The next morning was cold in all the ways that mattered.
Hale stood at his locker longer than he meant to, scanning the halls.
No Ivy.
He even asked Barney—casually, as if it didn't matter.
Barney shrugged. "Didn't see her. Probably escaped the simulation early."
Hale gave a hollow smile and moved on.
After school, he stopped at the corner store. Needed something stupid—instant noodles, maybe. Something that tasted like nostalgia and regret.
As he stepped out, rain lightly drizzling over the cracked pavement, his eyes caught on a figure seated alone by the diner window.
Ivy.
He froze. Her hair was in a braid. She wore a thick gray sweater. And next to her—
A suitcase.
She sipped tea and stared blankly out at the road.
Hale approached.
"Ivy?"
She looked up. Blinked. A soft smile.
"Oh. Hey."
His throat dried. "Where are you going?"
She tilted her head. "I'm not. Just got back. From my uncle's."
"…Uncle?"
"Yeah. Aunt passed last night. It was sudden." She sipped her tea. "I left before midnight."
Hale's world tilted.
"But—" he swallowed. "We went out yesterday."
She gave a polite, confused smile. "I think you've got me mixed up with someone else."
Silence.
The kind that crushes thought.
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Probably."
Then, trying to recover, he forced a small chuckle. "Guess that's what happens when you pull too many all-nighters."
Ivy tilted her head, amused but wary. "You okay?"
"Totally. Just tired. Like existentially."
She smiled. That same smile. And for a second, the world balanced again.
They talked—briefly—about classes, a new exhibit at the museum, even Barney's lunchroom "musical" (which ended in two detentions and a missing trumpet).
Then Ivy glanced at her phone. "I should get going."
"Yeah, of course. Take care."
"You too, Hale."
That name felt suddenly… unfamiliar.
Later That Night
Hale returned home in a daze.
He walked into his room, dropped his bag, sat on the edge of his bed—and paused.
He looked around.
The photograph? Gone again.
Sketchpad? Blank. Even the keyhole pages.
The spiral?
Nowhere.
Even the scent—the one that followed Ivy like memory—was missing.
His drawers were closed. His jacket was on the chair.
Everything was… wrong.
Not "someone broke in" wrong.
Not "I'm imagining things" wrong.
Wiped clean.
Like someone had removed the day from existence.
His heart pounded.
He stood, checked the hallway mirror—his reflection blinked back. Normal. But too calm.
He opened the desk drawer again.
Nothing.
"Where is it?" he whispered.
No response.
He tore open the closet. Flipped the pages in his notebook. Looked under the bed.
"Where is it?!"
His voice cracked as the panic crested.
"WHERE DID YOU GO?"
No answer.
Just the creak of the ceiling.
The tick of the second hand
And a growing, heavy silence—
—the kind that follows when reality decides to look away.