Cleo. "How can you manage to sound happy and still say that?" she flicked a scrap of bacon fat at her sister while their mother wasn't looking, "And the name's not Kimmy."

Cleo dodged. "Oh, sorry, Ms. Bitterness and Malice. It's a little thing called optimism, you really should try it sometime."

Kim scoffed. "Mmm. Yeah, whatever."

Cleo rolled her eyes and laughed at her, small, so she couldn't hear it. She lifted a forkful of food into her mouth and turned to her mother, who was leaning over the bench scrubbing out some pots.

"Hey, Mum," she said, and the woman turned to blink at her. "Do you know how Dad went this morning?"

She shrugged. "Not really. I went back to sleep when he woke me getting up," she said. "But good, I'd think. You know how he loves his job." With that, she turned back to the counter, shutting off the conversation.

Cleo sighed, looking down into her half-finished plate of breakfast. "Yeah. I do."

Once the two sisters had finished their breakfast, their mother cleared the plates and ushered them upstairs to get dressed.

Kim gave her a small shove as she went off to her room, but Cleo simply snorted at her and walked into her own room.

There was a harsh ringing, and Cleo, having accounted for this, set her already prepared pile of clothes down to go retrieve her phone. "Hey, Em. How are you doing?"

"Oh my God, oh my God—"

How she could have expected less, escaped Cleo as she sighed into the phone and bounced down on her bed. "Cool it, Em. You're fine. Everything's fine."

"Everything's not fine. You may be an easy-going slacker, but Emma Gilbert is not, missy! What the hell am I going to do?!"

She brushed off the insult and shrugged. "What I do. Slack."

"Don't you be sarcastic with me, you—!"

"Hold it. Before you say something that will get you grounded with your parents, think through it. Breathe."

A pause. "Well, you're right. I guess swearing to the world really isn't an appropriate reaction to the situation."

"See? There. Now tell me what's happened."

"I've lost all my binders! Dad spilled freaking coffee on all my papers, and then—"

Cleo sighed. "Have you looked under your desk?"

Another pause. "... well, no."

"Go look."

There was a lot of shuffling, and then a very long pause, as Emma went to look where Cleo said.

Eventually she heard her voice again. "Oh God! You, Cleo Sertori, are a goddess!"

"I try."

XXX

Cleo met up with Emma by her new locker, shrugging her cardigan on and pulling her hair into a hairtie, because no matter how hard she'd planned—or tried to—she wasn't Emma, and even then it sounded like Emma had failed in her conquest for perfection.

Emma was now leaning against her own locker—right next to Cleo's—with her arms folded, her eyes slits and her legs bent at the ankles.

Cleo fiddled with her new lock, trying to get the feel of it.

"Look at 'em," she nodded to somewhere Cleo couldn't see, so she turned. Her gaze landed on a mass of students, pulling bags onto their shoulders, faces pulled down into weary and grim expressions. "Trudging to class as if prisoners to execution,"

Cleo snorted. Emma always had been poetic.

"They obviously don't plan."

Cleo rolled her eyes so Emma couldn't see and turned back to her locker. "Yeah. I'm sure that's it, Em."

Cleo finally got the hang of her lock and her locker door swung open, neat and shining and cleaned since the previous year. She piled her books and binders and stationary into it, trying to put them all in with care, but ending up kicking most of the stuff in.

Once she'd finished, she shoved it closed and leant against it with her eyes closed. "God. Another year."

Emma didn't answer as she'd expected her to. She looked over, and the girl's gaze seemed fixed, her mouth slightly ajar.

"Em—?" she said.

Then Emma leant over and yanked down on her sleeve, almost so hard it revealed her bra strap. She didn't seem to notice as Cleo said furious mutters under her breath.

She instead bent close and whispered, her breath hot against the side of Cleo's face, "Who's she?"

Cleo's own gaze floated to where Emma was looking, and she saw a young woman pulling her bag off the ground, screeching at the obviously active sprinklers while simultaneously swearing at the other people who were looking at her.

She had blonde curls, dripping and sticking to her face, and she combed a hand through them whilst also pulling at her soaked red t-shirt, seeming to completely ignore the torn and faded jeans now gripping her legs.

She let out another loud curse, then heaved her bag onto her shoulders and started walking away from the wreckage.

She walked straight past Emma and Cleo, who were now gaping. She glared at them, her nose bunched in distaste as she seethed, "What are you looking at, bitc—"

A teacher passed, eyes catching onto her, and she ducked her head and quickly walked off.

Emma blinked at Cleo. "Who is she?"

Cleo looked on after her as she shoved away a person who stared at her for too long.

"I have absolutely no idea."