JASMINE

CHAPTER 1

313 days before my life was caught short.

I didn’t feel dead yet. I still had dreams, bad skin, a phone that wouldn’t stop buzzing, and a mother who yelled from downstairs like her voice could split plaster. In other words, I was still a teenage girl, barely holding it together, trying to pretend I understood what it meant to be alive.

The clock on my nightstand read 6:02 AM, glowing a violent red. I hadn’t slept. Not really. There was a stiffness behind my eyes from staying up too late doom-scrolling through social media, avoiding thoughts I couldn’t name. Outside my window, the morning light had just begun bleeding into the sky, soft and uncertain.

“Jasmine! You’re going to be late!”

That was my mother. Gloria. Loud since 1978. A woman who could make panic sound like poetry.

“I’m up!” I shouted back.

I wasn’t. Not really. But I dragged myself out of bed anyway and padded across the floor to the mirror. My reflection stared back at me like it was already mourning something. The circles under my eyes were darker than usual. I blamed the dreams I kept having—half-memory, half-nightmare, all confusion. A girl running down a hallway. A door that never opened. Screaming that never reached my ears.

I splashed cold water on my face and scrubbed my teeth until my gums stung. My school uniform hung off the back of my chair like it was mocking me. I hated it. The crisp white shirt, the dull navy skirt, the itchy blazer with its smug school crest. It all felt like a costume someone else had chosen.

Downstairs, the kitchen smelled like burnt toast and lemon dish soap.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Gloria said, sliding eggs onto a plate without looking at me. “I’m not writing another note to explain why you were late again.”

“I wasn’t late yesterday,” I mumbled.

“You were late in spirit,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. My mother had a talent for being both funny and deeply annoying before 7 AM.

My younger brother, Zeke, was already at the table, slurping cereal like it owed him money. He didn’t look up when I sat down, which was normal. We didn’t fight or talk much. Just existed near each other like furniture.

“You look tired,” he said through a mouthful of cornflakes.

“Thanks.”

“You have that dead-girl face again.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“You know. Like you just crawled out of a grave.”

It was a joke, I knew. But something in me recoiled. A sharp, fleeting chill moved down my spine, like someone had just whispered in my ear.

“Eat your cereal,” I said, too fast.

Gloria didn’t seem to notice. She was busy flipping through mail and complaining about the electricity bill.

I picked at my eggs, but my appetite had vanished.

By the time I made it out the front door, my phone had blown up. Group chats. Missed calls. One DM from Malik, the boy I had sort-of-dated for three weeks before ghosting him without explanation.

Malik: U good? Heard about what happened with Brianna.

I stared at the message, then opened I*******m. The first story I saw was from Leah, captioned: Y’all pray for Bri. Can’t believe this is real.

I clicked through until I found it.

Brianna’s photo, black and white, framed in those floating angel wings people used when someone died. There were already three hundred comments. Most of them some version of “RIP queen” or “gone too soon.” I scrolled until I saw it—confirmation.

She’d drowned. In her uncle’s pool. At a party two nights ago.

I hadn’t gone. I was supposed to. Bri texted me that morning: Don’t ghost again. Show up, Jas. And I had promised. But when the sun started to set, and I looked in the mirror, something made me stay home. Like my bones already knew.

Now she was gone.

I stood on the sidewalk, staring at her picture, not moving.

A car honked.

“Move it!” someone shouted from the street.

I walked.

At school, the halls were quieter than usual. People huddled in corners, crying softly or scrolling through tributes. Some were just pretending. I knew the difference. Real grief makes you quiet. Makes you forget how to speak.

Brianna’s locker was covered in flowers, sticky notes, photos, stuffed bears. A shrine built in hours.

I didn’t leave anything. I just stood there, holding my books like they might float away if I let go.

“She always said you were her favorite,” a voice said.

I turned. It was Lana, one of Bri’s close friends. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her mascara was smudged, but her mouth was steady.

“Did she?” I asked.

Lana nodded. “Said you were the only one who ever told her the truth.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I had told Bri the truth. Once. When she was spiraling, drinking too much, chasing boys who didn’t care. I told her she was better than all of that. She told me I was a liar. Then she hugged me like I’d saved her.

That was four months ago.

“She talked about you the night of the party,” Lana said.

I swallowed hard. “I should’ve gone.”

“Maybe,” Lana said. “But maybe not.”

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

She hesitated. “I think she knew something. Or saw something. She looked… scared that night. I thought it was just the drinking, but now—”

The bell rang. Lana stepped back. “Be careful, Jasmine.”

I didn’t move for a long time.

That night, I dreamed again.

Same hallway. Same door. But this time, I wasn’t running. I was floating. My feet never touched the ground. I passed mirrors, but they didn’t show me. They showed Brianna. Her mouth wide open in a scream. Her eyes wild. Her hands pressed against the glass like she was trapped behind it.

I reached for her.

She mouthed something.

“You’re next.”

I woke up screaming.

Three days later, I found the note.

It was slipped into my locker. No name. Just a scrap of paper, folded twice, sealed with black ink.

I opened it, heart pounding.

“She didn’t fall. She was pushed.”

My knees went weak. The hallway blurred around me. Students walked past like I wasn’t there.

The note fell from my hands.

I knew, in that moment, my life wasn’t just mine anymore.

Something had started.

Something I couldn’t stop.

Something that would end with me dead, too.

The note didn’t leave my mind. Not in the morning when I washed my face and stared into my own tired eyes. Not at school when someone cracked a joke that didn’t land, and everyone laughed anyway. Not even when I tried to forget by letting music fill my ears until it hurt.

“She didn’t fall. She was pushed.”

That sentence scratched at the back of my brain like a trapped animal. Over and over. Loud even when I tried to silence it.

The worst part?

It sounded right.

Brianna wasn’t the type to just… fall. Not without drama. Not without screaming. And she definitely wouldn’t have drowned quietly. She would’ve fought the water like it owed her money.

And what about: “You were supposed to be there”?

That one made my skin itch.

At first, I wondered if someone was just messing with me. But no one knew I’d been invited. No one but Brianna and Lana. And Bri was gone.

So I did what any curious, haunted teenager would do.

I started investigating.

Lana didn’t show up to school the next day. Her absence felt like a missing puzzle piece no one else noticed was gone. I tried messaging her. No reply.

My next guess? Maya.

Maya and Brianna were tight before things fell apart over some boy I couldn’t even remember the name of. It wasn’t a full-blown fight, but they’d definitely grown cold toward each other. Still, Maya was at that party. She posted the last photo of Bri alive—a blurry group shot with red solo cups and too much eyeliner.

I found Maya near the back of the cafeteria, laughing too loud with her new crew. I waited until she was alone.

“You got a second?”

She blinked at me. “Hey. Yeah, sure.”

Her smile was careful. I could tell she was trying to gauge what kind of conversation this was going to be.

“I’ve just been thinking about Bri. The party. Everything,” I said.

Her face tightened just a little. “Yeah. It’s been… a lot.”

“I didn’t come, but she texted me. Said she wanted me there.”

“She was weird that night,” Maya said. “All jumpy. Kept saying she didn’t feel safe. I thought it was just the vodka talking.”

“Did something happen? Before she ended up near the pool?”

Maya hesitated.

“Look,” I said, “I got this note. Someone thinks it wasn’t an accident.”

Her eyes went wide. “Like, murder?”

“I don’t know. But someone thinks she was pushed.”

Maya’s fingers gripped her water bottle. “She was arguing with someone. A guy. I didn’t get a good look, but it got heated. And then she disappeared for like twenty minutes.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“No. I figured if it was serious, they’d ask. But nobody did. They just said it was a tragedy and moved on.”

I nodded slowly. “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

Maya blinked at me. “Yeah. This gold top and black jeans. Why?”

“She wasn’t wearing any of that when they found her.”

That detail hadn’t made it to the public. But I overheard Gloria on the phone—she works in the coroner’s office. I’d caught the tail end of her saying something like, “No shoes, no ID, clothes don’t match the description.”

So someone changed her.

Maya’s mouth dropped open. “Then someone really did—”

“Push her. Or .”

We stared at each other. Neither of us said it, but we were both thinking the same thing:

Who?

That night, I got a new message.

From a private account. No followers. No profile picture.

Unknown: You’re not safe either.

My heart skipped. Then raced.

Me: Who are you?

No response.

I called Lana again. Nothing. I called Malik. No answer.

So I kept it to myself.

The next day, things got worse.

Someone had gone through my locker.

I knew because I always kept my notebooks stacked a certain way—lined by color, biggest to smallest. I’m not obsessive, but I like order. But when I opened it, everything was jumbled. My red notebook was gone.

That notebook had my poetry in it.

Not the cute I*******m kind. The ugly stuff. Stuff I didn’t want anyone to read. Things I’d written about Brianna. About death. About the dreams. If someone read it, they’d think I was losing my mind. Maybe I was.

I asked the admin office if anyone had seen someone at my locker. They said no.

I asked my friends. They shrugged.

Then I found the notebook.

On my desk.

Right there in the middle of math class.

I hadn’t brought it with me.

Inside, something was written on the last page—in handwriting that wasn’t mine.

“Some people can’t be saved. But maybe you can.”