Morning arrived earlier than Jay expected.
The alarm on his phone vibrated against the nightstand, pulling him out of a restless sleep. For a moment he stayed still, staring at the ceiling as the faint grey light of dawn crept through the curtains. His body still carried traces of exhaustion from the previous night, but his mind had already begun shifting toward the responsibilities ahead.
Another exam waited.
Jay reached for his phone, silencing the alarm before sitting up slowly. His textbooks were scattered across the small desk near the window, pages marked with sticky notes and hurried annotations from the late hours he had spent reviewing material.
He swung his legs off the bed and stretched, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension sitting there. The exam from yesterday still lingered in his thoughts, but he pushed it aside quickly. Thinking about finished tests rarely helped. What mattered now was preparation for the next one.
