002 Twelve Minutes

Isla got home at four-fifteen.

Her mom was in the kitchen doing the thing she did on Friday afternoons — cooking something that didn't need to be complicated but became complicated anyway, two pots going, a cutting board covered in things that didn't obviously belong together.

"How was the last day?" her mom asked without turning around.

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

"It felt like every other day except louder."

Her mom laughed softly. "That sounds about right." She looked over her shoulder. "Did you confirm Paris?"

Isla set her bag down on the kitchen chair. "Yeah. I did."

Her mom turned around fully then, wooden spoon in hand, and her face did the thing — that specific combination of proud and emotional that she tried to keep contained and never quite managed. "Baby."

"Don't cry."

"I'm not crying."

"Your eyes are doing the thing."

"I'm cooking." She turned back to the stove. "I'm glad you confirmed it. You needed to say yes to something."

Isla didn't respond to that. She grabbed an apple from the counter and went upstairs.

Her room was exactly as she'd left it that morning — bed half made, curtains still drawn on one side, her desk covered in the usual organized chaos of notebooks and charger cables and three half-finished cups of tea she kept forgetting to take downstairs.

And her journal. Sitting right in the middle of the desk, open to the page she'd been writing on last night.

She looked at it for a second. Then she dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and fell face-first onto her bed.

She was going to Paris. In eleven days. For eight weeks. Alone, in a city she'd never been to, with people she'd never met, doing a program she'd applied for on a random Tuesday night because she'd been restless and her journal was full and she needed to put the feeling somewhere.

She rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

It was fine. It was going to be fine. Plenty of people went to Paris alone. People did it all the time.

Her phone buzzed. Sofie: already researching Paris cafés for you. you're welcome. also tell me you packed the red cardigan.

Isla smiled at her phone. She typed back: haven't started packing yet.

Sofie's response was immediate: ISLA.

She put her phone down and looked at her journal on the desk. She'd been writing in it since she was thirteen — five years of the kind of thoughts she couldn't say out loud. Embarrassing things. True things. The kind of writing that felt necessary at two in the morning and mortifying at two in the afternoon.

She got up, crossed the room, and picked it up.

The page it was open to was from three nights ago. She'd written about Marcus again. About the way he'd said her name at Tyler's party last month — just her name, nothing else, calling her over to show her something on his phone and how she'd had to excuse herself afterward and stand in the bathroom for four minutes reminding herself that people said each other's names all the time and it meant nothing.

She read it back. Cringed at herself. Closed the journal.

She should probably stop writing about him. She'd been telling herself that for eight months.

She put the journal back on the desk and went to find something to eat.

Sofie came over at seven.

This was the standing Tuesday arrangement — officially a packing session, unofficially an excuse to sit in Isla's room and not do much of anything. Sofie arrived with snacks and strong opinions about what Isla should bring to Paris and zero interest in actually making a list.

"You need the red cardigan," Sofie said, already cross-legged on Isla's bed, scrolling through her phone. "Non-negotiable."

"I'm going for a program. Not a fashion show."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive." Sofie looked up. "What are you writing?"

Isla was at her desk with her journal open. She'd been writing for twenty minutes without really deciding to — it happened sometimes, the pen just moved.

"Nothing."

"You've been writing for twenty minutes."

"It's a journal. That's what you do with it."

Sofie leaned over with the casual nosiness she'd had since they were twelve. Isla closed it immediately, the reflex so practiced it was almost elegant.

"Relax, I wasn't reading it." Sofie grinned. "Is it about Marcus?"

"No."

"Your ears went red."

"They did not."

They had.

Isla's mom called from downstairs that dinner's was ready — Isla marked her page and stood up without thinking. She left the journal on the bed. Open. She was gone twelve minutes. She counted them later, after, when she was trying to understand how twelve minutes could cost that much.

When she came back upstairs Sofie was on her own phone. Her face was carefully arranged into neutral. Which was the tell — Sofie's face was never neutral. Sofie's face was always doing something loud. But right now it was doing nothing, and the journal was back on the desk, closed, sitting at a slightly different angle than she'd left it.

Isla noticed.

She didn't say anything. She sat back down at her desk and looked at the journal and felt a small, quiet wrongness that she couldn't name.

"You okay?" Sofie asked.

"Yeah." Isla looked at her. "You?"

"Obviously." Sofie held up her phone. "What about this dress for Paris?"

They argued about the dress. Sofie went home at nine-thirty. Isla locked up, turned off the lights, got into bed.

She fell asleep thinking about Paris. About the program. About eight weeks away from this town and Marcus Ellis and everything that felt like it was pressing in on her from all sides.

She slept fine.

She had no idea that while she slept, Sofie was still awake.

And her journal was already on the internet.