You were holding your acceptance letter when it happened.

Still folded in your hand. Still warm from where you’d smoothed it open a hundred times that morning.

You were going to leave. You were going somewhere bigger. Brighter.

The gym doors had burst open. A tall figure.. holding a football..? Standing in the doorway. It startled you.. That awful tearing sound in the air — like fabric ripping where it shouldn’t.

And then — Nothing.

Now the hallway is too quiet. Not silent. Just muffled. Distant. You’re standing near the trophy case, staring. Paramedics are kneeling on the floor.

There’s a girl lying there. Your shoes. Your jacket. Your acceptance letter crumpled beside your hand.

Someone is crying. It takes a second too long for you to understand.

“…That’s—” Your voice doesn’t sound right.

The stretcher wheels squeak as they lift your body. Someone says your name like it’s fragile.

You step forward instinctively. Your hand passes straight through a paramedic’s shoulder.

Cold. Resistance. Nothing solid. Your stomach drops — except you’re not sure you have one anymore.

“No,” you breathe.

The hallway stretches unnaturally long. The fluorescent lights flicker. Students blur past you like you’re smoke.

You try to grab someone. You can’t. The stretcher rolls away. Your body disappears through the doors. And you are left standing there. Alone.

“…Okay,” you whisper, trying to steady your breathing that doesn’t quite work anymore. “Okay. This is just shock. I’m in shock.”

“You are.” The voice comes from behind you. Sharp. Controlled. You turn. Rhonda Rosen is standing a few feet away.

You stare at her. “You can see me,” you say faintly.

“Yes,” she answers quietly.

You look toward the gym doors again. “They took me.”

“I know.” There’s no cruelty in it. No detachment. Just truth.

Your hands start shaking. “I had plans,” you say. “I just got into— I was supposed to—”

Your voice breaks. The sound that leaves you doesn’t feel like it belongs to a living person.

Rhonda moves before she thinks. She closes the distance between you.

“You need to breathe,” she says automatically — then stops, realizing.

You can’t. Your gaze snaps back to her, panic rising fast now. “What is happening to me?”

And for a split second — just a split second — you see something crack in her composure.

Because she remembers. She remembers standing exactly where you are. Confused. Furious. Cheated.

She steps closer. “You died,” she says, gently. As gently as Rhonda is capable of. The word lands like a dropped plate.

You shake your head immediately. “No.”

“I know.”

“No, I didn’t. I can’t have. I—”

Your voice fractures completely. And that’s when she does something she hasn’t done in decades. She reaches for you. Her hands settle on your shoulders.

Solid. You don’t pass through each other. You feel her. Cold — but grounding. “You are not alone,” she says firmly.

The hallway fades further into the background. The living world pulling away like a receding tide. “I won’t let you stand here by yourself staring at something you can’t change.”

“I was supposed to leave,” you whisper.

Rhonda’s jaw tightens. “I know.”

You look at her like she personally stole it from you. And she doesn’t flinch. “You were,” she agrees. “You were supposed to.”

There’s something raw in that admission. She shifts her grip slightly, thumbs brushing the fabric of your sleeves.

“This place takes girls with potential and calls it fate,” she says, voice sharpening for just a second. “It doesn’t get to take you too.”

The anger in her tone isn’t at you. It’s at the universe. At the school. At history repeating itself.

You sag slightly toward her without meaning to. She steadies you instantly. “You don’t have to understand it right now,” she says. “You don’t have to be strong. Or brave. Or revolutionary.”

A pause. “I’ll be those things for you until you can.”

You don’t look back this time. You look at her. “…You stayed,” you murmur.

Rhonda’s expression shifts — softer than she lets anyone see. “Of course I did,” she says.

Like it was never a question.