The sun hadn’t fully risen, but Lena Carver was already awake, sitting at her kitchen table in a cardigan that smelled faintly of classroom glue and lavender detergent. Her coffee had gone cold. She hadn’t touched it. Outside, the street was quiet — just the soft hum of sprinklers and the occasional bark from the neighbor’s dog.

She stared at her phone. No new messages. Not that she expected any.

Her apartment was small, neat, and silent. A bookshelf lined with half-read novels. A plant on the windowsill she kept forgetting to water. The walls were beige, the kind of color that didn’t ask to be noticed.

She stood, grabbed her tote bag, and walked the three blocks to Willow Creek Elementary. The school loomed like a familiar sigh. Room 204 smelled like crayon wax and pencil shavings. She turned on the lights, straightened the chairs, and erased yesterday’s spelling words from the board.

“Morning, Miss Carver!” chirped Ellie, one of her students, bounding in early.

“Morning, Ellie,” Lena said, smiling softly. “Did you bring your library book?”

Ellie nodded, then darted to her cubby. Lena checked the clock. Seventeen minutes until the bell. She glanced toward the staff lounge, where laughter echoed faintly. No one had invited her to lunch this week. Again.

Her phone buzzed. A message from her mom: You doing okay?
She stared at it, typed Yeah, just tired, and hit send.

The bell rang. Children spilled into the hallway, voices rising like birds startled from trees. Lena smiled, knelt to tie a shoelace, greeted each student by name. She was good at this — at being needed.

But as the door closed and the day began, she felt it again: that quiet ache. The one that whispered, Is this all there is?