The day my life exploded started with a postcard.
I was alone in the closed stacks, buried in the kind of silence you can taste—dust and paper and the faint metallic hum of the climate controls. My cart squeaked once, then surrendered to stillness as I slipped a newly acquired postcard from its plastic sleeve.
Lisbon, 1953. A faded photograph of a tram climbing a hill, handwritten ink slanting across the cobblestones: "For when you finally let yourself go somewhere new."
"You and me both," I murmured.
I liked to pretend strangers from the past were writing to me. Ridiculous, probably, but less ridiculous than admitting I’d been writing my own unsent postcards for years to an imaginary someone I’d never meet.
My phone buzzed violently in my back pocket, nearly launching the postcard out of my hands.
Paige. Of course.
I shoved the card into its acid-free envelope and answered. "If this is another meme of a cat in a bow tie—"
"Mia. Turn on a TV. Or Twitter. Or anything." Her voice wasn’t playful. It was the edge she reserved for sales and breakups.
My stomach tightened. "I’m at work. What happened?"
"Oh my God, you haven’t seen it." Pages of sound—typing, a blare of music—crashed through the line. "Okay, don’t freak out. Actually, do. I am. Go to the staff room. Channel seven."
"Paige." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Speak in complete sentences or I’m hanging up."
"Gavin Layton just announced his new fiancée on national television." She inhaled like she’d run up several flights of stairs. "It’s you."
For a second, all I heard was the climate system and the blood in my ears.
"That’s not funny," I said automatically. The words came out thin.
"I’m not joking." Her voice dropped. "He just said your name. They put your photo up. The one from the clinic. You’re trending."
The phone slipped against my damp palm. For a bizarre moment my brain offered the trivia that skin oils are bad for archival materials.
"Mia?" Paige snapped. "Say something."
"I—" My tongue felt wooden. "This is…some kind of mistake. It has to be." I clung to procedure like a lifeline. "We open at ten. I have an accession log to finish."
"Screw the accession log." Her volume spiked, then dropped again. "He said you. Full-name you. I’m sending the clip."
The call ended. A second later, my phone lit up with a notification.
I shouldn’t watch, I thought. I should walk calmly upstairs, tell Noah someone’s using my face again, and we’ll write a sternly worded email like last time.
My thumb betrayed me. I tapped the video.
The image resolved into the familiar sleek blue-and-silver backdrop of the Layton Foundation. The lower third chyron screamed: LAYTON FOUNDATION PRESSES FORWARD AMID ENGAGEMENT SHAKE-UP.
Gavin Layton stood at the podium, jaw carved from stone under the cruel brightness of studio lights. I’d seen him in person twice, both times from the safe distance of a crowded gala: the billionaire philanthropist with the calm, unreadable expression and the perfect tie.
He didn’t look calm now. Something in his shoulders was wrong, tension pressing against the limits of his tailored suit.
The reporter’s voice came through tinny on my phone. "Mr. Layton, investors are asking if today’s grant announcement should be delayed in light of your broken engagement—"
