I write until my eyes blur and the sky outside turns from black to gray to pale pink. My proposal is eleven pages long, single-spaced, footnoted like a goddamn thesis. I cite attendance records, student testimonials, the educational value of film preservation. I attach screenshots of the viral video, a petition Danny started that already has four hundred signatures, and a budget breakdown that proves we cost the school less than the fucking vending machines.

Then I close my laptop and stare at the wall.

The house is silent. Dad's already left for work—I heard him moving around at six, the coffee maker gurgling, the front door clicking shut. He leaves earlier and earlier these days, like he's trying to outrun the ghost of this place.

I should sleep. I've been awake for twenty-six hours.

Instead, I make jasmine tea and sit at the kitchen table, watching steam curl from the mug. My hands are shaking. From exhaustion, probably. Or from the fact that in twelve hours, I'm supposed to see Felix again, and I don't know how to be the person he thinks I am.

The girl who promises things.

The girl who stays.

I'm still sitting there when the front door opens at 3 PM.

Dad never comes home at 3 PM.

He stops in the doorway to the kitchen, still in his work clothes—button-down and slacks, his tie loosened like he's been pulling at it. His briefcase hits the floor with a thud.

"Margot."

I push my glasses up my nose. "Did you get fired?"

"We need to talk."

My stomach drops. Nothing good ever follows those words.

He pulls out the chair across from me, sits down heavily. He looks older than he did this morning. Or maybe I just haven't looked at him properly in years.

"I saw the video," he says.

Of course he did. Everyone has.

"Dad—"

"Let me finish." He runs a hand through his hair—still thick, graying at the temples. He has my eyes. Or I have his. Hazel, absorbing everything. "I've been a coward."

I blink. "What?"

"Since your grandfather died. Since your mother left. I've been a coward, and I've let you become one too."

The words hit like a slap. I stand up, my chair scraping against the tile. "I'm not—"

"You push everyone away." His voice is quiet but firm. "You hide in that film room like it's a bomb shelter. You quote movies instead of talking about your feelings. You're so terrified of being abandoned that you abandon everyone first."

My throat closes. "I don't—"

"Margot. Sit down."

I sit. Not because he told me to, but because my legs won't hold me.

He reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a bundle of envelopes tied with string. Old envelopes, yellowed at the edges. My grandfather's handwriting on the front.

"Your grandfather wrote these in the last year of his life," Dad says. "One for me. One for you. One for your mother."

I can't breathe. "Why didn't you—"

"Because I was angry." He sets the bundle on the table between us. "Angry at him for dying. Angry at your mother for leaving. Angry at myself for not being enough to make her stay. And I thought—" His voice cracks. "I thought if I gave you yours, you'd leave too."

The jasmine tea has gone cold. I wrap my hands around the mug anyway, needing something to hold.

"Your mother didn't leave because of you," Dad says.

I flinch. "Don't."

"She left because she couldn't handle your grandfather's death. She was already struggling—depression, anxiety, things she never told you about because she wanted to be strong for you. And when Dad died, something in her just—" He makes a helpless gesture. "Broke. She couldn't get out of bed. Couldn't eat. She was disappearing right in front of us."

"So she left." My voice sounds hollow. "She chose to disappear completely."

"She left because she thought you'd be better off without her." Dad's eyes are wet. "She was wrong. But it wasn't because you weren't enough, Margot. It was because she wasn't enough. It was her failure, not yours."

The kitchen tilts. I grip the mug harder.

"You were twelve years old," he continues. "You didn't do anything wrong. You couldn't have made her stay. That's not how mental illness works. That's not how any of this works."

I shake my head. "If I had just—"

"There's no 'just.' There's no magic thing you could have said or done. She was sick, and she made a choice, and it was the wrong choice, but it was her choice. Not yours."

Something cracks open in my chest. Something that's been locked tight for three years.

"I needed her," I whisper.

"I know."

"She was my mom."

"I know, sweetheart. I know."

And then I'm crying, really crying, for the first time since she left. Ugly, gasping sobs that shake my whole body. Dad comes around the table and pulls me against his chest, and he smells like coffee and the cedar aftershave he's used for years, and I realize I can't remember the last time he hugged me.

We've both been ghosts in this house.

When I can breathe again, he pushes the bundle of letters toward me.

"Read your grandfather's letter," he says. "He knew you better than anyone."

My hands shake as I untie the string. Three envelopes. I find the one with my name.

Margot in Grandpa's careful script.

I open it.

---

My dearest Margot,

If you're reading this, I'm gone, and I'm so sorry. I wanted more time with you. I wanted to see you graduate, fall in love, make films of your own. I wanted to watch you become the extraordinary woman I know you'll be.

But life doesn't always give us what we want. You know that better than most, my sharp-eyed girl.

I'm writing this because I'm afraid. Not of dying—I've had a good life, and I'm ready. I'm afraid of what happens to you after I'm gone.

You've always been like me, Margot. Watchful. Careful. More comfortable with stories than with people. And I've loved that about you—our Sunday film marathons, our shared language of Bogart and Hepburn and Chaplin. Those are some of my happiest memories.

But I'm afraid I taught you the wrong lesson.

I taught you to love films because they're beautiful and true and lasting. And they are. But I'm afraid I didn't teach you that they're not a replacement for life. They're a reflection of it. They're meant to help us understand human connection, not avoid it.

The silent films we love—they work because they strip everything down to the essential. Gesture. Expression. The space between two people. They show us that you don't need words to communicate the deepest truths.

But you still have to communicate them, sweetheart.

You still have to let people in.

I'm afraid you'll use the film club as a hiding place. A way to keep me alive while keeping yourself locked away. And I need you to know—that's not what I want for you.

I want you to use film to connect with others, not hide from them.

I want you to let people see the brilliant, prickly, beautiful person you are.

I want you to risk your heart, even though I know how much it hurts when people leave.

I'm leaving, and I hate that. But I need you to understand—most people don't want to leave. Most people stay, if you let them. Your father stays. Your friends, if you'd let yourself have them, would stay.

Someone will come along who sees you the way I see you. Someone who understands that your armor is just protection, not who you really are. Someone who'll fight for you even when you're fighting them.

Let them in, Margot.

Don't make my death an excuse to stop living.

The film club was never meant to be a shrine. It was meant to be a community. A place where people who feel too much can come together and feel less alone.

Let it be that.

Let yourself be that.

I love you more than all the films ever made.

Grandpa

---

I read it twice.

Three times.

Then I fold it carefully and press it against my chest.

"He didn't want me to save the club," I say. My voice sounds strange. "He wanted me to save myself."

Dad nods. "He was worried about you. Even before he got sick."

"I've been doing everything wrong."

"You've been grieving. There's no wrong way to do that."

I look at the letter again. Someone will come along who sees you the way I see you.

Felix.

Felix, who joined as a joke and stayed because he cared.

Felix, who fought for the club when I couldn't.

Felix, who I pushed away the moment he got too close.

I stand up so fast my chair tips backward.

"I have to go."

Dad checks his watch. "It's almost four. Where—"

"Felix's house."

Understanding crosses his face. "Is that the boy from the video?"

"Yeah."

"The one who said you matter more than popularity?"

My face heats. "Yeah."

Dad's expression softens. "Then go."

I grab my bag, shove my feet into my boots. At the door, I pause.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He nods. "Bring him to dinner sometime. I'd like to meet him."

---

It starts raining before I'm halfway there.

Of course it does. This is my life. This is the universe's idea of dramatic irony.

I don't have an umbrella. My vintage cardigan soaks through immediately, and my glasses fog up, and I probably look like a drowned rat, but I don't stop walking.

Felix's house is in the nice part of town—not mansion-nice, but the kind of neighborhood where people actually know their neighbors and kids play in the street. His family's restaurant is on the ground floor, closed on Mondays, and they live in the apartment above.

I've never been here before.

I've kept him at arm's length for so long that I don't even know where he lives.

The rain is coming down harder now, cold and relentless. I stand on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, staring up at the lit windows on the second floor.

I could leave. Go home, dry off, pretend this never happened.

I could send a text. Keep it safe. Keep my armor on.

Let them in, Margot.

I climb the exterior stairs to the apartment entrance and knock before I can talk myself out of it.

Footsteps. The door opens.

Felix.

He's in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, his hair sticking up like he's been running his hands through it. His eyes widen when he sees me.

"Margot?"

I'm shaking. From the cold, from fear, from the fact that I'm here without a script, without movie dialogue to hide behind, without any idea what I'm doing.

"I'm sorry," I say.

The words come out raw. Ungraceful. Nothing like Ingrid Bergman or Katharine Hepburn.

Just me.

"I'm sorry," I say again. "I'm sorry I pushed you away. I'm sorry I ran. I'm sorry I made you fight for me when I wouldn't fight for myself."

Felix stares at me. Rain drips from my hair, my glasses, pooling at my feet.

"I'm terrified," I continue. My voice shakes. "I'm terrified of letting people in because everyone leaves. My mom left. My grandfather died. And I thought if I kept everyone at a distance, it wouldn't hurt when they left too."

"Margot—"

"But you're right. I've been hiding. I've been using the film club and my grandfather's memory as an excuse to stay locked away. And he didn't want that. He wanted me to use film to connect with people, not avoid them."

The rain is so loud. Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance.

"I don't know how to do this," I admit. "I don't know how to let people in without a safety net. I don't know how to promise I won't run again, because I'm still scared. But I want to try. If it's not too late. If you—"

Felix pulls me inside.

His hands cup my face, tilting it up, and then he's kissing me like I'm the answer to a question he's been asking forever.

I kiss him back, desperate and grateful, tasting rain and relief.

When we break apart, I'm breathing hard.

"Is it too late?" I whisper.

"No." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "But I need you to hear something."

I nod.

"I can't keep being the only one fighting for us," he says quietly. "I'll fight with you. I'll fight beside you. But you have to fight too, Margot. You have to choose this. Choose me. Not because I'm convenient or because I won't leave, but because you want to."

"I do want to."

"Then prove it."

It's not a challenge. It's an invitation.

I take off my glasses, wipe them on his t-shirt since my cardigan is soaked. Put them back on.

Felix is watching me with those warm brown eyes, patient and steady.

"Okay," I say. "Okay. I will."

He smiles—that devastating smile that crinkles his eyes. "You're shivering."

I am. My cardigan is plastered to my skin, and I'm leaving puddles on his floor.

"Come on." He takes my hand, leads me deeper into the apartment.

It smells like cedar and orange zest and something cooking—ginger, maybe, or star anise. The walls are covered in family photos and his little sister's artwork. It's warm and lived-in and nothing like my ghost house.

Felix grabs a towel from the bathroom, wraps it around my shoulders.

"Thank you," I say.

"For the towel?"

"For not giving up on me."

His expression softens. "I told you. I fight for things that matter."

"The club—"

"Fuck the club." He says it gently. "I mean, I care about the club. But I care about you more."

My heart does something complicated in my chest.

"I brought my proposal," I say. "For the school board. It's in my bag. Eleven pages. I worked on it all night."

"Of course you did."

"Will you read it?"

"Later." He tugs me closer, his hands settling on my waist. "Right now, I just want to look at you."

"I'm a mess."

"You're here." His forehead touches mine. "That's all that matters."

And standing there in his apartment, wrapped in his towel, smelling cedar and orange zest, I realize something.

This is what Grandpa meant.

This feeling of being seen. Being known. Being worth fighting for.

This is what I've been running from.

"Felix?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still scared."

"I know."

"I might mess this up."

"Probably." His lips quirk. "I might too."

"But I want to try."

"Then we'll try together."

He kisses me again, slower this time. Thorough. His hands slide under the towel, finding the small of my back, and I shiver for an entirely different reason.

When we break apart, his eyes are dark.

"Stay," he says. "My parents won't be back until late. We can work on the proposal. Order food. You can meet my cat."

"You have a cat?"

"Her name is Mao. She's an asshole. You'll love her."

I laugh. Actually laugh.

"Okay," I say. "I'll stay."

And this time, when I promise, I mean it.