The Notebook That Knew My Name

I didn't open the notebook again for two days.

Not because I was afraid.

I just wasn't ready to see what else she already knew.

The first time I read my name in it, it wasn't just written. It was dissected. She'd described me like I was a subject under a microscope.

"Adrian Vale – manipulation through silence. Patterns of dominance. Charm used as distraction. Reaction to being ignored: high irritation threshold breached in under ten seconds."

It didn't feel like a diary.

It felt like a file.

I wasn't her classmate.

I was her target.

Rhea didn't acknowledge me for a week after she gave the notebook back.

No glances. No words. Nothing.

I'd think maybe I imagined her—if not for the fact that every time she passed, my pulse kicked like it was being jolted by an invisible wire.

And I noticed things. Small, sharp things that shouldn't matter.

Like how her ribbon changed color every Thursday.

How she tied her laces left over right, always.

How she never walked under the old oak tree in the center courtyard—always around it. Like she hated that specific patch of ground.

I asked around.

Nobody knew where she came from.

No one even remembered her arriving.

It was like she'd always been here—waiting for something.

By Friday, I was done pretending.

I cornered her after class. Not rough, not loud. Just… final.

"You knew my name before I ever told you."

She looked up slowly. "Yes."

"Why?"

She tilted her head like I was asking the wrong question.

"I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice."

"That you were watching me?"

She smiled. That smile. The one that felt like a dare carved into porcelain.

"No, Adrian. That you were never in control to begin with."

Later that night, I couldn't sleep.

So I reread the notebook.

This time, I noticed something else.

A second name—written again and again in the margins, nearly invisible under scratched ink.

R. M. Vale.

It wasn't hers.

It was mine....

I stared at it for an hour.

R. M. Vale.

Written in the margins like a whisper. Like a signature on a contract I never signed.

Over and over again.

R. M. Vale. R. M. Vale. R. M.—

It wasn't just obsession.

It was ownership.

But whose?

The next morning, she wasn't in class.

Her seat was empty. The last one in the back. Third row from the window. Still had that stupid smudge on the desk no one ever bothered to clean.

I don't know why it bothered me. But it did.

More than it should've.

And not because I missed her.

Because I didn't know where she was.

I didn't like not knowing.

So I checked the admin office. Said I was supposed to deliver some forms.

No record of absence.

No record of Rhea Virelle at all.

The secretary squinted at her screen like she was humoring me. "Are you sure that's the name?"

"Positive."

She smiled the way adults do when they think you're imagining things. "Maybe she goes by a middle name?"

I left before I said something I'd regret.

By lunch, my hands were shaking.

I told myself I was overreacting. That there was some mistake. That of course she existed—I'd spoken to her, touched the notebook, cornered her in the stairwell—

Hadn't I?

I pulled out the notebook again. Pages rustled under my fingers like brittle skin. I flipped through until I found the first mention of me.

And realized something.

There were fingerprints in the margins. Tiny ones. Pressed faintly into the paper like someone had gripped it hard—almost like fear.

But they weren't mine.

After school, I waited near the courtyard tree she always avoided.

I wanted to see what would happen if I stood on the path she never walked.

Nothing did.

Just the wind. A few dead leaves. Distant laughter from kids who still believed in simple things.

I was about to leave when I saw something wedged into the tree bark.

A folded paper. Torn at the edges. My name on the front.

No envelope. No stamp. No explanation.

I opened it.

> You looked in the wrong place.

I'm not gone. You're just behind.

Stop searching for records.

Start remembering.

That night, I didn't sleep again.

I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, replaying everything. Every word. Every glance.

And something shifted.

Because I started seeing her in places she wasn't.

A reflection in the train window. A shadow slipping into the library.

A reflection in the train window.

A shadow slipping into the library.

A whisper in the hallway that stopped when I turned around.

She wasn't there. But she was.

And the notebook wasn't just a notebook anymore. It was a map. A time bomb. A mirror with teeth.

The next day, I skipped school.

I wasn't looking for Rhea anymore. Not directly.

I was looking for myself.

Because something was wrong with my memory.

There were gaps I hadn't noticed before. Conversations I swore happened, now replaced with static. A hallway that looked unfamiliar even though I walked it every day.

And people—people I used to know—suddenly didn't know me back.

Like I was glitching out of my own life.

I went to the abandoned music room at the back of the school grounds.

No one used it anymore. Not since the fire.

But I'd seen Rhea near it once. Back when I wasn't paying attention the way I...

Back when I wasn't paying attention the way I should've been.

That thought haunted me as I left the music room.

My steps felt too loud in the hallway, like I didn't belong in the rhythm of this place anymore. Like I'd fallen out of sync with the timeline everyone else was still living in.

I didn't go home.

I went to the rooftop.

No one ever checked up there—not unless you were caught, and I wasn't planning on being caught.

I needed silence.

Space.

But when I reached the top step and pushed open the heavy metal door, she was already there.

Leaning against the railing like she'd been waiting for hours.

Hair down.

Eyes empty.

As if time meant nothing to her anymore.

And maybe it didn't.

"Why me?" I asked.

Not hello. Not where were you. Just why me.

She didn't look at me when she answered.

"You were the one who remembered first."

"Remembered "

"Remembered what?" I demanded.

Rhea still didn't meet my eyes.

Instead, she looked out at the school grounds like they were something distant. Something dead.

"The basement," she said softly. "The one they sealed after what happened."

"What happened?"

She finally turned to face me. Not guarded. Not blank.

Just... tired.

"You did."

The silence that followed wasn't empty.

It was charged. Like standing too close to lightning before it strikes.

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.

Her head tilted.

"You think you've been chasing me," she said. "But I've just been unpeeling you. Layer by layer."

"Unpeeling—?"

She stepped toward me.

"There are parts of yourself you left behind, Adrian. Things you were meant to forget. They made sure of it."

"They?"

Her voice was ice.

> "They rewrote you, Adrian. Over and over again. Until the version that disobeyed was buried."

I should've laughed. Should've walked away. But I didn't.

Because something in her voice cracked—and it wasn't fear.

It was grief.

I found myself in the library after midnight.

Don't ask me how I got there. I don't remember leaving my room. I don't remember the hallways or the stairs or the cold that should've crept into my skin.

I remember the smell, though—dust, old paper, the ghost of something burned.

And her.

Rhea sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the restricted archives. She didn't look at me when I entered, didn't ask how I got in, didn't even seem surprised.

Like she knew I would come.

Like she had called me here.

"I checked the records," she said without turning. Her fingers traced the spines of the books like they were breathing things. "There's no file on you before age thirteen. Not in any school. Not in any hospital."

My throat closed. I didn't move.

She turned her head then—slow, deliberate. Her eyes locked onto mine. "What were you before, Adrian?"

"I—" My voice failed. "That's impossible."

Her expression didn't change. "Is it?"

She stood and walked toward me. The air between us felt sharp, like broken glass.

"You have nightmares you can't explain. A memory of a house you've never seen. You've been drawing that symbol"—she reached up, touched the edge of my collarbone—"since you were fourteen, and you don't even remember when it started."

I flinched.

Because I had been drawing it. The curve and the slash and the circle. In notebooks. On the backs of tests. In the fogged mirror after showers.

"I don't know what it means," I muttered.

"But I do."

She stepped closer. I could see the scar on her temple now, partly hidden by her hair. Thin. Pale. Healed, but never forgotten.

"They used to call it The Lock. A seal, placed on children like you. Those who saw too much. Felt too much. Did too much."

My pulse was deafening in my ears. "What do you mean 'like me'?"

"You were part of something before St. August's. Before the Vale family adopted you. They didn't find you in the system, Adrian. They made you."

I staggered back like she'd hit me.

"No," I said, but my voice was empty.

"Yes," she said. "And you knew. Once. Before they erased it. Before they shoved everything you were beneath the floorboards of your mind and nailed it shut."

I shook my head. "You're lying."

She touched my face—softly, gently. Not like someone comforting. Like someone remembering.

"I'm the only one who isn't."

Silence. Long. Chilling.

Then the lights above us flickered, and somewhere deep within the library, something groaned. Wood, maybe. Or memory.

And suddenly, I remembered something.

It wasn't a full memory, not yet. Just a flash. The edge of a room. Screaming. My hands, smaller. Bloody. A girl with her mouth stitched shut, staring at me through glass.

I stumbled forward, clutching the shelves.

Rhea caught me.

"Do you want to know what's beneath your floorboards?" she whispered.

I wanted to say no.

I really did.

But I nodded.

And when she smiled, it wasn't comfort.

It was warning.