Chapter 5 Cracks in the mask

Morning came like an insult. Too bright, too loud, too... normal.

My phone buzzed with Vivienne's name. I didn't answer.

Her texts stacked anyway

U alive?

Party part two tonight??

Don't ghost me, Ivy.

I stared at the last one so long the letters blurred. Ghost. Funny, considering that's all I'd ever been.

I shoved the phone under my pillow and got dressed in the least "I've been crying into my sheets" outfit I could find, black hoodie, jeans, hair up. Invisible chic.

At school, Vivienne sparkled like betrayal wasn't a crime punishable by at least fifteen years in my personal court. She bounced to my locker, ponytail swinging, phone already in hand.

"Finally! I thought you died." She said it with a laugh, like my silence was a quirky personality trait. "Come on, I have to tell you ...."

Her voice blurred when I saw the phone. That phone. The one I'd held last night. The one with Victor's message glowing like a knife in the dark.

I pulled my hoodie tighter. "Not now, Viv."

She blinked. "What's with you?"

Nothing. Everything. The fact that your phone holds proof that the boy who looked at me like a secret star is actually orbiting you.

"I'm tired," I said flatly, slamming the locker shut.

Vivienne tilted her head, reading me like she always does. Usually she gets it. Usually she knows when to push and when to let me retreat. Today, she just smirked.

"You're always tired, Ivy. Try coffee." And then she floated off, already catching someone else's attention, already shining in another direction.

I made it through first period like a ghost (fitting). Second period was worse, because Victor was there.

He looked at me once, like he was checking if I'd survived the night. Our eyes met. His slid away.

The teacher droned about equations, and I doodled on the margin of my notebook: lines that looped into each other, tangling, breaking, starting again.

Every time my pencil hesitated, a memory stabbed through:

His hands catching the box of sign-up sheets.

His text: goodnight, ivy.

His eyes on Vivienne by the fireplace.

I pressed the pencil so hard it snapped. The sound made half the class jump, Victor included. I mumbled "sorry" and swept the pieces into my bag like evidence.

At lunch, Vivienne saved me a seat. Of course she did. She always does.

"Ivy!" she chirped, sliding her tray across from mine. "So. News. I think Dylan's gonna ask me to homecoming. But like, should I even say yes? He's cute but also..." She kept talking, stringing words like beads, while I stabbed at my apple slices with a plastic fork.

Victor walked by. Vivienne's eyes tracked him automatically, then snapped back to me.

"You should smile more," she said lightly, like she was rearranging my face in her head. "It suits you."

I smiled. A lie of a smile, teeth on display but hollow inside. She didn't notice the difference. She never does.

After school, I walked home alone. The air was sharp, September turning the trees into little fires. I thought about what it would feel like to tell Vivienne I knew. To tell Victor I knew. To stop being a ghost and start being... what? A girl with a voice?

But voices have consequences. And ghosts don't raise theirs without risking being exorcised completely.

I opened my front door to the smell of burned coffee. My aunt was home early, for once. She looked up from the kitchen, tired eyes softening. "Hi, honey."

Her voice was gentle, and suddenly all the sharp edges of the day collapsed. I mumbled "hi" back and went straight upstairs before the tears could make their predictable cameo.

On my desk sat a copy of Night Sky with Exit Wounds. The spine cracked where Victor had dog-eared the poem he asked for. I ran my finger down the page, the words blurring, The most beautiful part of your body is wherever your mother's shadow falls.

I closed the book. Shadows. Light. Ghosts. I didn't know what I was anymore.

But I knew one thing I couldn't stay invisible forever.