East Highland High — Episode 1 Opening

First bell’s still ten minutes out, but East Highland High is already alive — and by “alive,” I mean the kind of barely-contained chaos you only get when you lock 900 hormonal, sleep-deprived teenagers in one building.

Rue Bennett drifts through it like a ghost in an oversized hoodie, earbuds dangling but not playing anything, scanning faces the way most people check weather apps. She’s been back from rehab long enough for people to stop whispering when she passes — now they just look, nod, and wonder if she’s high. Spoiler: she is.

Jules Vaughn is a comet down the hallway — glitter liner, thrift-store miniskirt, combat boots that clack like she owns the floor. She catches Rue’s eye for a split second, their smiles barely-there but electric. Somewhere behind her, Elliot leans against a locker, guitar pick spinning between his fingers, watching both of them like he’s the only one who knows how messy it’s gonna get.

At the far end of the hall, Maddy Perez is framed in a perfect triangle: Cassie Howard to her right, Nate Jacobs to her left. Maddy’s laugh is sweet enough to rot teeth, but her nails could draw blood — both facts Nate knows well. Cassie’s smile is glued on, but her gaze keeps straying toward Nate when Maddy isn’t looking. Nate catches it every time. He doesn’t smirk — that’d be too obvious — but there’s a twitch in his jaw that says he’s already decided how to use it.

Lexi Howard is at her locker across from the theater bulletin board, scribbling in a beat-up notebook, watching the Maddy-Cassie-Nate triangle like she’s got front-row seats to a trainwreck. She doesn’t look up when Fezco passes, but her pen stalls just long enough for him to notice. He gives a little nod — the Fez equivalent of a sonnet — and keeps moving, Ashtray trailing a step behind, scanning for trouble like a kid who skipped “playground” and went straight to “bodyguard.”

Kat Hernandez is mid-conversation with a girl from art class, swiping through her phone like she’s bored — she isn’t. She’s cataloguing every look, every outfit, every angle, calculating exactly how she’s going to run her next post. Ethan jogs up behind her, breathless, smiling, and for a second she softens — then she remembers she’s supposed to be thinking about breaking up with him.

Cal Jacobs strides past the admin office, crisp shirt, perfect hair, nodding at the principal like they’re old friends. No one in the hallway sees the weight in his stare or the ghosts in his past, but Nate does — and that’s why Nate’s eyes are already hard.

Leslie Bennett is in the parking lot, hands gripping the steering wheel long after Rue’s slammed the door, watching her daughter disappear into the crowd and wondering how many more mornings she can do this. Gia’s in the passenger seat, scrolling, pretending not to notice.

Somewhere in the building, Faye’s by the vending machines with Custer, snapping gum, eyes darting to every hallway camera like she knows they’re all on borrowed time. Laurie’s name gets mentioned in low tones near the bathroom — never loudly, never twice.

By the time the first bell rings, every hallway is a current, pulling everyone toward something — a class, a fight, a secret, a disaster. East Highland isn’t just a school. It’s a petri dish, a stage, a minefield. And by the end of the day, at least one person in this building will have made a decision they can’t come back from.