Chapter 13

Miley woke before her alarm.

The house was quiet, wrapped in that soft, unfinished kind of morning light that made everything feel paused. For a few seconds, she didn’t move. She just lay there, listening-the faint hum of the fridge downstairs, the muted clink of something settling in the walls.

It felt… familiar.

Not comforting. Not strange. Just familiar.

She pushed the thought away and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath her feet. She pulled on a skirt and tied her hair back without much effort, her hands moving on their own.

In the mirror, she stopped.

She didn’t look different.

But she looked like someone who had already been here.

Miley frowned slightly, then shook her head and left the room.

Downstairs, breakfast was already set.

Toast. Tea. Her mother moving quietly between the counter and the stove. Her father seated at the table, scrolling through his phone.

“Morning,” her mother said.

“Morning,” Miley replied, taking her seat.

They ate in easy silence for a moment before her father spoke.

“Yesterday’s game was something, huh?” he said. “The school really pulled through.”

Miley’s hand paused around her cup.

Yesterday’s game?

She nodded slowly, forcing herself to swallow. “Yeah.”

It felt distant. Not yesterday. Not even recent. Like something she’d heard about a long time ago and had stopped thinking about.

Her parents didn’t notice.

They talked on, casually, and Miley listened with a strange tightness in her chest she couldn’t name.

The walk to school felt easier than it should have.

She adjusted her pace automatically at the narrow part of the road. Stepped around the cracked pavement without looking down. Noticed the same cluster of leaves near the fence, unmoved.

Blackwood High stood where it always did-dark brick, wide steps worn smooth.
Inside, the noise hit her all at once. Lockers slamming. Laughter echoing down the halls. Students brushing past her without apology.

“Miley!”

Anya waved from near the notice board, phone in hand.

“You hear?” Anya said as soon as she reached her. “Felix is back in class today. Practice ended late yesterday.”

Miley’s stomach dropped.

Again.

“Oh,” she said carefully. “Right.”

They walked to class together, Anya talking like always-about assignments, about how tired she was, about how weird the schedule felt this year. Miley listened, nodding at the right moments, her attention split in two.

The classroom looked exactly the same.

Same desks. Same dusty windows. Same faint smell of chalk and old paper.

Felix was already there.

Sitting a few rows ahead.

Her chest tightened as she stared at the back of his head. She knew how this went. Every part of her did.

She leaned forward. “Hi.”

Felix turned.

His expression was polite. Blank.

“Oh-hi,” he said. “Sorry, what was your name again?”

The room felt suddenly too quiet.

“Miley,” she said, softer than she meant to.

“Right,” he said with a small, apologetic smile. “Nice to meet you.”

Nice to meet you.

She nodded, forcing a smile back. “Yeah. You too.”

She faced forward as the teacher began speaking, her pen hovering uselessly above the page.

Classes passed without incident. Notes filled her notebook neatly, her hand moving faster than her thoughts. She already knew when to turn pages, when to underline, when the bell would ring.

At lunch, Anya talked. Miley listened.

Felix passed their table once, laughing with his friends, not sparing her a glance.

By the time school ended, the sky had darkened, clouds pressing low and heavy.

Miley didn’t slow down on the walk home.
The house greeted her with silence.

She barely took her shoes off before heading upstairs, her heart beating too fast now to ignore. In her room, she shut the door and crossed straight to her desk.

Her calendar lay open.

She stared at it.

October 11.

Her breath caught.

“No,” she whispered.

Yesterday had been the thirteenth. She knew it had been. She had written it down. Felt it in her bones.

Her hands trembled as she checked again.

October 11.

The same as before.

The room felt different now-older somehow. Like it was watching her back.

Miley sank onto the edge of her bed, staring at the date until it blurred.

Felix forgetting her.

The basketball match.

Anya saying the same things.

This wasn’t coincidence not anymore.

It wasn’t stress.

It was repeating.

That night, she didn’t turn the light off right away.

She sat at her desk instead, staring at the empty pages of a notebook she hadn’t touched yet.

Tomorrow, she decided, she wouldn’t let the day disappear.

If time wanted to erase itself, she would write it down.

And for the first time since arriving in Blackwood, Miley didn’t believe tomorrow would be normal.

She knew it wouldn’t.

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Chapter ended