It was 3:03 AM, and Juno was staring blankly at her trigonometry homework.

  Or rather, she was trying to. Her eyes, traitorous little things, kept flicking to the ivory envelope lying on her desk. The words “Celia Goldberg” gleamed faintly in the desk lamp’s glow, mocking her with the weight of a name that wasn’t hers.

  She exhaled through her nose. Loudly. This wasn’t working.

  It had been nearly twelve hours since Ian had handed her the invitation, smiling like he’d just built up every ounce of courage in his nervous little heart.

  And now that the panic of the moment had worn off, what was left behind was… this. An unrelenting buzz in her skull. An itch in her brain that no amount of math problems could scratch.

  Because now she had questions.

  Did Celia really want to go to the fair? What exactly was her plan with Project 365? And—most terrifying of all—what did the real Celia feel about Ian?

  Juno slumped onto her desk, her cheek squished against her open notebook, doodles of cocoa beans and frowny faces smeared beneath her.

  Maybe Celia had left a clue.

  Something she missed.

  She bolted upright, suddenly electrified by the thought, and spun around in her chair. The room was silent except for the occasional creak of the floorboards and the soft hum of the icy wind outside.

  She padded across the floor in fuzzy socks, tiptoeing like a raccoon caught mid-heist, and yanked open the first drawer.

  Pencils. Hair ties. Receipts.

  Second drawer.

  More receipts. A tube of lip balm. A pair of old earbuds tangled into a Gordian knot.

  She scoured every shelf, rifled through notebooks, flipped over mattress edges and pillowcases. She even checked under the rug, just in case Celia had been the poetic kind who hid secrets beneath floorboards.

  Nothing.

  Until she reached the closet.

  It was the last place she wanted to look, mostly because it was stuffed to the brim with Celia’s clothes, all of which screamed “knows how to accessorize” and “would probably judge your split ends.”

  But tonight, Juno was desperate. She pushed hangers aside with growing urgency. Celia’s skirts, sweaters, and neat blouses that still smelled faintly of lavender detergent, all went down to the cold floor.

  Just then, her hand knocked against something solid.

  A small, plain shoe box wedged at the back corner behind a line of thick winter coats.

  Heart racing, she pulled it out and sat cross-legged on the floor, the soft glow of her lamp stretching just far enough to catch the dust swirling in the air. Slowly, carefully, she lifted the lid.

  Inside were four small, leather-bound journals.

  They were worn around the edges, the pages slightly yellowed, and tied with thin strings of ribbon: one red, one blue, one white, one black. Juno’s breath caught in her throat.

  Celia’s handwriting stared back at her from the first page of the red-ribboned journal: neat cursive, elegant and deliberate.

  She flipped through it with trembling fingers.

  Notes on cocoa flavor tests. Observations from school. Entries about how Mark snorted when he laughed too hard and how Marie couldn’t stop humming when she focused. There were sketches of cups and steaming mugs, pages stained faintly with what might’ve been cocoa. It was a diary, yes—but also a laboratory. A creative kitchen. A record of obsessions.

  And in the white-ribboned journal, dated roughly three months ago, Juno found it:

  December 1

  I think I want to do it. I want to bring Project 365 to the fair. Even if it’s not fully polished. I need to know what people think. I want it to be real.

  Juno’s heart stuttered.

  So she had wanted to go. She just hadn’t told anyone.

  That much was clear now.

  The words glowed faintly beneath the desk lamp’s yellow light, soft but unmistakable. Real. She had wanted it to be real.

  So why hadn’t she told anyone?

  And why—Juno’s eyes drifted to the shoebox beside her—had she hidden these journals at all?

  They weren’t like the others Celia kept openly on her shelf, the same ones Juno relied on to survive since she first woke up in her body.

  The ones with neat tabs, motivational stickers, and meticulously color-coded pages. These ones were worn. Secretive. Personal. Tied shut with ribbons, each one a different color. They almost looked ceremonial, like they had been given meaning only Celia understood.

  She hadn't just been tracking cocoa recipes here. She’d been confessing. Dreaming. Sketching things half-formed. There was vulnerability in these pages. Raw, unfiltered thoughts.

  Why hadn’t she ever mentioned these other journals?

  How many more were there?

  Juno’s fingers hovered over the white-ribboned notebook, then began flipping through it in a messy, anxious blur, eyes scanning page after page.

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  Cocoa tests, potential booth setups, lists of ingredients, little rambling thoughts about flavor balance and warmth and texture. Pages stained with smudged ink, chocolate smears, even what looked like the remnants of spilled cocoa.

  Still, no specific mention of Ian. Nothing about his involvement, or his invitation, or even his name.

  Juno’s stomach twisted. Somehow that made it worse. Like there was a part of the picture missing, a corner ripped out that she couldn’t reconstruct no matter how hard she squinted.

  And then she reached the back of the journal.

  Her hands stopped moving.

  Several pages had been violently torn out, ripped so aggressively the edges looked like teeth marks. She stared at them, stunned, then slowly turned to the last page still intact.

  Just above the tear, scrawled in dark pen and even darker emotion, were the words:

  “about my dad”—then a thick, heavy line striking it through again and again and again, until it became an unreadable blur of ink and fury.

  Juno swallowed hard.

  She could still see it beneath the scribbles. Those three words. That opening thought.

  About my dad.

  A breath caught in her throat.

  Her mind flashed back to the photo on Celia’s desk. The one she’d casually asked about just the other day, about the man with a gentle smile and kind eyes holding a baby Celia. And how Anna had flinched. How she’d practically shut down.

  And now this: torn pages, angry lines, a chapter of Celia’s life shredded beyond recognition.

  What had happened?

  Why had she never finished that entry?

  Why had she started it at all?

  Juno leaned back against the closet wall, still clutching the journal to her chest. The floor was cold beneath her legs, her bones aching from how long she’d been sitting hunched in the lamplight. But her head buzzed too loud for sleep.

  She’d come looking for answers.

  Instead, she’d found more questions.

  Something had happened.

  Something Celia didn’t want to remember.

  But this wasn’t the time to unravel that mystery.

  Not yet.

  Juno pressed the journal closed and cradled it in her lap. The floor was cold. Her brain was louder than ever. And somewhere deep inside, a coil of guilt began to twist again.

  She was falling deeper into someone else’s life. Borrowing secrets. Reading thoughts was never meant for her.

  And yet, what else could she do?

  —------

  By the time the final school bell rang that afternoon, Juno felt like she’d been awake for three weeks straight and was operating on sheer willpower and cocoa alone.

  She stood just outside her classroom, clutching a small brown notebook with the words Project 365 pressed onto the cover in black permanent marker. She’d copied all 365 recipes from multiple journals into it that morning. Her hand was still cramping.

  Also in her bag: a thermos of cocoa she’d made that morning. Well, attempted to make. It was a recipe titled “Snowbound Solstice”: a rich dark cocoa infused with a splash of almond extract.

  Romantic. Nostalgic. Overly ambitious for someone who’d gotten two hours of sleep and accidentally burnt her thumb.

  The cocoa had steeped while she half-dressed, still wearing mismatched socks. She’d tasted it once before pouring it into the thermos. It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just... chaotic.

  She hoped Ian wouldn’t ask to try it.

  She really, really hoped he would.

  She checked her phone again. No new messages.

  Then—

  “Hey.”

  She startled so hard she nearly threw the notebook.

  Ian stood a few feet away, looking sheepish and shy, holding his own thermos. He gestured awkwardly. “I, uh… thought we could start planning on our way to the club room?”

  “Yeah,” Juno said. Her voice cracked like a prepubescent frog. “Sure. Let’s. Planning. That’s a thing.”

  They walked down the hall together, their footsteps echoing softly in the quiet afternoon corridor. Juno clutched her notebook like a lifeline, her brain still scrambled. Thankfully, Ian filled the silence.

  “I was thinking,” he said, glancing sideways at her with a mix of eagerness and nerves, “we could go for something really warm and inviting. Like… wooden signage, maybe? Hand-painted? With little fairy lights strung around the top of the booth.”

  Juno blinked at him, but he pressed on, his voice picking up speed.

  “And maybe we could do soft lighting, like lanterns, not harsh fluorescents. Something that feels cozy. Almost like a winter market vibe, you know?”

  She gave a small nod, and he smiled, a little more encouraged now. “For the drinks, I thought we could showcase a few flavors. Maybe three. Or five. Or, I don’t know, a sampler board? Like those fancy flight menus at cafés, but for cocoa. I think people would love that.”

  He laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean… I hope you’d love that, too. I just thought it’d be fun. And different. And honestly, I kinda want to prove to those St. Mary’s girls that St. Edda’s can do more than just show up.”

  He glanced at her again, sheepish. “But only if you’re into it. I mean...only if you like it.”

  Juno laughed nervously. “Oh, I’m into it. Definitely in. Very… innish.”

  She wanted to melt into the floor.

  When they stepped into the Cocoa Club room, it was quiet and warm, filled with the faint scent of chocolate. Ian walked ahead, pulling his thermos out of his bag as Juno sat by the worn wooden table they all shared.

  “I made this this morning,” he said. “Kind of an espresso-dark chocolate blend. Wanted to see if I could make it less bitter. It’s not perfect but…”

  He trailed off, looking at her.

  “I made it for you—uh.” He froze. “I mean, I thought you could try it. If you want.”

  Juno’s ears went hot. Her whole body wanted to short-circuit.

  “I… brought cocoa too,” she blurted. “It’s… cocoa and almond. I think. I mean, that’s what it’s supposed to be. It probably doesn’t taste that good.”

  Ian blinked. Then laughed—a warm, startled laugh that made her feel like maybe the room was a little less suffocating.

  “Wanna swap?”

  They did. Two thermoses, two steaming paper cups.

  Juno took a careful sip of his blend. Dark, velvety, slightly bitter with a surprising hint of vanilla at the end.

  “This is really good,” she said, surprised.

  Ian’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  She nodded, then watched as he took a sip of hers.

  He blinked. “Whoa.”

  “Bad whoa?”

  “No. No, just unexpected. It’s like ... .like a Christmas candle decided to be delicious.”

  Juno laughed again, this time without panic.

  There was a bit of silence, warm and strangely comfortable.

  Then, because she didn’t want to keep stuttering around it, she reached into her bag and pulled out the Project 365 notebook.

  “I thought… we could use this to plan,” she said. “It’s got all the Project 365 recipes. And notes. And… stuff.”

  Ian took it gently, flipping through it with reverence. “This is amazing.”

  “It’s not finished,” she said quickly. “Some of the recipes are half-tested. Some are too complicated. I think one of them uses recipes that we can’t get at all here.”

  He looked up at her, smiling. “I can’t wait to make all of them.”

  And just like that, the panic returned, soft and fluttery in her chest.

  Because this boy, this sweet, awkward, cocoa-making boy, was talking to her like he knew her. Like he believed in her.

  And she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep pretending.