Zuri stood leaning against the school office, her shoulders set as she waited. Ms. Emmanuel's heels sounded slowly on the tile behind her, measured, deliberate. The secretary turned over to her a brown envelope, thick with papers, her expression neutral.
"Here it is," she said quietly. "The file you requested."
Zuri's eyes shifted from the envelope to Ms. Emmanuel. "What's going on?
But Ms. Emmanuel hadn't said a word not until they stood out on the sidewalk, next to the car, gripping the envelope as if it would burn her skin.
"It's about your birth certificate," she finally broke her silence. "There is something… something I wasn't told of either."
Zuri's stomach churned. "What are you talking about?"
Ms. Emmanuel climbed into the driver's seat silently. "At home, we will talk."
While Aria sat in Chemistry's back row, where she always sat at the front left, now strangely empty. Naomi had filled it.
Rumors circulated in the class, having only a little to do with ionic bonds.
"…She wrote a poem about Zuri, of all people…"
"…Didn't you hear what Naomi said? That Zuri could be some secret sister or something crazy like that?"
"…Perhaps Aria just finally snapped."
Aria tried to focus on her notebook, but her pen hung limply above the page. For so long, she hadn't been an observer she'd been ogled. Now, she was observed.
Judged.
And Naomi?
She hadn't spoken to Aria since that day outside the courtyard.
But now she adjusted in her seat, a little, and leaned forward softly, just hard enough to be heard:
"Fall too far, and the crown never fits again."
Aria said nothing.
But inside, she felt something shift.
The crown had already fallen.
And maybe it was never really hers to begin with.
Back at the house, Zuri sat at the kitchen table while Ms. Emmanuel spread out the documents like puzzle pieces.
"There was a sealed note in your intake file," she said quietly. "From your biological mother."
Zuri's heart pounded.
"She left two names," Ms. Emmanuel continued. "Yours… and one more."
She pushed the crumpled paper over to her.
Zuri unfolded it.
Her eyes scanned the smudged writing shaking, rushed.
"To whoever finds this, take care of my daughters. Zuri and Aria. I'm sorry I wasn't able to keep them together."
Zuri stiffened.
"Daughters?" she panted. "She knew?"
"She did," Ms. Emmanuel said. "And someone someone within the system chose to tear you asunder anyway."
Zuri felt her whole world tilt. "So… Aria isn't just my twin. She was supposed to be with me."
Ms. Emmanuel reached for her hand. "I'm so sorry, Zuri. This shouldn't have happened."
Zuri stared down at the page.
So many years. So much anger. So many nights wondering why she felt like something was missing.
And now… she knew.
It wasn't just coincidence that brought her and Aria back together.
It was something deeper.
Something tied by blood.
In destiny.
In reality.
Zuri clutched the paper as if it would disappear if she closed her eyes.
Her throat was dry. Her chest tightened.
"How long have you had this?" she was able to whisper.
"I didn't," Ms. Emmanuel said softly. "It was placed in a secondary envelope. Whoever handled your case must've overlooked it. Or… perhaps they didn't want it found."
Zuri's hands trembled. "But this changes everything."
"I know." Her foster mother reached across the table, gently placing her hand on Zuri's. "And I'm here for all of it."
But Zuri's mind was already spinning.
Her whole life had been a half-truth.
She had a sister.
A twin.
A whole other self she never got to grow up with. Someone who shared her blood but not her memories.
And now, that girl was Aria.
That night, Aria stood in her bedroom, holding an old photo album from the top shelf of her walk-in closet.
She flipped waxed-smiling pages meticulously planned birthday parties, private island vacations, ballet recitals she couldn't remember.
All posed.
All rehearsed.
But buried in the back, behind a photo of her and her father when she was two years old, was a loose Polaroid.
Frayed. Worn at the edge.
It was a baby two babies, actually wound in the same pink blanket.
They lay side by side in a bassinet at the hospital.
On her back, in her mother's writing:
"A & Z. 1 day old. Together."
Aria's heart dropped.
Zuri?
She stared at it, the reality unspooling everything she'd ever believed.
Her mother had always said she was premature. That they'd had to keep her in the NICU for a few days. That she was the only child born that week.
Lies.
Lies clad with love and stitched into fairy tales.
Her phone beeped again.
A text from Naomi:
"Still playing charity with your new stray?"
Aria sat on it.
Then, after a beat, she opened her camera and took a picture of the Polaroid.
She typed out a reply.
"She's not a stray."
"She's my sister."
And sent it.
Back home, the weight of the letter still sat heavy on her chest. She was lying on the edge of her bed, staring at her cracked phone screen, thumb hovering over Aria's number.
It was time.
She typed:
"We need to talk. I found out. About us."
No emoji.
No sarcasm.
Just truth.
One second later, the three dots returned on her screen.
Typing.
Zuri swallowed hard.
This was the beginning of something.
Or the end of something else.
Maybe both.
Zuri did not sleep that night, her fingers still holding the letter as though it would vanish at dawn.
The silence in the house felt weighted. Even the wind outside waited.
She had not replied to Aria's text yet.
She could not.
Not until she was absolutely sure that this was not another harsh twist of fate for her life another maybe that can be taken away from her.
But deep inside, she knew.
She felt it.
The way their eyes would inevitably find each other in a room. The unspoken tension. The creepy pull in her chest whenever Aria said her name.
It wasn't drama.
It wasn't competition.
It was something deeper. Ancient. Unbreakable.
Sisterhood.
And, on the other side of town, Aria was in her dad's study. The air was heavy with leather and memory, cluttered with law books and locked drawers.
She walked in silence, her arm draped over her chest, her other grasping the Polaroid photograph so hard her knuckles were white.
She'd insisted on an explanation from her mother earlier in the night.
"Is this real?" she'd insisted, slapping the photograph down on the kitchen island.
Her mother had looked at it. Blinced once. And walked away.
No explanation.
No denial.
Only silence.
And that silence was explanation enough.
Now, Aria wasn't pacing anymore.
She was digging.
Through drawers, through photo albums, through papers labeled with court seals and medical records and names she didn't recognize.
Until she found it.
A file stamped:
CONFIDENTIAL – ZURI EMMANUEL (DOB: 10/12)
She didn't even breathe.
Zuri's name. Her date of birth.
The same as hers.
Twin confirmation. Hospital location. Neonatal files.
Zuri wasn't a stranger.
She was her mirror.
Her missing piece.
Her stolen other half.
Aria sank slowly, the file in her lap, her universe falling apart second by second.
They weren't held together by accident or fate.
They'd been torn apart on purpose.
And she was going to learn why.