Aria found Zuri in the art room.
Alone. Sketching something with charcoal on the corner page of her notebook like the world didn't matter. Like she didn't owe Aria explanations.
Aria's fingernails bit into her palm as she stood in the doorway, staring at her.
This was the girl.
The thread. The echo. The scar.
The other half.
And Aria hated that she knew it.
She hated more what that meant.
Because if Zuri was her sister, that made Aria… incomplete.
Half.
Flawed.
And Aria Dalton was never going to be flawed.
Zuri looked up. "Can I help you?"
Aria stepped in slow, heels clicking on the tiled floor. She smiled not nicely.
"You're getting real comfortable here, aren't you?"
Zuri shrugged. "Is that a problem?"
"You've been here five minutes and already people are whispering. Looking. Comparing."
Zuri's expression didn't change. "That's not my fault."
"No," Aria said evenly. "But it will be your problem."
She reached into her bag and tossed something onto the table in front of Zuri.
A photograph.
From the nurse's file.
The word "twin" just discernible under the smudge.
Zuri's eyes widened.
"I discovered it," Aria said. "You've been digging. So have I."
Zuri stood up slowly, shoulders squared. "Then you know."
"I know enough," Aria spat. "And let me make one thing clear we are not sisters."
Zuri flinched. Only slightly. But Aria saw.
Good.
For anger was safer than grief.
Control was safer than crumbling.
"I don't care if we shared a womb," Aria continued, voice frozen and perfect. "You are not in my life. You are not in my story. And whatever fairy tale you've built in your head ends right now."
Zuri swallowed. "You're scared."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"You feel it too," Zuri said softly. "You're just too proud to admit it. Too scared to break the perfect dollhouse."
Aria's hand slammed against the table.
"I am not scared of you," she whispered. "I'm erasing you. One way or another."
And with that, she turned and walked out chin high, spine straight, every step louder than her heartbeat.
That afternoon, an anonymous email went out.
To the school board. The counselor. The scholarship committee.
It contained a single page: a blurry scan of Zuri's old school records marked with a note about disciplinary action.
It wasn't criminal. It wasn't even recent.
But it was enough to raise red flags.
Enough to make Saint Celeste start to question the girl in the hoodie who didn't belong.
Aria closed her laptop with shaking hands.
She told herself it wasn't personal.
She was just taking back control.
She was just doing what she always did filling in the cracks before they ruined everything.
But she couldn't sleep that night.
Because deep down, in the part of her that still remembered baby laughter and tiny fingers…
She knew.
This wasn't control.
It was fear.
And fear now had a face.
Her own.
By the time the final bell rang, the whispers had begun.
In the hallway. In the bathroom. In the group chats she feigned not reading.
"Did you hear about the new girl?"
"Zuri from Eastfield? Trouble follows her."
"I heard she fought a teacher once."
"They're re-evaluating her placement. For real."
Aria glided through it all like a ghost in diamonds. Shined. Collected. The girl who always had a plan.
But internally?
She was unraveling.
Because somewhere along the line in attempting to erase Zuri… she had started to erase herself.
Aria was alone in the locker room following cheer practice, staring at her reflection in the misty mirror. Her uniform still perfect. Her lipstick still on.
But her eyes looked odd.
Too sharp. Too hollow.
She splashed cold water on her face and leaned in closer.
"Get over it," she whispered.
But her voice shook.
Because she could still see Zuri's face when she dropped the photo. That flash of something deep anger, maybe. Hurt, definitely.
Recognition.
Like they weren't just strangers with a scar in common.
Like they were… unfinished.
Later that evening, Aria sat in the back of her father's study with the door cracked open, just enough to hear her parents' hushed voices.
"She knows," her mother was saying. "I think she's always known. Somewhere deep."
Her father sighed. "We never should have separated them."
"Do you think the other girl Zuri knows anything?"
Silence.
Then her mother whispered, "She found the records."
Silence.
And then, like thunder:
"If this gets out, Malcolm, people will question everything. Her name. Her past. The Daltons do not survive scandal."
Aria clenched the wall.
Scandal.
That's what she was. What they were.
Not daughters. Not sisters.
Just secrets.
She didn't cry.
Instead, she went back to her room and got the letter she never thought she'd need.
A handwritten letter of recommendation. Signed and sealed. From her father's old friend at the boarding school in Switzerland.
It was always the backup plan the emergency escape.
She'd thought she'd use it someday. Maybe after graduation. Maybe if she didn't get into Harvard.
But now, she wondered if she'd use it just to breathe again.
To get away from this.
From her.
Aria was in bed that night, watching her ceiling fan spin in slow circles.
Somewhere across town, maybe staring up at her own ceiling, Zuri was probably feeling the same ache.
Not for war.
But for answers.
And Aria had burned the bridge before they could even start to cross it.
Not because she didn't believe the truth.
But because the truth made her feel human.
And human meant vulnerable.
And Aria Dalton was never allowed to be that.
Not even for a sister.
It was close to midnight when Aria got the box.
The one at the back of her closet, beneath the forgotten charity sashes and recalled trophies. The one she hadn't opened since she was thirteen.
She sat cross-legged on her thick rug and lifted the lid.
Inside were the things she wasn't supposed to share with the world:
• A diary in pictures instead of words.
• A tiny music box shaped like a moon, chipped along the rim.
• A crumpled paper crown from her eighth birthday party.
• And a yellowed envelope with no name on it.
She opened it slowly, her hands trembling.
Inside, there was a photo.
Blurry, faded, creased in the corner.
Two bassinets.
Side by side.
One with a red bracelet.
One with a gold.
Her breath caught.
No names. No captions.
Just proof.
Proof that someone had been there with her before she became Aria Dalton, Saint Celeste's star pupil and perfect porcelain doll.
And now that someone was walking the same halls breathing the same air.
And Aria had tried to destroy her.
She crushed the photo in her hand, pressing it against her chest as if by doing so she could reverse the moment she sent that anonymous file.
She hadn't done it out of hate.
She'd done it out of fear.
Because Zuri made her feel like glass.
Like she might shatter at any second.
And Aria wasn't allowed to break.
Not in this family.
Not in this town.
Not with that last name.
Her phone buzzed quietly on her nightstand.
A text from a blocked number.
One sentence:
"Nice try. You don't scare me."
No name.
But she didn't need one.
Zuri had found out.
She wasn't going anywhere.
And in that moment, Aria realized something horrifying:
Zuri hadn't come into her life to take her place.
She had come to reclaim her own.