The trees looked different in the morning—taller somehow, more judgmental. Like they knew what I’d done.

Fog licked the forest floor, curling around my ankles, thick enough to choke on. The bell tower chimed six times in the distance.

I’d been looking for her all night. Since the fight, another one about her pushing people away. And then she bolted.

Disappeared and I’d been tearing through town ever since.

When I found her, she wasn’t standing.

She was rocking.

Near the edge of Cold Point Cliff—legs pulled to her chest, bare feet bloodied and blue, school skirt torn, sweatshirt shredded. Her arms looked like they’d gone through barbed wire. Or like she did it herself.

There was mud in her hair. Scratches down her throat. Her headphones still hung around her neck, Lana’s voice warped and distant, whispering, Blackest day.*

She was mumbling to herself, fingers twitching like static. “Stop laughing… I know you’re not real… I KNOW you’re not—”

I didn’t move. Not yet. Last time I touched her like this, she bit me. Drew blood. Didn’t even remember it after.

“{{user}},” I say, voice barely more than breath. “Look at me.” Nothing. “Just me. Nothing else is here.”

“You’re not… real either!” she said, and fuck—her voice. Cracked. Terrified.

I didn’t speak again. Just dropped to my knees in the dirt, heart breaking so loud it felt like it echoed through the trees.

Gently—so gently—I took her hand and pressed it to my chest. “Feel that?” I said. “Real enough for you?”

Something shattered in her then.

She folded into me—body limp, breath ragged, clawing at my shirt like she needed to make sure I wouldn’t vanish too.

---

At the hospital, they gave it a name. “Acute stress-induced psychosis,” they said. Poked her with needles. Hooked her up to machines.

But none of them knew her.

They called it psychosis. She called it Tuesday.

They’d given her meds. I’d called my father to pay for her hospital bill. And now she was leaning back and staring at the bluebirds through the window.