Henry Strauss wakes late in his bed in New York, sunlight cutting through curtains after a night of rain. Groggy and relieved to be awake, he expects to find Addie beside him, because she is usually the first to rise and her presence always stirs him.

He turns to wake Addie and finds the other side of the bed empty and cold. Henry searches the apartment—kitchen, bathroom, fire escape—calling her name, even as he realizes he already knows she is not there.

The memory of the rooftop returns in full: the damp concrete, the final moment as the watch hit twelve, Addie’s smile, and her insistence that Henry promise to remember. Facing her absence, Henry clings to the one remaining proof that might not vanish—the journals.

He pulls six notebooks from the shelf and spreads them on the bed as Polaroids slip out. In the photos, Addie’s face remains a blur and her form a ghost at the edge of the frame, with only the suggestion of her seven freckles. Henry fears the curse has erased everything she touched, but when he opens the first journal, the pages are still filled—written in his own hand, preserving her life in his words.

Henry spends hours turning through every page of every notebook, revisiting fragments of Addie’s stories. When he finishes, he sits amid the open books and breaks down in the quiet truth of it: Addie is gone, he is still here, and—against all expectation—he remembers everything.