005 What Marcus Said

She opened it.

She didn't mean to. Or maybe she did. Either way her thumb moved before her brain finished the debate and the message was open and she was reading it and there was no taking it back.

“Isla. I know you're probably not checking these. But what I read — I need you to know that I had no idea. About any of it. About how you felt. About how long you'd been feeling it. And I know this is the worst possible timing and you're probably somewhere far away trying to forget everything and I'm the last person you want to hear from right now but I can't just pretend I didn't read it.

“I should have seen it. I should have paid more attention. And I'm sorry I didn't.”

“When you're ready to talk — I'll be here.”

“Marcus.”

She read it three times.

Then she put her phone face down on the bed and stared at the ceiling of Room 14 and thought about the specific cruelty of getting the message you'd spent a year and a half wanting at the worst possible moment in the worst possible way.

Marcus had read her journal. He'd read the four pages about his laugh. The entry about Tyler's party. The two-in-the-morning entry about feeling like glass. All of it. And his response was — “I should have paid more attention.”

Which was either everything she'd ever wanted to hear or completely beside the point now. She couldn't figure out which.

"You okay?"

She turned her head. Theo was at his desk, sketchbook open, pencil in hand. He wasn't looking at her. But he'd asked.

"Fine."

"You've been staring at the ceiling for ten minutes."

"I'm jet lagged."

He didn't respond to that. He went back to whatever he was drawing and she went back to the ceiling and the room settled into quiet.

She appreciated that he didn't push. Most people pushed. They asked follow-up questions and made sympathetic faces and said things like do you want to talk about it when what they actually wanted was to be told the story. Theo had asked once and accepted the answer and moved on.

She could work with that.

She sat up and grabbed her notebook — the blank one she'd bought at the airport, not a journal, just a notebook, she was done with journals and opened it to the first page.

Blank. Waiting.

She looked at it for a long moment. Then she wrote one word just to break the seal.

Paris.

Then under it, because the seal was broken and she couldn't stop herself:

“Day one. I am in a room with a boy who draws buildings and doesn't ask unnecessary questions. Marcus just texted me something I would have cried about six days ago. I don't know what I feel about it now. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe Paris hasn't told me yet.”

She stared at what she'd written. Then she closed the notebook before she could analyze it.

Orientation was at six in a room on the ground floor that smelled like old wood and lemon polish.

Isla sat next to the girl in the orange jumpsuit who had changed into regular clothes but somehow still looked like she was dressed for something more exciting than a Tuesday evening.

"I'm Camille," she whispered, leaning over while Dr. Arnaud talked about curfew. "Where are you from?"

"Ohio."

Camille made a face. Not mean — just honest. "Is it terrible?"

"Aggressively average."

Camille grinned. "I like you."

Isla almost smiled.

Across the circle Theo sat with his arms resting on his knees, listening to Dr. Arnaud with the focused stillness of someone who actually intended to follow the rules. He hadn't introduced himself to anyone before the meeting. He'd simply found a chair and occupied it.

She noticed other things now that she was paying attention. His sneakers were clean but old, the kind of old that came from taking care of something rather than being able to replace it. His sketchbook was tucked under his arm, held carefully.

She stopped noticing before it became something.

Dr. Arnaud explained the final project — each student would complete an independent creative or academic work over eight weeks and present it at the end. Artists, writers, architects, musicians. The program took everyone.

"What are you working on?" Camille whispered.

Isla thought about her journal. The one she'd left behind on the desk. The one that strangers had now read.

"Writing," she said. "I think."

"Fiction?"

"I don't know yet."

Camille nodded like that was a perfectly reasonable answer. Isla appreciated that more than she could explain.

After orientation there was dinner in the courtyard — bread and cheese and something with roasted vegetables that was better than it had any right to be. Isla sat with Camille and tried to eat and tried not to think about her phone.

She was pushing food around her plate when someone sat down across from her.

Theo. With his own plate and a glass of water, not looking at anyone in particular, just settling in like he'd made a practical decision about available seats.

Camille looked between them with barely concealed delight. "You two know each other?"

"We're roommates," Isla said.

"Oh." Camille's smile stretched wide. "Interesting."

"It's not interesting," Theo said.

"He's right, it's really not," Isla said.

They'd spoken at exactly the same time. Camille looked like Christmas had come early.

Theo looked at his food. Isla looked at her bread. The courtyard was warm and the lavender in the corner had definitely not been watered enough and Paris was doing its evening thing outside the walls.

Later, back in Room 14, Isla lay in the dark and thought about Marcus's message.

“I should have paid more attention.”

She thought about what that meant. Whether it meant what she'd always wanted it to mean. Whether it mattered anymore now that she was here and he was there and everything had changed in the space of four days.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

She looked at the screen.

It wasn't Marcus this time.

It was Sofie.

“Isla I need to explain. Please just let me explain. It's not what you think.”

Isla read it once. Then she put the phone face down and closed her eyes and told herself she'd deal with it tomorrow.

She was asleep within minutes.

She didn't see the second message that came in at midnight.

The one that changed everything Sofie had told her.