When it finished, he opened it.

But he had a corner shop. He had a low wall. He had a pen she’d never given back.

He didn’t send it.

The camera wobbled. A voice behind the lens—low, familiar, wrong —whispered: “Testing. Yeah, it’s rolling.”

Then a girl walked into frame. Sana. Year 10 Sana, with her too-large blazer and the fringe she’d cut herself two weeks into term. She wasn’t looking at the camera. She was looking at someone off-screen, laughing at something Leo couldn’t hear. She looked happy. She looked alive.

Leo’s stomach turned over. Sana had transferred to a school in Manchester last December. Her dad got a new job. They’d promised to keep in touch, sent three texts, then nothing. He hadn’t thought about her in months. But here she was, walking past the water fountain that always tasted like rust, on a date that hadn’t happened yet.