✶˚⋆°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･━━━ AT LUNCH, HALEY STARES AT THE serving pans, her eyes darting between the two options: mac n' cheese and beef stew. On one hand, she's been craving beef stew for about a week now, and has been looking forward to beef stew Tuesday the entire weekend. Plus, mac n' cheese is definitely a less healthy meal. On the other hand, her mom might have told her she would be making beef stew tonight for dinner, but still, Haley's not entirely sure whether she meant today or tomorrow, Wednesday. Glancing apologetically at the accumulating line behind her, she returns her tray and walks to her friends' cafeteria table empty-handed.
 "...Rob Lowe or Patrick Swayze?" Olive Quinn asks, taking a crisp bite of her green apple. She's sitting across from Heather Hills, who takes a long, contemplative sip of her lemonade.
"Oh, Rob Lowe, for sure. Patrick Swayze looks slimy," Heather Hills says, scrunching her nose and shaking her head back-and-forth theatrically.
"Patrick Swayze all the way, don't disrespect the dead!" Olive exclaims.
"It doesn't count, because I'm talking about him when he was alive, dumbass!" Heather scoffs.
"If I said my grandma was a raging bitch when she was alive, it would still be disrespectful!" Olive retorts.
"Regardless of who's dead and who's not, you both are clearly wrong. Diane Lane is the finest one in that movie," Lisbeth Wright argues. Heather rolls her eyes fondly at Lisbeth, and Lisbeth's ears turn the faintest shade of red.
 "What do you think, Haley?" Heather turns to their approaching friend.
 Haley smiles tightly and ignores the stirring in her stomach. That gaping hole again. Decisions, decisions, decisions... "Neither," she settles on, shrugging her shoulders and looking down.
 "Yeah, well, of course she'd say that. She's loyal to Ponyboy," Heather says, grinning. Thanks for saving me, Heather. "Hey, you're not going to eat anything?"
"No." Haley's stomach rumbles loudly, and Lisbeth raises a questioning eyebrow, sharing a look with Heather and Olive. "I'm not hungry."

 ✶˚⋆°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･━━━ IN AP CHEM CLASS, HALEY BARELY listens to the teacher as she rattles on about the guidelines and requirements for their next project. Haley occasionally looks up at the board to copy down the bulleted chalkboard points into her notebook, but otherwise doodles ambiguous shapes and nameless faces in the margins. There it is again. AP chem used to be Haley's strongest and favorite course. She was razor sharp, her eyes stuck to the board, clinging to the teacher's every word and every stroke of the white chalk. Her hand would be the first up whenever the teacher asked a question, and she would always be correct, and that was just her way.
She's lost her way now.

✶˚⋆°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･━━━ WHEN HALEY GETS HOME, SHE IGNORES her mom's cheery "hello," her sister's "imagine not still having summer break. Loser" comment and trudges upstairs to her bedroom, shutting the door just forcefully enough to release a bit of steam, but quietly enough so as not to alarm anyone downstairs. The last thing she'd like to do right now is interact with people.
	What does it mean when someone's lost their way? she wonders.
To lose one's way is when one's vision of their future (which might have once been clear) becomes blurry. Losing one's way can mean falling out of a rigid and strict routine, and not knowing what to do with themselves anymore. It can happen because of fear. It can happen because of uncertainty. It can happen because of nothing in particular.
	Fuck, it sucks not knowing what's doing this to me.
Haley's head lolls to the side lazily, her cheek resting against her satin pillowcase. Through the dusty glass of the large double-hung window, across the manicured yard and the white picket fence separating the two houses, through another window akin to hers, Haley can spot a lanky figure pacing around his room, his head bobbing to an unknown rhythm.
Before the figure can take notice of her staring, Haley sharply turns her head the other way, staring at an assortment of mini decorations plastered across her wall (Harvard paraphernalia, a Cindy Lauper poster, etc.). Her heart is racing through the cable-knit stitches of her Ralph Lauren sweater, and Haley silently curses herself, because she has a feeling she knows what's doing this to her.

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( ⌛️🪐🕯 )
CLARA'S CORNER
not that this matters a whole lot, but i'm doing something different with the formatting of the authors notes lol.
anyway, i apologize for such a short chapter, but i thought it was suitable for a more introductory section since there was a bit of a time jump and this is more just setting the scene/explaining what's happened since the party events at the end of the "dog days" act.
what did you guys think of this? i know it might have been a bit boring, but i wanted to prepare to flesh out haley's character a bit more. i want to emphasize that even though the situation with rodrick was really what set this entire plot line in motion, he isn't the sole reason she's struggling. there are external things, such as the stress of senior year   college   everything beyond. haley is questioning herself because of a lot of different factors, which is why the focus of this act will surround other things in addition to rodrick.
thank you for reading, and i'll see you guys in the next chapter!
xoxo, clara.