Welcome to Penny’s Diary, a contemporary urban-fantasy serial. Read new diary entries every Thursday. Supporting readers can also access a weekly Writer’s Commentary, along with immersive audio and eBook editions, after each entry.
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Saturday, June 13, 2026
Floating Fallout
I did not sleep much.
Shocking, I know.
Apparently, knowing your girlfriend watched you float above your bed like a haunted balloon does not lead to restful dreams. It leads to lying still because every move makes your shoulder scream. Gravity is now my enemy.
I remembered.
My shoulder was purple by morning—not horror-movie purple, but enough to make me wonder if someone should call the paramedics. My wrists ached in that deep under-the-skin way that makes zero sense unless your body is rebelling. Very helpful. Very detective.
Ellie didn’t sleep much either. Every time I opened my eyes, she was awake, watching me like I might lift off again. Sweet. Terrifying.
Neither of us said much at first. There are only so many ways to say, “Remember when I stopped obeying physics?” before it stops being comforting.
She held my hand under the blanket. Carefully. Like I might bruise if she gripped too hard.
I hated that. Not her. The careful part.
My skin had become something people had to treat gently. My wrists felt wrong. My chest pulsed over the triangle mark like the memory had left a ghost there.
And the worst part? I could still feel the room. Not see it. Not a memory—more like fingerprints of darkness left behind. Metal. Hanging frames. Silver bands. Tubes or wires. Ellie somewhere beside me, suspended like she belonged there. Maybe Logan too. Maybe—that word did a lot of emotional damage.
Ellie asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said no. Then I talked anyway, because apparently traumatized people do excellent decision-making.
The memory felt different from the diary blasts. Less like I’d opened something and more like something had opened me. Diaries hurt. Polaroids hit. Letters pulled.
Ellie went very quiet.
Then the RGN app buzzed in my head even though it was not buzzing. Rude.
The message was still there.
Did you find anything?
A friend.
Yes.
We found a lot.
My body can remember things without asking first.
So yeah.
Not ideal.
Pancakes and Bad Ideas
Cascades smelled like maple syrup, coffee, and people who had not levitated in front of their girlfriend the night before.
Rude, honestly.
It had also apparently become World Cup headquarters overnight.
There were tiny Canada flags in the window, red-and-white cupcakes in the display case, and a chalkboard near the counter that said WORLD CUP BREAKFAST SPECIAL in aggressively cheerful handwriting.
I had forgotten the soccer World Cup was starting.
To be fair, my body had been busy rejecting gravity.
Also, sports and I have a limited relationship. If it does not involve a skateboard, sidewalk, and the possibility of me personally breaking a wrist, my interest level drops dramatically.
We took our usual upstairs booth.
I ordered pancakes and a cupcake. Ellie ordered pancakes too, then stared at the cupcake display for twelve full seconds before adding a chocolate one.
“Breakfast sugar,” she said.
“Medical necessity,” I agreed.
Neither of us laughed properly, but it helped.
A little.
Then Ellie noticed the TV on the wall.
Not the game.
Obviously.
It was showing opening ceremony clips between match updates, and suddenly Ellie went completely still with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Is that Alanis Morissette?”
I looked over.
Then I sat up properly, because yes. Yes, it was.
Apparently, Alanis had performed at the Canada opening ceremony yesterday, which felt like the sort of information someone should have delivered directly to our table with sirens.
Alanis is one of ours. Not officially, obviously. Just emotionally.
Personal playlist jurisdiction.
“I cannot believe the World Cup became relevant to us and nobody warned me,” I said.
Ellie’s mouth twitched. “For the record, this is not sports interest.”
“Absolutely not. This is cultural awareness.”
“Important distinction.”
“Vital.”
For approximately three minutes, soccer was allowed near my life.
Then the clip ended.
And the RGN app was still sitting on my phone between us like an extra plate we had not ordered. I had turned the screen down at first, which was stupid because I still knew the message was there. Turning it over did not make it less real. It just made the phone look smug.
Ellie poked her pancake with her fork.
“We should tell Teddy,” she said.
“We will.”
“That is not the same as now.”
“No,” I said. “It is not.”
Teddy was on his way to Halifax to pick up his mom and Squirt from the airport. Which meant he was already doing family crisis logistics before breakfast.
He needed to know.
He also needed five minutes where no one told him his best friend had floated, his other friend had seen her, and the mysterious app friend had come back with customer-service timing.
Plus, his dad’s birthday was tomorrow, because apparently the universe had looked at Teddy’s family and thought, Needs a theme weekend.
And Teddy was supposed to come over to the Meridian tomorrow evening, so we’d tell him then.
So instead, we made a terrible, reasonable decision.
My favorite kind.
To reply to the message.
We did not explain. We did not give details. We did not mention the room, the frames, Logan, Ellie, my shoulder, or the fact that my wrists still felt like they belonged to somebody else.
I typed:
Me:Yes. Who are you?
My thumb hovered over send.
Ellie put her hand over mine for one second. Not stopping me—just there.
So I sent it.
The message disappeared into the app.
Nothing came back.
No dots. No ping. No dramatic villain reply.
Just silence.
Which, somehow, felt louder.
Breakfast sugar did not fix that.
Memory Hangover
Back at the Meridian, I made another excellent decision.
By excellent, I mean probably terrible—definitely avoidable. Teddy would have put it in the Do Not Do Without Supervision column.
Teddy was still on airport-family duty.
And the memory was still sitting inside me like a bruise with teeth.
I told Ellie I wanted to try reaching it again.
Not floating. Not last night’s full-body disaster—just the memory. Controlled. Careful.
Tiny lie. Huge optimism.
Ellie stared at me.
“I’m doing it with you.”
Which was not what I meant.
Exactly what I should have expected.
We sat on my bed, knees almost touching, curtains half-shut, movie posters watching us like unhelpful witnesses.
She took my hand. Her fingers were cold. Mine were worse.
I flipped to last night’s diary entry.
Bad idea.
The memory hit as soon as I touched the page.
One second I was in my room. The next, we were hanging.
Cold metal behind my shoulders. Silver bands biting the skin. Wrists stretched outward. Something tight at my chest. A hard pressure low on my back where the triangle needle marks lived.
Machines breathing in slow clicks and pulses.
And Ellie—there, suspended in another frame.
Red hair hanging wrong. Arms held out. Tubes trailing from silver points. Face turned away, but I knew it was her the way you know your own name even half-asleep.
The strain hit like something hooked under my ribs.
Shoulder screamed. Wrists burned. Black veins flared.
Ellie’s grip tightened until our fingers hurt.
I heard a machine click.
Breathing.
Someone mumbling too muffled to catch.
Then the room snapped away.
We folded forward like puppets with cut strings.
For a while, neither of us moved.
Just shaking hands. Bruised shoulder. Ellie looking like she had left part of herself in that room.
She didn’t speak at first.
Then she grabbed her sketchbook. Hands shaky. Almost angry.
Fast. The frame, bands, tubes—everything she had seen.
Pencil wasn’t enough. She pulled out her drawing tray and grabbed a stick of charcoal. Raw marks. Messy. Immediate.
I hated every line. Not Ellie’s drawing, just the trauma coming alive on the page.
Evidence. Now inside me and out.
When she finished, she ripped out the page. Pinned it to Bobby. Then covered it with a blank sheet.
No argument. No vote. No democracy.
I nodded. Brain soup agreed.
So we put on a movie.
Something old. Something safe. People stayed on the ground. Mistaken identities. Suspicious hats.
Ellie curled against me carefully, avoiding my shoulder.
I held her hand. Not for romance.
For proof we were both back.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Waiting, Shaky Body
Sunday morning came with church.
Because apparently trauma does not cancel schedules.
I walked Ellie to the chapel. She went inside. I stayed outside in the park. Bench by the lake. The usual—except my body was still giving complaints.
I wore a hoodie. Strategic fashion.
Also, every step made my shoulder file a formal complaint.
Ellie put on one of her delicate summer dresses that makes my chest flutter.
My heart didn’t disappoint this time.
Ellie came out eventually.
Our arms brushed. Not holding hands. Too public. Too complicated. Too Candy-still-exists.
But close.
I whispered, “I’m okay.”
She gave me a look.
Fine.
“I’m here,” I whispered instead.
That one worked better.
Her shoulders lowered about one percent. Maybe two. Huge progress. Alert the authorities.
As we walked back to the Meridian, she took my hand for half a second. Quick. Careful. Gone.
Not enough.
Still something.
And for once, I did not joke about it.
I just held onto the feeling.
Because after yesterday, proof that I could stay standing felt like its own kind of prayer.
Purple Room Static
After lunch, we helped Gramps with the second apartment.
Because nothing says restful Sunday like cleaning a place that may or may not have emotionally detonated my entire body-memory system.
Very normal. Very healthy.
Gramps had already opened all the windows. The apartment smelled like dust, old paint, and June air. Not unpleasant exactly. More like a place holding its breath after being shut up too long.
He handed us cloths, trash bags, and one of his cheerful “this won’t take long” smiles.
Which meant it would absolutely take a long time.
The living room was easy enough. Boxes to sort. Shelves to wipe. A stack of old movie posters that Gramps said he had “put somewhere sensible,” which apparently meant abandoned in an apartment no one was using.
Classic Gramps.
Ellie worked quietly beside me, hair tied back, moving carefully around my bad shoulder without making a thing of it. That almost made more of a thing of it, obviously, because my brain is helpful like that.
The first bedroom was next.
More boxes to sort, floors to sweep.
But the purple bedroom kept waiting.
I could feel it before we went in.
Not a memory blast. Not even that horrible dragging feeling from Friday night—just pressure. A weird little hum under my skin, like my wrists and chest had become tuning forks for family secrets.
Love that for me.
The room itself looked innocent. Purple walls. Dusty baseboards. Empty closet. A patch near the window where the color had faded lighter, probably from the sun.
Probably.
It was the same layout as my room in Gramps’ apartment next door. Same vent. Same window seat. But without the mystery chaos attached.
Still, I could feel something.
Ellie paused in the doorway.
“You feel it too?” I asked quietly.
She nodded once.
Gramps appeared behind us with another box of cleaning supplies, wearing the exact face of a man pretending not to notice two teenage girls frozen in an empty bedroom.
He asked if we could finish up, as he had some things to do downstairs.
Then: “Maybe start with the closet.”
Not: Are you all right?
Not: Do you remember something?
Just: Start with the closet.
So we started with the closet.
No secret panels. No hidden diary. No Polaroid tucked behind the trim. No secret notes. Just dust. A box of mismatched curtain rings. And an old padded hanger.
Rude, honestly.
Still, every time I turned my back, it felt like the room was watching me.
Then Ellie gasped and handed me the hanger.
In the center, carefully tucked: a small sprig of festive holly.
A sign.
From Gramps.
Message received.
My heart did a small, weird flip.
Maybe this was my aunt Holly’s old room—maybe her apartment.
I knew I was right, somehow.
This was not just another apartment. Not to me. Not anymore.
It was Holly-shaped absence with purple walls and fresh air pretending everything was fine.
By the time we finished, the room looked cleaner.
It did not feel cleaner.
It felt like we had dusted around the question.
Sunday Safety Brain
We finished cleaning the rest of the second apartment.
Gramps said it was ready for someone to move in.
Probably for the new restaurant manager. Which makes sense—it’s as close to the South Bay Peninsula as you can get without crossing the causeway. Prime location.
Teddy arrived at the Meridian looking like someone had copied him at seventy percent battery.
Still Teddy.
Extra shadows under his eyes. The general energy of a person running on family logistics, hospital time, and emotional damage control.
They had spent most of the day with his dad at Halifax Memorial, trying to make his birthday feel special in the least hospital way possible.
Teddy thanked me for the birthday card I’d given him to take for his dad.
I would have bought something too, but what do you buy in a situation like that?
Balloons felt wrong. Flowers felt worse.
So I had gone with a card and pretended that was enough.
He barely made it into my room before I asked if he wanted to do this tonight or wait until tomorrow.
He looked at the floor for a second, then said, “If it’s bad, tell me now.”
So we did.
The floating. The black veins. Ellie’s drawing. The RGN message. The weird Holly clue from the apartment closet.
Not elegantly.
Teddy listened without interrupting—which was how I knew it was bad. Normal Teddy interrupts. Normal Teddy asks questions, names things, turns panic into systems.
This Teddy just went very still.
Then I got to the part from yesterday—when we had relived the memory together.
Ellie had drawn it—every frame, every band, every tube—on paper. Charcoal, messy, immediate, exactly as she’d seen herself.
Teddy’s face did something small and awful when he saw it.
When I mentioned the shape that might have been Logan, he looked at Bobby, then back at me.
Then I told him we replied to the RGN message.
“You replied?” he said, a little shocked.
Ellie folded her arms, voice quiet. “We didn’t tell them what. We only said yes and asked who they were.”
I added that we had not received a reply.
Teddy rubbed both hands over his face. For a second, he looked older than sixteen in a way I hated.
“I get why,” he said finally. “But next time, we wait.”
Next time. Excellent phrase. Very calming. Loved the implication that my haunted app correspondence had a future schedule.
Then he opened Truthweaver.
The room changed after that. Not magically. Just practically. Teddy with a laptop becomes a different species. Tired. Scared. Stretched thin. But also Teddy Chen—Keeper of Tabs, Lord of Search Terms, Defender Against Stupid Clicking.
Sapphire Bliss’s card stayed untouched for now. Teddy said one dangerous internet door at a time, which was annoying because he was right.
He reminded us of Sapphire’s rules first. No personal devices. No careless searching from inside the radius. Print changing pages before refreshing.
He tapped the laptop. But she didn’t know about this.
I noticed the glint of pride he tried to hide.
Then he said Ruby had built something into the USB that was not exactly a VPN and not exactly not one, which was deeply reassuring.
Apparently, it routed searches through layers that made the origin messy enough to confuse whatever watched normal searches.
Either the suppression field was failing, or Ruby Weaver was terrifyingly good.
We voted Ruby.
The first search was Serenity Grove.
I expected nothing.
Which was stupid, because expecting nothing is how the universe prepares to throw furniture.
Results appeared. Not clean. Not normal. Not everything-you-need-on-page-one results. Old references. Cached pages. Half-missing images. A school mention that disappeared when Teddy copied the title, then reappeared in the cache.
He printed it before refreshing. Because Sapphire Bliss may be terrifying, but she gives excellent instructions.
Serenity Grove was real. Vancouver. Medical. Youth psychiatric and wellness language. Observation programs. ESD support references buried under polished words that sounded too much like Clearwater wearing a different outfit.
My stomach went cold.
Then came Patrick Collins.
Then Cassie Collins.
Then Logan.
The public version was ugly and neat, which made it uglier. Father accused. Daughter missing and presumed dead. Surviving son traumatized. Interview leaked. White door claim dismissed.
Nothing much about his mom, though.
The press had turned Logan into a nickname.
“The White Door Kid.”
I hated that immediately.
Not just because it was cruel. Because I understood it.
Take the impossible thing someone says. Make it sound ridiculous. Repeat it until everyone hears the joke before they hear the warning.
Teddy printed everything that looked unstable. Ellie sat beside me, one hand pressed against her sketchbook like she was holding the drawing shut.
Then Teddy found Logan’s date of birth.
October 3, 2009.
For a second, none of us spoke.
Because that is my birthday. Same day. Same year. Same impossible little pin stabbed through the map.
Teddy added it to Bobby in careful block letters.
LOGAN COLLINS—DOB MATCHES PENNY.
I wanted to make a joke. About birthday twins being less fun when one of them was known as the White Door Kid and might have been hanging in my memory machine.
Nothing came out.
The room felt too quiet. Like the Meridian was listening too.
Monday, June 15, 2026
Brain With Receipts
Monday morning did not care that Sunday had casually revealed my impossible aunt’s living accommodation.
Rude.
Homeroom still smelled like floor cleaner and damp backpacks. Mr. Matheson still expected Math to exist at 9:05am, which felt personally unreasonable. People complained about homework, why only seniors get a prom, cafeteria fries, and whether the vending machine had eaten someone’s change.
Meanwhile, my brain had a much worse vending machine.
It kept dropping the same things over and over.
Serenity Grove.
White Door Kid.
Logan Collins.
October 3, 2009.
Same birthday. Same year. Same exact day the universe apparently decided to make two ESD kids and then hand one of them a white door and me a haunted diary collection.
Very thoughtful. Very normal.
I tried to use school as a container. Homeroom: do not think about Logan. Math: do not think about Logan. Media Studies later: definitely do not think about Logan while staring at video files that could probably vanish if someone breathed wrong near them.
Excellent system.
Failed immediately.
Interval Reel Energy
Media Studies should have been easy.
Not emotionally easy. Nothing is emotionally easy anymore because apparently my life saw “regular teenage problems” and clicked unsubscribe.
But technically easy.
We were supposed to check our 2D presentation exports for the Spellbound Harmonyinterval showcase. Make sure the file names matched Mr. Lefevre’s list. Confirm nothing played sideways, silently, or with the emotional energy of a cursed slideshow.
Simple.
Mr. Lefevre had the showcase list on the screen at the front of the room.
My group’s sunset project was there.
Teddy’s boardwalk one too.
Candy’s group had a slot near the middle, which I only noticed because Candy noticed me noticing.
Peak Candy.
She smiled like she owned the alphabet.
Spellbound Full Run
By Drama, the whole school-production machine had gone from “organized chaos” to “chaos wearing a headset.”
Miss Rivers had us doing longer runs. I spent most of the period pretending props had personalities and grudges.
The moon lantern was missing twice. One of the fake spell books appeared on the wrong side of the stage. Someone put a painted branch on top of my labeled tape marks.
Crimes were committed.
Ellie moved between set pieces with a paint pen tucked behind her ear, fixing scratches, straightening fabric, giving scenery the kind of judgment usually reserved for bad life choices.
Marilyn was good.
Annoyingly, undeniably good.
She hit her songs cleanly, remembered her blocking, and somehow managed to look calm while everyone around her forgot where doors were supposed to be.
People noticed.
Miss Rivers noticed. Half the cast noticed.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Prom Invades Reality
Prom was everywhere.
Senior prom.
Not mine yet. Important distinction.
Which meant it should have been safely filed under Not My Problem Until Next Year,right beside taxes, college applications, and learning how to make soup that does not taste like warm sadness.
But apparently I had been wrong.
Prom had infected the school overnight.
There were posters near the main office. Bright ones. Very aggressive about school spirit.
Announcements about tickets, guest forms, photo times, and something called “arrival coordination,” which sounded less like a school dance and more like a military landing operation with hairspray.
In the hallway, two seniors argued about limo groups, and someone nearby whispered “corsage” like it was part of a criminal deal.
By lunch, I had heard three separate conversations about dresses, one about shoes, and one terrifying debate about whether a spray tan should be “subtle bronze” or “glowing but not radioactive.”
School is educational.
Ellie found this funny.
Of course she did.
She sat across from me at lunch, chin in her hand, trying to look innocent and failing because her mouth kept doing the almost-smile thing.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That was a very loud nothing.”
She glanced toward a group of seniors across the cafeteria. Someone had a garment bag draped over a chair like it owned the place.
“Just thinking about next year.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything yet.”
“You said it with your face.”
Ellie’s smile got worse. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I do. And the answer is no. I will not be attending prom next year.”
“Interesting.”
“Not interesting. Decided. Final. I enjoy peace, dignity, and not wearing expensive fabric traps.”
Teddy, who looked like he had slept in a Wi-Fi outage, muttered, “Fabric traps is actually fair.”
Thank you, Teddy. Validation from the exhausted tech council.
Ellie did not argue. That was the worrying part. If she had pushed, I could have pushed back. Easy. Normal. Fun, even.
Instead, she just looked at me like she had already imagined something I had not agreed to yet.
Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
Because prom was supposed to be a distant future nightmare involving seniors, sparkles, and other people’s bad decisions.
Not me.
Definitely not me and Ellie.
Absolutely not me and Ellie next year, with her looking at me like maybe the future had room for something soft in it.
So yeah.
Prom had invaded reality.
And apparently reality was not done being rude.
Dress Shop Trap
After school, I made the mistake of being generous.
This is how they get you.
Ellie had been all dangerous prom sparkle at lunch, but by the end of the day Candy had started sanding the shine off her. Senior prom had taken over the building like glitter mold, and Teddy had gone home for print shop things looking like he needed a nap, a financial advisor, and possibly a wizard.
I didn’t feel like diving back into diary mystery chaos.
So I said, “We can do something you want.”
Dangerous words.
Never say them unless you are prepared for consequences.
Ellie’s face lit up in a way that should have warned me.
An hour later, we were at the Halifax mall, standing outside a dress shop with window displays full of sparkle, satin, and personal doom.
“No,” I said.
“You said something I want.”
“I meant hot chocolate. Or art supplies. Or emotionally safe fries.”
“This will be fun.”
“That is what people say before crimes.”
Ellie just smiled and pulled me inside.
The shop smelled like perfume, fabric, and poor decisions. There were racks everywhere. Short dresses. Long dresses. Emergency late dresses for people currently losing the war against prom week.
But the front display was already looking ahead.
PROM 2027 PREVIEW APPOINTMENTS NOW OPEN.
Of course.
Because apparently even dresses had a five-year plan.
Ellie moved through it like she understood the language.
I followed like a confused raccoon in a fancy closet.
She picked out a dark green dress first, then a blue one, then something silver that looked like moonlight had become expensive. I pretended to be very casual about it.
Then she came out of the changing room in the blue one.
And my brain stopped.
Not dramatically. No violins. No slow-motion hair commercial.
Just one clean, unfair second—where Ellie looked at me, slightly embarrassed, slightly hopeful, and absolutely beautiful.
Rude.
I forgot every anti-prom argument I had ever made.
Then she spun once, very small, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to enjoy herself.
That was worse.
“Okay,” I said.
Her eyebrow lifted. “Okay?”
“You look…not terrible.”
She laughed properly then, and there it was. The tiny uncurling. The thing I kept wanting to protect even though I had no idea how.
Then she made me try one.
Yeah, I know.
Me in a dress.
Not happening.
Except it did, because love is apparently a trap with changing rooms.
Mine was dark purple, which felt suspiciously on-theme for my life. I expected to hate it. I had prepared a whole internal speech about fabric prisons and formal footwear.
But when I stepped out, Ellie went quiet.
Not scary quiet—the other kind.
The kind that makes your face heat before anyone says anything.
“It suits you,” she said.
I looked in the mirror and saw someone who was still me, somehow. Same hair. Awkward shoulders. Bruise not as hidden as I wanted it to be. Not graceful. Not polished.
But maybe not ridiculous either.
Very annoying development.
Afterward, we went to McDonald’s because fancy dress feelings require fries.
I told Ellie I was not promising anything.
She said she knew.
I said maybe, possibly, under extreme emotional protest, I might consider prom next year.
With her.
She stole one of my fries and smiled like she had won a war.
Ellie’s dad’s driver picked us up outside the mall just after that, and I spent the whole ride pretending I had not let the future get a tiny bit closer.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Full Run Friction
Drama was less a class today and more a controlled disaster with music.
Miss Rivers called it a full run.
I would like to formally dispute the word full, because several people still did not know where they were supposed to stand, one person missed an entrance because he was eating a granola bar, and the moon lantern tried to roll off the prop table like it had personal ambitions.
Still, technically, we ran the show.
Mostly.
My job had gone from “help with props” to “quietly prevent civilization from collapsing backstage.” I had a checklist now. A real one. With scene numbers, prop names, preset spots, handoff notes, and emergency reminders like:
DO NOT GIVE THE SILVER CUP TO LUCAS UNTIL AFTER THE SONG.
Because apparently Lucas could not be trusted with a cup for more than four minutes.
Valid concern.
Ellie was on visual damage control. Paint pen, tape, pins, cloth, emergency glue. Very glamorous. Very unpaid.
She kept appearing exactly where something looked wrong, fixing it, then vanishing again like an art fairy with stress issues.
At one point, she crouched near the forest flats, touching up a scrape where someone had dragged a chair too close.
Marilyn was in the middle of the big Act One scene, and annoyingly, she was good.
Not just “pretty and everyone says nice things because she’s Marilyn” good.
Actually good.
Miss Rivers clapped once when the scene ended.
“Excellent, Marilyn. That’s the shape. Keep that.”
Several people nodded.
Someone whispered, “She’s going to kill it.”
And the annoying thing was, they were right.
By the end of Drama, the show felt more real than it had before.
Which was exciting.
Also not comforting.
Soon is Not Helpful
By Wednesday evening, Teddy was running on fumes.
Not cute fumes.
Not “ha ha, he needs a nap” fumes.
More like the kind where even his texts sounded tired.
He had told us at lunch that the treatment stuff for his dad was getting worse. Not because no one was doing anything—because everyone was doing too much and somehow it still wasn’t enough.
The treatment path was getting expensive in the way adults try to say calmly and fail.
Appointments. Travel. Specialist conversations. Lost work. Shop orders. Buyer pressure. His mom trying to hold the admin together. His dad trying to be brave in a way that probably made everyone feel worse.
Cancer math is cruel.
That is not a medical term.
It should be.
By the time I got back home, Mom asked if I was seeing Ellie again this weekend.
Not suspicious at all.
Then she asked whether Ellie got home okay after the mall yesterday, which was somehow worse because it sounded like normal parenting and possible surveillance at the same time.
No update on whatever “nice surprise” Mom had apparently dragged Gramps into, obviously. My mother has discovered cliffhangers.
Ellie, meanwhile, was trapped in mandatory Candy Gang prom-prep orbit.
Apparently Candy needed everyone available to help “finalize the look,” which sounded less like getting ready for prom and more like assembling a weaponized doll.
I wondered if she had bribed the senior to take her to prom.
Actually, knowing Candy, she probably called it networking.
Ellie texted me a photo of three nail polish bottles lined up on Candy’s vanity.
Ellie: Send help. Or fries. Me: Fries are emotionally superior to rescue. Ellie: Correct. Still send both.
I was typing something extremely heroic about breaking her out with a ladder and nuggets when the RGN app pinged.
One sound.
Tiny.
Horrible.
My stomach dropped before I even opened it.
Soon.
A friend.
That was it.
No explanation.
No answer to who are you.
No helpful attachment.
No “Dear Penny, here is a numbered list of the nightmares coming your way.”
Just:
Soon.
Very helpful.
Very detective.
I stared at it so long the screen dimmed.
Then I sent Ellie a screenshot.
She called me immediately, which meant she had escaped Candy’s nail-polish command center for at least thirty seconds.
“What does soon mean?” she whispered.
“Excellent question.”
“Penny.”
“I know.”
We both went quiet, because there are only so many jokes you can make before one word starts feeling like a countdown.
I tried Teddy next.
No answer.
I tried again ten minutes later.
Still nothing.
That was when the guilt started.
Not panic exactly.
Worse.
The small, crawling feeling that I was choosing what information he could handle, which sounded dangerously close to adult behavior.
And adults in my life have a mixed record.
Later, Teddy texted.
Teddy: Sorry. Dad stuff. Everything okay?
I looked at the RGN message again.
Soon.
Then at Teddy’s text.
Dad stuff.
I typed three different replies and deleted all of them.
Finally, I sent:
Me: Yeah. Nothing urgent. Talk tomorrow?
Lie adjacent.
Not fully lie.
Still gross.
Teddy replied with a thumbs-up and a tiny exhausted-looking robot sticker, because even at emotional rock bottom he remained committed to brand consistency.
I did not tell him.
Not tonight.
Because his family was already standing at the edge of losing Chen Print, and I could not be the person who shoved one more monster into his hands before bed.
So I wrote “Soon”on Bobby.
Then I underlined it twice.
Which did not make it less ominous.
Classic.
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Boardwalk Playback
Media Studies included Teddy’s group presentation today.
Which meant peaceful boardwalk footage was coming.
Very calming in theory.
Less calming when Teddy looked like someone had personally unplugged his soul and forgotten to charge it overnight.
Excellent contrast.
Very subtle, universe.
Mr. Lefevre had the Spellbound Harmony Part 1 Interval Showcase Media Studies Playlist open on the classroom computer.
Yes. That was the exact title.
This immediately made half the room act like we were all professional filmmakers and not teenagers who had mostly learned that exporting video files takes longer when you are already late.
The presentations in class were being checked in the same order.
Teddy’s group was up next.
The boardwalk filled the screen, wide and bright, with the sea stretching out beyond the railings and sunlight flashing over the water.
Someone in his group had done a slow pan toward the horizon, and for a second the whole room went quieter.
Teddy was watching the screen, but not really.
His hands were folded on the desk in front of him, thumbs pressed together too hard.
When the video ended, Mr. Lefevre nodded. “Good pacing. Nice ambient sound.”
Teddy gave a tiny nod.
Normal class. Normal teacher voice.
Except Teddy looked like he was carrying a whole different weather system under his skin.
He caught me looking and raised an eyebrow.
I shook my head.
Later.
Because first I had to tell him about the “Soon”message.
And somehow that felt harder than watching the sea pretend everything was calm.
Two Kinds of Shattered
Lunch looked like a group project in emotional collapse.
Teddy got there first, which almost never happens anymore because his life has become one long side quest with medical paperwork.
He sat down with his tray and did not open his drink.
Just stared at it like maybe the juice box had answers.
It did not.
Rude packaging.
Ellie arrived five minutes later looking equally wrecked, but in a completely different font.
Teddy was tired in the gray, hollow way.
Ellie was tired in the over-polished way.
Hair too perfect. Lip gloss too shiny. Smile held together with invisible tape.
Candy Gang prom prep had left marks without touching her skin.
I hated that.
I hated that Candy could still pull her into orbit with one text and a threat no one else could see.
I hated that Teddy’s dad was sick and his family might lose Chen Print.
And I hated that I had something else to add.
Excellent lunch vibes.
Very balanced meal.
I waited until Teddy finally poked at his food.
Then I put my phone on the table, screen dimmed but message ready, because apparently I have learned nothing about dramatic timing.
“There was another RGN message last night,” I said.
Teddy looked up.
Not fast.
That was worse.
“When?”
My stomach performed a tiny, useless backflip.
“Last night.”
His face changed, but not into anger exactly.
More like something inside him had sagged.
“You waited.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you.”
He sighed.
I showed him the message.
Soon.
A friend.
Ellie’s hand found mine under the table.
Teddy read it once.
Then again.
Then he pushed the phone back like it might bite.
“Okay,” he said.
Just okay.
Not a theory. Not a joke. Not a very Teddy label like Ominous App Goblin, Phase Two.
Just okay.
“I didn’t want to dump it on you during dad stuff,” I said.
His mouth twitched, almost a smile, but it did not make it.
“Penny, everything is dad stuff right now.”
That landed.
Because he was right.
There was no perfect time. No calm slot. No safe little box where I could put supernatural disaster without crushing the rest of his life.
Waiting did not protect him—it just left him outside the room again.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He nodded, but he looked down at his food instead of at me.
Ellie squeezed my hand once.
None of us fixed anything.
Lunch kept happening around us. People laughed. Someone dropped a fork. Two seniors argued about prom photos like the universe had not sent the word “Soon” through a secret app while Teddy’s family was falling apart and Ellie looked like Candy had borrowed her life for the evening.
Two kinds of shattered at one table.
Three, maybe.
Early Father’s Day
By the end of school, Ellie looked like she wanted to stay with me and also like she already knew she couldn’t.
“Me and Felicia are taking Dad out tonight,” she said, while we stood near the front doors pretending we were not both emotionally bruised in public. “Early Father’s Day dinner.”
“Oh.”
Very impressive response.
Ten out of ten emotional maturity.
“He’s away again this weekend,” she added. “Cape Breton. Mayor stuff. Something about coastal funding and emergency planning.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“Extremely. I’m sure there will be binders.”
“Dangerous number of binders?”
“Probably.”
That got the tiniest smile out of her.
Tiny. But real.
Apparently, actual Father’s Day would be swallowed by meetings, travel, and whatever mayors do when they gather in groups. Discuss drainage? Compare ribbon-cutting scissors? Decide which town has the most emotionally aggressive potholes?
Important work, probably.
And for some reason, all of it just had to fit into Father’s Day weekend. Ugh.
Felicia had picked the restaurant, which Ellie said meant pasta, because Felicia believed pasta solved most problems.
Respectable worldview.
I wanted to be normal about it.
I wanted to say have fun and mean only that. I wanted Ellie getting dinner with her dad and sister to feel like an ordinary family thing, not another place she was going where I could not follow.
But after this week, everyone leaving felt like a small warning.
Then Ellie looked down at her shoes.
“Could I stay at the Meridian again this weekend?” she asked.
My chest did something embarrassingly hopeful.
“Obviously,” I said. “All weekend?”
She nodded. That got a tiny smile out of her.
I held onto it.
Friday, June 19, 2026
Glitter Storm Warning
Senior prom had now become less of an event and more of a weather system.
You could feel it in the halls.
Perfume samples—hairspray panic. People asking if anyone had safety pins. Seniors walking around like they were either about to attend the most important night of their lives or be sacrificed to a formalwear god.
Hard to tell.
I was not involved—technically.
Emotionally, unfortunately, Ellie had dragged me into the future version of involved on Tuesday, which meant every time someone said prom, my brain supplied an image of her in that blue dress.
Very rude of my brain.
Very poor boundaries.
Candy was everywhere, obviously.
Not physically everywhere, although I would not put cloning past her if it improved her social reach.
Socially everywhere.
People knew what time her hair appointment was. People knew her dress color.
People knew she was going with Evan Marlow, one of Steve Dillon’s senior friends.
Less like a date.
More like a strategic partnership with shoes.
Steve looked mildly embarrassed whenever anyone mentioned it, which reminded me that even though we’d already asked him to help with Candy, we still hadn’t figured out exactly what to ask him to do without turning him into bait.
Teddy had been very firm about that part.
Help was one thing.
Trapping someone in Candy’s blast radius without warning was another.
Evan seemed relaxed in the way only seniors can be relaxed when they are basically done with school and therefore immune to consequences.
Must be nice.
Candy, meanwhile, had entered full command mode.
Kaelyn had to bring the makeup bag. Sally had to check jewelry, standing in the kind of space Jemma used to occupy so easily that my brain almost let it happen without flinching.
Marilyn had been pulled in too, looking like she would rather be rehearsing, hiding, or possibly joining a witness protection program.
Ellie had been assigned “emergency visual opinion,” which sounded fake until I remembered Candy could turn anything into a job if it kept people close enough to control.
At lunch, Ellie sat beside me for approximately eight minutes before Candy appeared behind her.
Not loudly. Candy never needs loud.
“We’re leaving right after school,” she said. “Try not to wander off.”
Her eyes flicked to me on the last word.
Peak Candy.
Ellie’s fingers tightened around her fork.
Just once.
Then she nodded.
I wanted to say something. Obviously. My mouth had several options ready, most of them bad and at least two probably detention-worthy.
But Ellie glanced at me.
Small. Quick. Please don’t.
So I didn’t.
Growth. Horrible experience. Do not recommend.
After school, Candy collected her entourage near the front doors like she was gathering accessories. Kaelyn bounced around talking about photos. Sally checked her phone every three seconds. Ellie stood beside Marilyn, both of them looking like they wanted to be anywhere else.
Ellie gave me one tiny look before she left.
Not enough to count as anything.
Still enough to hurt.
Because three days ago, I had stood in a dress shop with Ellie and almost believed prom could mean next year. Us. Maybe.
Today, Candy snapped her fingers without snapping them, and Ellie went.
Not because Ellie wanted to.
Because Candy still had the invisible leash.
Senior prom was supposed to be somebody else’s problem.
But watching Ellie get pulled into Candy’s glittery orbit made it feel like my problem anyway.
Classic.
Even the sparkles were threatening now.
The Offer is Real
I thought the rest of Friday would be quieter after Ellie left with Candy’s prom-prep army.
Not quiet-good—quiet in the way a room gets after someone takes all the air with them.
I went home first, because Mom was driving me back to the Meridian later and apparently my life now requires coordinated handovers like I am a suspicious parcel.
Very glamorous.
She was in the kitchen when I got in, making tea and acting casual.
Danger sign.
Mom casual is never casual.
She asked about school. Then the play. Then Ellie.
Then, while stirring her tea like she had not just loaded the conversational cannon, she said, “I had coffee with Ellie’s father today.”
I stared at her.
Not a normal stare—a full system reboot.
“You what?”
“Coffee,” she said. “Very ordinary beverage.”
With Ellie’s father.
Very ordinary heart attack.
She let that hang for approximately six hundred years, then finally said that since she was currently the official Penny-and-Ellie Clearwater taxi service, she had asked whether he might be able to cover the end-of-July and August visits because she might be away.
That was all.
Apparently.
Just scheduling.
Just practical adult logistics.
Not my mother secretly joining forces with Ellie’s mayor dad in some terrifying parent alliance.
Very calming.
Very normal.
She also said she was still taking me and Ellie after the school play next week, just later than usual because of the performance. Clearwater had signed off on it, which apparently involved a lot of paperwork for arriving late.
A lot of paperwork.
For two teenagers arriving late.
Because of a school musical.
I wanted to ask why Clearwater cared that much.
I did not.
Because I knew.
I made the smart choice and saved my suspended-from-the-ceiling-in-a-weird-machine spiral for later, like a responsible person with emotional storage problems.
By the time Mom dropped me at the Meridian, my brain had a fresh list of things currently not solved.
But my phone buzzed while I was halfway up the stairs.
Teddy: We got an offer for the shop. A good one.
Then another message.
Teddy: Mum thinks we should take it. I don’t think there’s another way.
I read it twice.
Then I read it again, because apparently repetition was my chosen method of denial.
Chen Print was not mine.
I know that.
It belonged to Teddy’s family.
Their print shop.
Their equipment.
Their upstairs apartment.
Teddy at the counter after school, half-listening while fixing something. Squirt appearing from nowhere with glitter and questions. Half-labeled boxes and paper smell.
But it had become part of my map.
And now someone had put a price on it.
A good offer.
Such a clean phrase for something that felt like losing.
I typed:
Me: Are you okay?
Stupid question.
Necessary question.
He did not answer right away.
I sat on the edge of my bed, phone in my hand, staring at the wall like it might provide emotional assistance.
It did not.
Eventually, Teddy replied.
Teddy: Not really. Dad needs the next stage of treatment. Insurance won’t cover it. My grandfather has gone radio silent. The shop is the only way.
There it was.
The adult sentence.
The one a sixteen-year-old should not have to type.
I don’t do crying.
But I pressed my phone against my knee and tried not to cry.
Because ordinary places can hold people together, and nobody tells you that until someone starts taking them apart.
I wondered if Gramps had found anything through his charity contacts, then hated myself for wanting every adult with a phone to become a miracle machine.
I looked at Bobby.
“Soon” underlined twice.
Logan Collins—too many coincidences.
The charcoal drawing under the blank sheet.
The notes about Serenity Grove.
The Clearwater reset window.
The little pieces that looked separate until they didn’t.
This week had not exploded.
Not properly.
No Clearwater. No new disappearance. No body floating after Saturday. No dramatic answer from “A friend.”
But even quiet weeks can still move things into position.
Candy had prom, and Ellie was still caught in her orbit.
Teddy’s family had run out of options.
And I had the awful feeling that whatever was coming had been waiting for us to stand in all the wrong places.
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DB
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