Ayla's POV
I could still hear Mira's voice, persuasive and impossible to mute, echoing outside my door.
"You're going to work tomorrow."
It wasn't advice. It sounded more like a threat.
I shoved it aside, threw myself onto the bed, and pulled the blanket over my head like I could hide from the world. The mattress sank under my weight, soft yet suffocating.
The room was dim and quiet, only the weak glow from my phone painting faint shapes on the ceiling. The fan hummed lazily above, stirring the silence. I rolled onto my side, then onto my back again, but sleep stayed far away.
When the silence started pressing too hard against my chest, I reached for my phone. The screen lit my face. Three missed calls from Mum and a message. I sighed and unlocked it.
Her message sat there, bright and cheerful, exactly like her voice.
My great secretary at the biggest hotel in New York! I went to the women's gathering today and told all my friends about your new job. Everyone was so proud when I mentioned you. Keep making us proud, my star! Oh, and I already have many of my friends submitting their sons' names for a blind date. Either make time, or I'll fix one that suits the likes of a pretty Solaria Manhattan worker like you!
I stared at the text until the words blurred. Then, a small, dry laugh slipped from my lips, the kind that doesn't reach the eyes.
"The biggest hotel worker indeed," I muttered. My voice sounded flat in the quiet room.
The phone slipped from my hand and landed beside me with a dull thud. I stared up at the ceiling, the same way I used to every night back in Solaria Girls Academy after another long day with Elena. I thought life couldn't possibly get more ironic, and then somehow it did.
"You're out there announcing to the world that your daughter works in Solaria," I whispered, "when your daughter is already planning to quit the damn job."
A faint laugh, bitter this time, escaped me.
Slowly, I sat up. Thoughts kept looping back to Elena, to that blank look in her eyes, to how she caught me yesterday like a total stranger.
Did she really forget me?
Am I not worth remembering?
Even after seeing my name, didn't she recognize me, the girl who once made her high school a living hell? Her roommate? The one she tormented through every year of high school?
My eyes drifted to the chair in the corner. The outfit I'd ironed yesterday in preparation for today's work hung there, neat, waiting, mocking.
The navy-blue suit caught a faint slice of moonlight from the window, glowing like something expensive and elegant, yet all it could look like to me was a prison uniform.
My hand twitched. Once, then again.
"Maybe she really doesn't remember," I muttered under my breath, reaching for the blazer. My fingers brushed the fabric, cold and smooth, like the past refusing to die. "It's been years. Maybe she doesn't. Or maybe I'm the one stuck in the past. Maybe I'm just a passerby in her world now."
But the thought barely settled before another voice, colder and sharper, rose inside me.
"Or she's pretending."
I froze, staring at the fabric like it might give me an answer.
"No," I said quietly, shaking my head. "No one knows Elena like I do. Pretending isn't her style. That's child's play for her."
My voice dropped to a whisper.
"She destroys people face to face. She doesn't have time to be pretending."
With that thought lingering, I dragged myself back to bed and sank into another round of restless thinking, weighing the idea of leaving this job I'd fought for after three years of nothing, or staying and facing whatever storm came next.
"Mira did say she doesn't seem to recognize me," I murmured, staring into the dark. "Whatever. I'll deal with it tomorrow."
I turned on my side, yanked off my clothes, and pulled the blanket close. Somewhere between another sigh and another thought, sleep finally took me.