Echoes of Yesterday

Part 8 - The Weight of Evidence

After leaving the police station, the ride home felt eerily quiet. My mind was racing with too many thoughts at once. The note from the woods, Theo's troubled expression, the search party—it was all spiraling out of control. But one thing kept tugging at me: the bracelet I found.

When I finally walked through the door, my mom was waiting in the kitchen, sipping her coffee.

"Hey, sweetie, that's a nice bracelet. Who gave you that?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity.

For a second, my heart skipped. I glanced down at my wrist and saw it, almost forgetting I had slipped it on. "Oh... uh, one of my friends," I mumbled, avoiding her eyes. She raised an eyebrow but didn't press further. I wasn't ready to explain. Not yet.

I darted upstairs to my room, shut the door behind me, and stood there, staring at the bracelet.

The light caught the tiny, dark specks embedded in its marble-like pattern, and something about it felt... off. I walked to my mirror, unhooked the bracelet from my wrist, and hung it on the small mole at the mirror's edge, the one I always used for my necklaces.

"I found this in the woods," I muttered to myself, "and didn't tell Theo or the cops... but I'm going to figure out whose it is."

I paced around the room, my thoughts spinning. I needed answers, and there was only one person I could trust with this. I grabbed my phone and texted my best friend, Maya."Can you come over? It's urgent."

Not ten minutes later, Maya arrived, worry already creasing her face as she stepped through my door.

"What's going on, Daisy? You sounded freaked out."

I wasted no time and blurted out everything—the note, the bracelet, the strange feeling gnawing at me. She listened, her eyes widening as the story unfolded. Finally, I pointed to the bracelet still hanging from the mirror.

"I didn't give this to the police because I need to know where it came from. I need to know whose it was. But... I can't do this alone. Can you help me check his profile?" I asked, my voice a little shaky.

Maya nodded and pulled out her phone, unlocking it swiftly. "You want me to pull up his account?"

I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest as she typed my ex-boyfriend's name into the search bar.

There it was, his Instagram profile. Everything about it seemed the same at first glance—except for one thing. His bio had changed.

"In a museum full of art..." I whispered, reading aloud. My stomach dropped. The words felt ominous, like they carried some hidden meaning.

Maya frowned, scrolling through his page. "That's new. And weird. Who puts that in their bio?"Something felt fishy, but it didn't stop there. As Maya scrolled through his followers, I caught sight of a girl's profile that made my skin crawl. Her bio read, "I only had my eyes on you."

"What the hell?" Maya muttered. "These bios... it's like they're speaking to each other."A sense of dread washed over me. I wasn't sure why, but something about this girl, and her connection to my ex, didn't feel right.