The first fragment comes two days after I find the notebook.
I'm in the kitchen, reaching for a coffee cup—the blue one, my favorite, the one Lucas always leaves on the second shelf because he knows I'm too short to reach the top—when my fingers close around the ceramic and something shifts. Not a memory, exactly. More like a tremor. An echo. The sensation of reaching for this same cup, in this same kitchen, years ago.
I freeze, my hand still wrapped around the ceramic. The feeling is so faint I could almost dismiss it—just déjà vu, just my imagination filling in the gaps. But there's something else. A whisper of emotion. The old Vivian, standing in this kitchen, reaching for this cup, feeling...
Lonely. She felt lonely.
"Vivian?" Lucas appears in the doorway, his ears shifting to that cautious, questioning pink. "Are you alright? You've been standing there for nearly a minute."
