It became a game. I wish for a sunny weekend. Done. If only my dad would get that promotion. Granted.

Desperate, she opened the workbook to the last page—a section they’d never done: Unit 12 – Expressing Regrets About the Past.

But the workbook wasn’t finished.

Elena opened the workbook. Without thinking, she wrote: If only Leo and Ana would make up.

The page shimmered. Suddenly, every correct answer to every exercise in the book glowed faintly in her mind. She saw them—verbs, prepositions, transformations—all clear as day. She aced the test the next morning.

Elena had frozen everything.

The next morning, the clock on her phone was stuck. Her mother’s hair didn’t gray. The leaves outside stayed permanently green. Leo repeated the same joke at the same time every day.