While other students were waken up to their alarm clock, Ophelia was woken up to her dad yelling, "First day of junior year! First day of junior year!"

She opens her eyes, leaning on her right arm as she looked at her dad. Her dad, Zane, was in her room, the lights were on, and he was clapping loudly. "Come on, LeeLee! Time to get up!" He told her and she groaned, laying back down on her bed. She did smile a bit at the nickname that her dad always called her.

"Ah," Zane grins, walking towards her bed. "I see I'll have to get you out of bed the hard way."

Ophelia furrows her eyebrows, muttering, "The hard way?" but she doesn't get out of bed. She opens her eyes, widening them when she was suddenly being pulled off of her bed.

"Dad! What the heck?" She huffs as she landed on the floor. Pouting, she crosses her arms as she looked at her proud looking dad. "Pulling me off the bed is seriously the hard way?"

"Yep." Zane replies, popping the 'p'. He rolls his eyes upon seeing her point. "Put that pout away and get ready. I made breakfast that you'll wanna eat before it gets cold."

Ophelia sighs, but nods as she stands up. She salutes to him, sarcastically smiling at him. "Yes, sir."

After he left her room she took a quick shower and got dressed. Today she decided on wearing cute yet comfy for her first day of junior year. She went with a NASA sweatshirt over a black tank top, white jeans with holes on the knees, and black boots. And for her hair she put her curly hair into pig tails, leaving some strands of hair out in front. She also wore a star necklace and some makeup but not too much. Once she was done, she then grabbed her backpack and phone before she went downstairs. 

"You excited for your first day of junior year?" Zane asked his daughter, setting out a plate for her at the counter.

Ophelia shrugs, dropping her backpack on the floor by the stool at the counter she gets on. "I guess. I mean, it's just another school year. It's not like nothing exciting is gonna happen."

"Hey, you're getting closer to graduating. That's exciting." Zane smiled.

Ophelia smiles a bit. "Yeah, you're right."

Zane grins. "I love being right."

Ophelia picks up a piece of bacon off the plate, pointing at him. "Don't make me throw this at you."

Zane points at her. "If you throw it at me I'm gonna eat it."

Ophelia chuckles lightly and takes a bite of the bacon. When she was done with breakfast she helped clean up the dishes and then her dad took her to school. Even though Ophelia has her license her dad wanted to take her for her first day.

"Have fun and be careful!" Zane said to her, pulling up to the front of the school.

Ophelia nods, unbuckling herself and gets her backpack. "I will, dad." She gets out of the car, glancing over to her right when she heard her name being called.

"Ophelia!"

She smiles upon seeing Ricky waving at her with a smile on his face. She looks back at her dad. "I gotta go."

"Okay," Zane nods, narrowing his eyes at Ricky and Big Red who now stood by one of the benches, waiting for Ophelia. "I still don't like you being friends with boys."

"Dad." Ophelia speaks, dragging out the word while rolling her eyes. She sent him a tight-lipped smile. "Just go, please."

"Alright. I'm going." Zane smiles at her. "Love you, LeeLee."

Ophelia smiles back at him. "Love you too."

Ophelia walks over to the two boys, looking at them with a smile. "Hey, boys."

"Hey, Ophelia." Ricky greeted, sending her a smile.

"How was your summer?" Big Red asked her as they each walk towards the high school.

"You know, just watching way too much Netflix and taking some photos." Ophelia shrugs. "Nothing too exciting. How about you guys?"

"Well, my summer wasn't that great." Ricky sighs, looking at her with raised eyebrows. "You remember what happened?"

Nodding, Ophelia sent him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah. How are things with you and Nini?"

Ricky shakes his head. "Not exactly for sure." He smiles a bit. "But today is the day we start over."

"That's the spirit, buddy!" Ophelia playfully elbows him. "Think positive."

They get inside the school and walk down the steps to where their lockers are. "So," Ophelia holds onto the straps of her backpack, looking at Ricky with raised eyebrow. "Did you and Nini talk at all?"

Ricky nods. "We talked. She sounded mutual. Nothing about bad news or that we needed to have a talk. Just 'hey'." He looks at her and Big Red with a hopeful expression. "That's good, right?"

Ophelia shakes her head. "Don't ask me for relationship advice. I've been a single pringle my life."

Big Red chuckles. "Summers are no mans land, Ricky." He comments, glancing at the curly-haired boy walking between him and Ophelia. "The three of us have no clue what 'hey' means."

Big Red walks ahead of the two childhood best friends and Ricky nods, trying to reassure himself. "Yeah, it's good."

Ophelia chuckles a bit and shakes her head. When she saw him go over to talk to Nini who was at her locker with Kourtney, she decided not to follow and go find her other two best friends instead of listening to Ricky's and Nini's conversation that she knew was going to be an awkward mess.

"Hello, dear friends of mine." Ophelia smiles at Fallon and Luca when she got to where they were each standing at their lockers. Their lockers weren't right next to each other but they were a couple lockers away from each other.

Ophelia has been best friends with Fallon and Luca ever since they were little. She has been next door neighbors with Fallon her whole life and the two girls met Luca at pre-school.

Luca was very shy back then (which was most likely because he was in the foster care when he was in pre-school, but now he has a loving family that cares about him), even more than he is now but thanks to the music he has started to get out of his shell more, but Ophelia and Fallon went over to hang out with him after seeing the shy boy was all alone at the swings in recess. Since that moment the three have been best friends. Sure they each are close with each other, but Ophelia and Ricky are much closer.

"Hi, Ophelia." Fallon waves at her and closes her locker after she got everything she needed for the day. "I heard that we got a new drama teacher."

Luca raises his eyebrows, looking intrigued about this new information. "Oh. Really?"

Fallon nods. "Yeah. I hope the drama teacher is good 'cause the last one we had was awful."

Luca nods in agreement while closing his locker. "Yeah, I agree with that."

An announcement was heard on the PA system seconds later, telling everyone to go to the gym where an assembly would be held. Ophelia sat with Fallon and Luca in the gym, the three of them sitting directly behind where Ricky and Big Red are sitting.

"Guys, why do things have to change?" Ricky sighed, glancing in the direction Nini sat with Kourtney.

Ophelia's lip curl downward, hating seeing him upset. Big Red shrugs. "Some things never change, dude. I've been wearing the same socks for three days now."

A look of disgust forms on the four teens that sat near him and Ricky even scooted away from Big Red. "Dude, that's gross." Luca commented, shaking his head.

A blonde-haired woman walks up to the podium with a dark-skinned boy after the principal announced the new drama teacher. Ophelia then recognized the dark-skinned boy as Carlos, a sophomore and the color guard captain. The blonde-haired woman shot a t-shirt at the crowd of students with a t-shirt launcher and Ophelia's eyes widens when the t-shirt hits a boy sitting behind where Nini and Kourtney sat. The blonde-haired woman puts away the t-shirt launcher and takes the microphone.

She introduces herself as Miss Jenn and says how she was shocked as an actress, inspired as a director, and triggered as a millennial when she heard that the high school where the High School Musical series were filmed at never staged a production of High School Musical. Excited whispers filled the gym while Miss Jenn continues to speak.

"Auditions are tomorrow after school." Miss Jenn tells everyone. "This show could change your lives."

A smile tugs on Ophelia's lips, starting to consider being involved in this musical. She hasn't been involved in any of the musicals despite Fallon's multiple times of trying to convince her to join. Ophelia loved musicals, she just wasn't a fan of preforming in front of a crowd and she didn't have a good singing voice. She never sang. The only times she would sing would be in the shower and in the car with her best friends when their favorite songs come on the radio.

But Ophelia thought maybe she could help out behind the scenes. She knows a few things about how to use the technical stuff in a musical or play and made a plan to ask Miss Jenn if she can help out with that. She knew that Fallon and Luca would most likely try out for the musical, but she wasn't so sure if Big Red and Ricky we're going to try out.

The two boys were definitely not theater material, and they knew nothing about musicals. But Ricky does have a good singing voice and he knows how to play the guitar. It was just something he wasn't that vocal about. Only his family and his best friends knew about his musical talent.

At lunch Ophelia sat a table with Big Red, Fallon, Luca, and Ricky. She noticed that Ricky kept glaring in a direction and she followed his line of sight, raising her eyebrows upon seeing Nini being all lovey-dovey with her new boyfriend. Ricky had informed her, Fallon, and Luca, that he is officially broken up with Nini and her new boyfriend is EJ Caswell.

"Dude, are you seeing this?" Big Red asked Ricky, gesturing with a nod of his head to the new couple.

Ricky nods. "I'm seein' it, I'm hearin' it, and I'm hatin' it."

"I can't believe she's dating a senior. And EJ Caswell of all people." Fallon admits, shaking her head. "He's the co-captain of the water polo team and senior treasure." She looks over at the couple, her lips forming into a small smile. "He's also kinda cute."

Ricky looks at Fallon with offense. Fallon sent Ricky an apologetic smile, shrugging her shoulders. "Sorry, but it's true."

After eating some of his fries, Luca looks at Fallon with furrowed eyebrows. "How do you know so much about him? You've never talked to him at all."

Ophelia chuckles and takes a sip of her water bottle. "She has a crush that she says is small," She sends Fallon a teasing smile and the light brunette-haired girl sent her a glare as a light shade of blush formed on her cheeks. "But I see right through her lies."

"Ah," Luca nods in realization, glancing at Fallon. "That makes sense as to why you were his lab partner all up until your senior year."

Fallon nods, sheepishly smiling. "I mean, what are the odds that the guy she met at camp goes to East High?" Big Red questioned.

Ricky sighs. "Apparently, the odds are exceptionally good."

"Sorry, dude." Big Red apologized.

"I'm sorry about talking about EJ too much." Fallon apologizes to Ricky. A dreamy smile tugs on her lips.  "When I start talking about him, I just can't stop. Normally someone has to slap me to make me stop."

Ophelia slaps her arm in response. Fallon sent her a small smile while nodding. "Yeah, like that. Thanks." Ophelia nodded and smiled back at her.

"It's alright, you guys." Ricky assured Big Red and Fallon.

Luca sends him a sympathetic smile. "So, what are you gonna do?"

"None offense to any of you," Ricky let out a heavy sigh, staring at EJ and Nini. "But the only other person I get advice from besides Ophelia is having her honeymoon in the cafeteria."

"Then ask me for advice." Ophelia said, pointing at herself. "Me is right here."

Ricky nods, sending her a small smile. "Yeah, okay. What do you think I should do?"

"First, just calm down and take a deep breath." Ophelia tells him and he does as he's told. "You look like you wanna hurt someone. And second, do you want to get back with her? If you do, maybe you could, like, write a song and sing it to her."

"Yeah, like what she did when she told you she didn't not love you." Luca reminded everyone. He apologetically smiles when he was met with an annoyed look from Ricky and looks that told him to shut up from Fallon and Ophelia. "Sorry."

"I think O's idea is good." Big Red speaks and Ophelia smiles, happy someone thought her idea was good. "It does seem like Nini likes romantic stuff like that."

Ricky thought about it for a moment before he slowly nods. "Okay. But if I do that, what would I even sing to her and when would I do it?"

Ophelia's eyes lit up as she thought of an idea. "Oh, today at the auditions! And you could sing the song she wrote, 'I think I kinda you know'. So she knows that you actually do feel that way about her." Ophelia suggests to Ricky. She grins. "I'm calling this plan 'Operation Troy'."

"Yeah," The curly-haired boy smiles a bit and he was grateful for Ophelia's advice. "Great idea, Lia. I'll probably do that." Ophelia smiles at hearing the nickname Ricky only used. She couldn't help the warm feeling spreading in her chest as he sent her a soft smile. The smile fell off Ricky's face when he saw EJ kiss Nini's cheek. "Okay," He stands up, picking up his backpack. "I can't stay around to watch them any longer."

Ophelia sent him a sympathetic smile, patting him arm comfortingly which earned a small smile from him before he left the cafeteria.

A/N first chapter is up yay! I decided to add what ophelia is wearing in each chapter, i thought that would be cool :) i already love ophelia & ricky. also loving ophelia's friendship with fallon & luca & ophelia's relationship with her dad!