Aria did not cry.
She did not scream.
She didn't even delete the message.
She just sat in her walk-in closet, still wearing the uniform blazer she had refused to remove, phone clenched in her fist as if it would bite her.
You and I have business to settle, Aria. Let's settle it. Face to face.
Zuri.
The girl who had tormented her since the photo went viral.
Since the red bracelet.
Since the dreams started.
She hadn't answered anyone's calls not her parents, not the press, not even her best friend, Naomi.
She didn't need words.
She needed silence.
But silence was no longer enough.
She'd always felt that something was off.
How her parents never said a word about her coming home.
How there were no photographs of her before she was six months old.
How her mother had once flinched when she asked if she was adopted.
She wasn't permitted to ask questions.
Perfect girls didn't ask filthy questions.
Perfect girls smiled, posed, stayed on script.
But now Aria saw her life as glass under a microscope. Flawed. Fragile. Manufactured.
She didn't know anymore who she was.
But somehow, the girl in the red bracelet did.
The next day, she sent a reply.
"The greenhouse. After school. Come alone."
She didn't explain.
Didn't apologize.
She just waited.
The greenhouse at the back of the high school was padlocked during school hours, but Aria still had the key. Her late grandmother used to volunteer there once a week, and when she died, the key belonged to her something that her parents never queried.
It was the only place that was ever really hers.
Green. Quiet. Forgotten.
Like her.
When Zuri visited, the glass was steamed from the heat of July. She stood back outside the door, then went inside.
Aria was already there.
No makeup. No curls. Just her.
Real.
Raw.
The two girls gazed at each other over piles of unkempt vines and broken planters.
No words.
Not then.
Then, finally, Aria spoke.
"I didn't ask for any of this."
Zuri didn't flinch.
"Neither did I."
A beat passed.
Then another.
"You hate me," Aria said, voice firm.
"I don't," Zuri said. "But I hated what you represented."
Aria's gaze fell. "You mean… everything you weren't supposed to have."
"No," Zuri said. "All the things I was told I shouldn't want."
They sat on the dusty bench beneath the hibiscus tree.
For a moment, the silence returned.
But this time, it wasn't sharp.
It was heavy.
It was dense.
It was alive.
Zuri reached into her bag and pulled out the photo again.
The one of the twins.
Still folded. Still undeniable.
She placed it on the bench between them.
"I think we're more than just this," she said.
Aria looked at the photo. Then at Zuri.
"I'm not ready to be anyone's sister," she said honestly. "But I'm tired of being no one's anything."
Zuri nodded.
"That's a start."
As they left the greenhouse, the door swung shut behind them.
Neither girl noticed the breeze it caught.
But something shifted.
Not in the world.
In them.
For the first time, they weren't just walking away from the lie.
They were walking toward the truth.
Together.
Even if it hurt.
Even if it healed.
Even if it changed everything.
They walked in silence for a while, side by side, not quite close enough to brush shoulders but closer than before.
Zuri's heart was racing, though she tried to appear calm. She glanced sideways.
Aria's arms were crossed. Not in defiance, but like someone holding herself together.
Zuri broke the silence. "You used to laugh at me in the hallway."
Aria didn't blink. "I know."
"You told others that I was trash."
A hesitation. Aria did not prevaricate.
"I didn't know you then," she said at last.
"And now that you do?"
Aria stopped. The air between them thickened.
"I don't know," she said, her voice tight. "I don't know what you are to me, Zuri. You muddle me. You frighten me. You're this.breathing answer to a question I never had the backbone to ask."
Zuri allowed the words to linger.
Then: "I'm afraid of you too."
Aria was taken aback by that. "Why?"
Zuri shrugged. "Because you armor yourself with your perfection. I don't know how to fight someone who never gets to be wrong."
Aria had an opening to strike back.
But no words came out.
Because it was true.
No one had ever let her be wrong before.
Not her parents.
Not Naomi.
Not herself.
"I don't even know what I like anymore," Aria whispered.
Zuri watched her.
"Then maybe we do that," she whispered. "Together."
They reached the rear gate, where the greenhouse path curled around toward the school parking area. Cars were leaving. The last bell had rung some time ago.
Zuri hesitated before leaving. "This doesn't make friends of us yet."
"I know."
"And I don't trust you. Not even close."
"I don't trust myself," Aria said. "So we're even."
Zuri almost smiled. Almost.
"But," she said, "you found me here. By myself. No crowd. No need to impress."
Aria glared at her, something gentle flickering in her eyes. "That's worth something?"
"It's worth a second date," Zuri informed her.
Then she was gone, without looking back.
Aria stood there, frozen in the honey glow of early evening.
She felt like a page had turned and she wasn't entirely sure which chapter this was anymore.
But it was no longer her story.
It was theirs.
Aria sat in front of her vanity mirror that evening. Her hair was still down, frizzed from the heat. Her lip gloss was still untouched.
She didn't feel perfect.
She felt real.
She grabbed her phone.
Typed out one sentence.
"You're not what I expected either."
She didn't send it.
Not yet.
But she saved it in drafts.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe when she found courage again.
Aria did not return to the group chat that evening.
Twenty-three messages unread from Naomi.
Memories. Gossip. A hazy hallway selfie with the caption: "Did you hear about Zuri? Again ????"
Aria sat there, paralyzed, looking at it, her heart pounding.
Usually, she'd roll her eyes, write something biting, or just like and skip. Tonight, though, something in that word again hit her harder than she expected.
She locked her phone.
Opened her closet.
Her eyes found the scrapbook of middle school pushed onto the top shelf. Years in the dark had quieted it.
She took it down, dust clouding like a ghost.
Pictures of her perfect girlhood within: ballet competitions, smiling by the pool, perfect letters, medals.
All glossed.
All posed.
All save one photograph, only slightly askew on the page.
Two babies.
Twins.
Same bows in their hair. Same faces. One of them had a little scar above her brow.
Zuri's scar.
The one she still had now.
Aria ran her finger along the image.
A lump formed in her throat grief for a life she hadn't even known she missed.
Down the hall, her mother's voice was muffled behind a door. Probably on another call. Probably keeping another secret.
Aria closed the scrapbook.
She walked to her mirror again.
But this time, she didn't reach for a makeup brush.
She reached into the back of her drawer and grasped the little velvet box.
There was a bracelet.
Red thread.
She had always believed it was a random trinket. Something she had gotten from her grandmother when she was four.
But now she couldn't help but wonder if it had ever been something more?
She brought it up to her wrist, then stopped.
She saw Zuri walking away from the greenhouse in her mind. Not bitter. Not begging. Just firm.
Like a human who had taken her pain and chosen to continue anyway.
Aria swallowed hard.
"I don't want to be her enemy," she breathed.
The mirror remained silent.
But her reflection was already changing.
Not softer.
Just. more real.
More hers.