Nick climbed the stairs to his room. Millie trotted after him, her floppy ears bouncing with every step.

In his room, Nick tossed his sweater onto the chair and sat down on the floor beside his backpack. Millie plopped down on the rug and let out this little huff, like she was annoyed about something.

He told himself he should finish his homework while he still had some energy left after the long day. He opened the bag and froze.

Inside were things that weren’t his.

Books with covers he didn’t recognize. A heart‑shaped mirror. A lip balm with vanilla scent. Neat notes written in a thin hand. And there was this folded piece of paper just sitting there.

“What the…?” Nick muttered, digging through the bag with growing panic.

These weren’t his things. This wasn’t his bag.

Nick’s mind flashed back to the bus, when it lurched to a stop and everything spilled onto the floor. He had grabbed a bag without looking… and now somewhere out there his real backpack was in someone else’s hands.

With the letter.

The letter to the girl who had filled his thoughts for months. The letter where he'd finally written down all that stuff about how he felt - the one he'd been carrying around forever but was too chicken to actually give her.

His heart was going crazy and he felt like he might throw up. What if someone already found it What if they showed it to her

Nick pressed his palms over his face. At least she never rode that bus, he told himself. She was never there… so maybe it would be fine. Right?

The room was quiet except for Millie’s steady breathing as she curled on the rug, unaware of his turmoil.

Nick hunched by the bag, already planning how to get his own back… and save his dignity.

The backpack lay open, spilling a mess of strange belongings across the rug. His fingers sifted through notes, stickers, pencils. Nothing. No phone number, no ID. Only the folded paper.

He unfolded it slowly, heart clenching. A math test? Bright red 17/100 scrawled at the top.

“Oh man…” Nick whispered, eyes dropping lower until he saw the name.

Marisa O’Neil.

He held the page tightly, as if it might vanish. Marisa O’Neill Who was that He couldn’t remember any Marisa. His mind scrambled, thoughts colliding.

And then—an image. A blonde girl with blue eyes, sitting close on the bus. He remembered the fall of her hair, the way she scribbled in a notebook while the bus rattled on.

Nick’s breath caught.

“No no no… not this,” he groaned, jumping to his feet, hands flexing in panic.

Nick’s head filled with catastrophic scenarios. What if she had already found his letter? What if she had read it? What if she told someone? What if... if...

He started pacing the room without even realising, glancing from time to time at Millie, who was lazily lying on the carpet not worried at all about his panic.

He wanted to vanish, to dissolve in the air, to rewind time. But it was too late.

“Ok,” Nick tried to calm himself, “it’s not that bad. It’s just some Marisa. Maybe she didn’t even notice the bag. Maybe she... uhm... didn’t even open it?..”

But inside everything twisted into a tight knot. His mind kept painting these awful scenarios. She opens the bag finds the letter... she reads the lines where he confesses his feelings... she laughs with her friends... she tells the whole school...

And then there he is – standing in the hallway, everyone staring and whispering. He could practically hear that nasty little voice in his head whispering.

“No! Stop! Enough! It’s only my fantasy!” Nick tried to stop himself, but his thoughts wouldn’t listen.

He even imagined the principal calling him to the office about “inappropriate love letters”!

His heart was racing. He held that miserable sheet with the grade 17/100, as if it was the only thread keeping him in this world of chaos.

“I need to find her,” flashed through his mind, “I need to fix this. Right now.”

But how? He had no idea where to start... His mind felt empty, like after a storm.

Nick’s eyes landed again on the name in the corner of the paper: Marisa O’Neil.

“InstaPic!” The thought hit him like lightning. “Of course! Everyone’s there!”

He grabbed his phone, his fingers fumbling nervously across the screen. Quick search: Marisa O’Neil, Marisa.ONeil, Marisa.O, Mari.O’Neil...

Nick searched page after page, tried every possible variation, added filters by city, even checked followers of people from school. But – nothing. Not a single profile, not even an avatar that looked like the blonde girl with those crazy blue eyes.

He frowned.

“How’s that possible? Everyone has InstaPic these days. Even our dog Millie has an account!” he thought angrily.

Nick dropped on the bed, holding the phone above his face, staring at the screen as if it would suddenly give him the right answer.

His heart started pounding again.

This time not from fear – but from strange, unexpected curiosity.

“Who are you, Marisa O’Neil?” Nick whispered.

At that moment Millie appeared by the bed. She jumped up softly and laid her warm fluffy head on his stomach, sighing deeply, as if to say: “I’m here. It’s okay.”

Nick absentmindedly stroked her ear, feeling the tension slowly melt away.

Nick sighed and forced himself to sit at his desk. Books were just sitting there, assignments staring at him from his notebooks, and homework... God, the homework was practically mocking him.

He tried getting into algebra, even scribbled down a couple equations... But his mind kept wandering.

Again and again the image appeared before his eyes: a blonde girl with bright blue eyes unfolding his letter reading the words he had written when he'd been feeling brave and stupid... And laughing.

Then worse – she takes a photo of that letter and sends it to everyone at school.

Everyone would be sharing screenshots and laughing.

Tomorrow everyone would greet him in the hallway with hidden smiles and whispers behind his back.

Nick grimaced, gripping the pen so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“Come on stop freaking out,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair.

But his imagination was already running wild.

He grabbed his phone again, typed “Marisa O’Neil” on InstaPic search – and once again nothing.

No profile. No trace.

“Who in our time doesn’t have InstaPic? This is wierd,” he thought nervously, feeling anxiety rise even stronger.

At that moment Millie came quietly to him. She curled up near his feet and nudged his knee with her nose.

Nick smiled through the tension, lowered his hand and stroked her soft ears. He could feel himself breathing easier.

He finally set the pen aside. He couldn’t even pretending to do homework anymore. His head was filled with something else completely. With a heavy sigh he reached for the switch and clicked it.

 The room went dark. And then - boom - the ceiling lit up.

Hundreds of little stars glowing in the dark gave off this soft, cool glow. They flickered and danced like the real night sky, except this was just his bedroom ceiling.

 Nick dropped on the bed staring at those tiny lights.

He listened to Millie’s calm breathing and tried to catch at least a bit of peace.

 “What will happen tomorrow?” he asked himself reaching out his hand as if trying to touch the brightest star.

 How would he find that girl? How would he get his things back? And most of all – wasn’t it already too late? Maybe tomorrow as soon as he walked into school everyone would already know. About the letter. About him. About everything.

 Nick shut his eyes trying to drive those thoughts away but they kept circling in his mind like leaves in the wind.

 “Maybe not everything is lost yet,” he whispered softly as if the stars could hear him.

 His heart calmed a little under the gentle light of the glowing sky. The world turned soft almost fairy-like. His eyelids grew heavy. Millie curled warmly by his feet.

 And somewhere among the hundreds of shining dots maybe very close was her – Marisa O’Neil.

 Even though so much was unknown ahead at this moment under this fake sky everything felt less scary.

 When silence filled the room and the world seemed to breathe softly with the night one little star on the ceiling began to blink slowly.

 It twinkled like it was winking at Nick promising something good to come. Maybe it was the very star that knew the answers to his thousand questions.

 Nick smiled in his sleep. His fingers slipped down the blanket and his heart finally let go of the day’s unease.

 Just before he drifted off he whispered half-conscious:

“See you tomorrow Marisa.”

 And the world turned into a warm quiet night where the stars kept his deepest dreams.