Half a Heart •Ricky Bowen•

1

Ella swerved through the parked cars of East High High School, skating next to her two best friends Ricky and Big Red. Today was their first day of their junior year, and Ella could not wait to just get the day over with.

Dismounting her board, Ella walked up to the building, her stomach suddenly feeling extremely light. "Today's the day guys, it's happening." Ricky smiled to himself, watching as every group of friends hugged each other. "Hell yeah! Junior year, baby. Might grow a mustache, might do a lot of things" Big Red cheered on.

Ella couldn't help but chuckle at his words, she couldn't take him seriously with an image of Big Red with a mustache in her head. "Oh and what do you want to happen Ms. Varney?" Big Red scoffed at her. "I don't know honestly. I just wanna get through this year so we can get to our senior year."

"Okay while you guys have your dreams, I'm talking about Nini. Today's the day we start over." El couldn't help but feel even more uncomfortable whenever Ricky brought up Nini. Don't get her wrong, she absolutely loves the girl, loves being close friends with her. But since this summer El has felt something different with Ricky.

"I'll see you guys later. I gotta organize my locker because we all know I didn't clean it last year." El saluted them and walked at a fast pace to get to her locker. She wasn't actually gonna clean it, in fact she cleaned it the last week of school in sophomore year. She just wanted to avoid hearing Ricky go on about how he wanted to get Nini back.

Opening up her locker, a tap on the shoulder distracted her. Looking at Kourtney and Nini, she immediately hugged the two girls, asking Nini how acting camp was. "It was literally nothing like I've ever experienced before. Aaannnd I met somebody." Nini smiled, Kourtney passing a phone into Ella's hands.

"I know that face, why do I know him?" Ella studied the details of the guy, "ohhh wait. That's that Ej guy right?" Ella passed the phone back to Nini, "yeah, I am like .2 seconds away from making that my lock screen."

Ella grabbed her notebooks for her classes as Kourtney asked, "and what does you-know-who have to say about this?"

"I'm waiting for the right time to tell him." Before Ella could warn them, Ricky walked right up to the girls. "Yo Nini! What's good?" Ella closed her eyes, only imagining how awkward this conversation was gonna be.

"Hey." Ricky awkwardly laughed, "hey. Um, can we talk?" Nini asked, clearly starting to get uncomfortable with the situation. "I met somebody else at camp. I didn't plan..." Ricky cut Nini off.

"Wait. Wait, is this a joke?" "Still talking here." Nini snapped at him. "I met someone at camp, I didn't plan for it to happen but it happened. He was the Music Man, I was Marian, the librarian. It's called a showmance." Nini took a deep breathe after getting all of it out.

"Wait you went to librarian camp? That's a thing?" Ella grabbed Reds hand and placed it over his mouth. "Not right now Red."

"Please tell me you're joking." Ricky said, fiddling with his backpack strap. "I'm not" both Red and Nini said. Ella gave Red that stare before he covered his mouth again.

"Come on Ricky! You know what you did. Or what you didn't do." The announcement on the PA system broke the painfully silent pause, talking about a back to school kickoff.

Ella whispered into Kourtneys ear, "I'm gonna go to the gym. Tell Nini to text me if she needs." Kourt nodded her head before whispering a 'bye girl!'

Ella ran a hand through her hair as she walked away from the bickering ex couple. 'Only 179 days left in the year' she thought to herself.

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Big Red and Ricky found the brunette girl sitting in the bleachers, arms resting on her thighs. Ricky and Red whispered back and forth to each other, however Ella was too zoned out to hear what they were saying.

"Go Wildcats!" Was all Ella heard before a tshirt was shot out of a tshirt cannon. El flinched as the shirt hit some boy in the face. She noticed the stands they were sitting on were bouncing up and down slightly. Realizing Ricky was bouncing his leg, she gently rested her hand on his knee. He immediately stopped bouncing.

"My name is Ms. Jenn, and when I heard that the high school where High School Music was shot had never staged a production of High School Musical, the Musical, I was shocked as an actress, inspired as a director, and triggered as a millennial." Ella let out a soft snort as she turned her head to look at Ricky, 'millennial?' They mouthed to each other.

"Auditions are tomorrow after school, this show could change your lives. And I'm saying this as a background dancer from the original movie. Third from the left. Back row, red headband, and those are my real teeth. So..." A student walked up to the new teacher and tried to grab the microphone out of her hand.

"Oh! And meet your student choreographer, Carlos! You know him as captain of the color guard. I know him as an unpaid, rising star." The bell rang, signaling class about to start.

Ella couldn't lie, she was tempted to audition for the musical. She always has had a passion for singing and acting, but never on an actual stage. Dancing she was iffy on but as long as she practiced she was set. And High School Musical was a big part of her childhood. Maybe this could be her chance to be brave and finally step onto stage