THE LETTER I WASN'T MEANT TO LETTER
From the hidden journal of Celeste Fontaine 6 weeks before her death
April 15th – Dorm Room, 3:41 a.m.
I shouldn't be awake.
But the walls creak when secrets are being whispered, and I swear the silence tonight is heavier than ever.
There's something wrong with Theo.
He's changed.
He barely speaks to me in public, and when we do talk, it's as if he's hiding behind his own voice. But when we're alone... it's like he wants to tell me something he knows will break me.
Last night, I followed him.
Yes. I know I shouldn't have. But I did.
He went into the old art building the one with the rusted locks and no working cameras. I waited until he left, then went inside.
That's when I found the envelope.
April 16th
The envelope wasn't addressed to him. It was addressed to Zion Carter.
But it was in Theo's bag.
The handwriting was slanted, elegant, rushed.
I memorized what I could before he came back. I didn't dare take it. I'm writing it down now, word for word:
"You told me it would be clean. That she wouldn't find out. But she knows. And she's keeping record.
We need to shut it down before it spreads. Before she spreads.
You said she was just a distraction. You never said she'd be a liability.
- T."
T. It had to be Theo. But what did they mean? Who is "we"? And what was I "spreading"? Truth?
Or just... inconvenient love?
April 17th
I confronted him today.
Asked him if he was hiding anything from me.
He looked at me like he wanted to cry.
And then he kissed me.
Hard. Desperate. Like goodbye.
I wanted to believe it meant he still cared.
But deep down, I felt it.
The shift.
The moment when someone who once loved you starts wondering if they need to destroy you instead.
April 20th
Zion returned to the campus today.
He didn't see me. But I saw him.
He and Theo argued behind the old chapel. I couldn't hear everything but Zion looked furious.
Theo just stood there.
Still.
Smiling.
And that scared me more than anything.
April 22nd - Final Pages
If you're reading this… I've probably already been erased.
But I'm done being silent.
If they think my voice ends in these pages, they're wrong.
I told Madame Desrosiers. I told her everything. She said she'd "take care of it."
But now my room has been searched. My sketches are gone.
And I don't think I'm going to make it to summer.
Don't trust the headmistress.
Don't trust Theo.
And if Zion ever pretends he didn't know...
Remind him.
Remind him that I saw the letter.
Remind him I still believed he was better than the silence.
Even when he proved me wrong.
-Celeste
Amira ran her fingers down the torn edge of the page.
Zion was no longer just the man who haunted her heart he was the man who haunted her sister's death.
And Theo?
He wasn't just the charming one.
He was possibly the last person Celeste kissed before she died.