The sun rose, but Ariana didn't notice.
Three days after the funeral, she was sitting in a spotless kitchen that didn't smell like her mother's cinnamon toast or her father's cologne. Instead, it smelled like bleach and distance.
Her aunt, Camille Hart, a polished woman with a cold smile and glass heels, stirred her coffee without looking up.
"You'll be staying in this house, while I'm gone on a business trip." She said then paused to sip her coffee,looked up and saw no reaction from Ariana, so she continued " You'll be going to Lincoln High starting Monday,'' Camille said. ''It's private. Clean. No trouble.''
Ariana didn't reply.
''We are not going to talk about what happened,'' Camille continued. Therapy is arranged. Press will die down. The best way to move on is to forget.''
Forget?
Ariana blinked slowly, her fingers gripping her mug.
She would never forget.
Not the crash.
Not the masked man.
Not the whispers.
Not the way her world died, while she survived.
So Ariana nodded. She smiled a little. She played the part.
Because that's what good girls do.
But inside, a new Ariana was being born—calm, strategic, and broken in all the right places.