Chapter 1

_Aria's POV_

I looked at the calendar on the wall. The date looked back at me and my stomach tightened. The dreaded day would come soon. It was the twenty-fourth of December today and the memory still sat fresh in my throat. I could taste it like old blood. I could see the lights and hear the sirens. I remembered what happened three years ago. I remembered everything.

I had been looking for scissors to open the Christmas presents when I noticed the black file lying in the corner of the sofa. It did not belong there. The living room was too neat for loose papers. I frowned and set the wrapping aside.

Curiosity was something I did not learn to hide. I had always been the kind of person who opened the locked drawer because the lock looked new. I picked up the file and felt the chill of secrets between my fingers. I told myself I would just take a quick look. I told myself I would put it back. I read instead.

The file told me that I was adopted.

I remember the way the pages trembled when I held them. The words were small and neat. They were the kind of words adults used when they wanted to sound official. I read and read and the room sank a little. My whole life slid like a photograph falling face down into water. I had been living a story someone else had written.

My parents were not my biological parents. Elena was not my real sister.

The paper made sense of small things I had always pushed aside. Why my hair was a shock of flame in a room of brown heads. Why my face never matched the pictures with my family in them. Elena looked like Mom. She was Mom’s echo. I was the difference that never fit.

It explained why Elena was always favored. Why she wore silk to school plays and I had second-hand coats. Why birthday gifts appeared for her as if by magic. I had been the eldest and the one who learned to thank them in the quiet way strangers learn to be grateful. I learned to swallow my questions. I learned to thank them for dinners and to hide my hurt behind small smiles.

I remember Dad’s face when he caught me with the file. He came into the room like a hand closing around a small animal. His eyes went sharp. I could see guilt in him, like a shadow stepping into the light. He told me the same story he had told others. He said the words in the way adults say them when there is no other place to put the truth.

“We tried so long to have a child,” he said. “It was hard. We prayed. We waited. We...” His voice broke. “We adopted you because we wanted a family.”

Then he smiled. He pushed the papers away. He added, “Then, a miracle happened and Elena was born. She changed everything.”

I wanted to explode. I wanted to tear the tree down. I wanted to demand justice. I wanted to be the eldest who had rights and voice and a place at the table like any true child. I wanted them to say sorry. I wanted them to say I mattered.

Instead, I sat down on the floor and let the tears come slow and ordinary. I made a choice then. I would be grateful. It felt safer than fighting. I would not start problems in a house that gave me food and a bed.

I had seen enough on TV to know how bad orphanages were. There were kids crying. They slept on thin mattresses. They had no one to hug them. I used to watch those shows and feel something cold in my chest, even when I was little.

So I told myself to stop asking questions. To accept what I had. To take the warmth I was given and hold it close. I told myself to leave the pain where it started and just move forward.

I learned to get used to being second. I learned to watch Elena be adored and to look away. I had to accept the small gifts and the polite smiles. I learned to be thankful and quiet.

That acceptance made me hate Christmas.

Love songs made my skin crawl. The lights under our tree looked like glass eyes. The ribbons on the presents were traps. Every year, the house tuned itself to cheer and I pretended to enjoy it. The twenty-fifth became the night when a new kind of cold touched my bones. It was the day the truth had crawled out at me like an animal. It was the day I had learned how much of my life had been decided by other hands.

I stood up. I stared at the tree in the middle of the living room. Ornaments hung like frozen fruit. Tinsel clung to the branches like a web. I thought of the matches on the side table. For a moment, I imagined flinging the tree into the yard and setting it ablaze. The thought passed like a short thunderstorm. I did not blow the match. I would not burn what gave them joy. I had learned to keep my small rebellions private.

They were all gone. My adoptive parents had gone to visit a friend. Elena was out somewhere. The house was a stage and I did not know my lines. Alone was a word that settled around my shoulders like a heavy shawl. I looked at the clock. Half past five. Dusk washed the windows in gray.

Ryan lived nearby. He was the soft place in my life. I met him a year ago, on a day when everything felt too heavy for me. I remembered it clearly.

I had been standing outside the college library, trying not to cry after Elena made fun of me in front of her friends. My hands shook so much I couldn’t even zip my coat. People walked past me, pretending not to see. But Ryan stopped.

“Hey… are you okay?” he had asked gently.

I tried to say yes but my voice broke. He gave me his scarf without thinking twice and walked me to the campus café. He bought me hot chocolate and sat with me until my hands stopped shaking. We talked for hours. He made small jokes that pulled tiny smiles out of me, one by one.

Before we left, he said, “Let me give you my number… just in case you ever need a friend.”

I saved it. I texted him that night. He replied fast. Then we kept talking. Every day. Every night. One message turned into ten, then into whole conversations that lasted until dawn. A few weeks later, he asked me out. A month after that, he became my boyfriend.

That memory warmed me now as I stood in the living room. Ryan had been kind. He laughed at my thin jokes in a way that made me feel like someone had pressed a little sunlight into my palm. He wasn’t perfect, but he made the world feel softer, even when everything else felt sharp.

He lived close by.....just fifteen minutes if I walked. He had taken a holiday job that always ended at four-thirty and the place was only a few streets away from his house. By now, he should already be home.

I decided that I would surprise him.

I wrapped my scarf tight around my throat. I thought of him sitting by the stove with forkfuls of pie between his lips. He loved cheesecake. He always said that about himself. He had a way of making every small thing a larger story. He would never make me feel like a second choice.

I dressed quickly. I was modest tonight. Simple things suited me. I pulled on a soft gray sweater that fit close to my ribs. It kept my shoulders warm without hugging too tightly. I wore a long dark skirt. It was thick with wool. Black ankle boots sealed my calves from the snow. Over everything, I pulled a green coat that had belonged to my adoptive father. It smelled faintly of cedar and his cologne. I used a red scarf because it made my hair look less like a mistake.

Outside, the air tasted like metal and mint. Snow hung in the streetlamps. I walked to the bakery on the corner because I had promised Ryan a surprise. The pastry woman smiled in the way that people who live in small towns do—slowly, as if memory stretched with them. I bought a cheesecake with a crust that cracked like good glass. I wrapped it in paper so the steam would not fog his door.

Ryan's house looked quiet when I reached it. Cardboard boxes sat by the gutter, waiting for collection. A wreath tied with a simple bow hung on his door. I knocked twice. No answer. I tried the knob. It turned.

I stood at the threshold and muttered, “Ryan.”

There was no answer.

I stepped inside. The house smelled like cinnamon and wood smoke. The radio played a soft song about a winter that never melted. I frowned. He was careful. He would not leave the door unlocked when the streets were like glass. He was a sensible boy who was always careful.

I set the cheesecake on the counter. I told myself to wait. Maybe he had slipped out for a minute. Maybe he had run a quick errand. Maybe he had forgotten his keys and the back door was locked. I laughed at my own small scolding. I was so impatient. He would be back.

The sound came then. I stopped. It was low. It was faint. It could have been the pipes. It might have been the radiator. I tilted my head. Snow tapped the windows like nails. The low sound came again. Not pipes. Not the house. Voices.

My breath stopped. I held it in my chest, tiny and small, like a trapped bird. I listened.

It came from upstairs.

My heart started to thud, slow and heavy. I told myself to be logical. Ryan lived alone. Maybe, he had a cousin come over for Christmas. Maybe, a neighbor had knocked on the door and gone up to use the bathroom. Perhaps the sound was nothing but the house settling into winter.

I started walking toward the spiral staircase. The stairs crunched under my boots. The noise grew louder. I could hear two voices now. One was Ryan's voice. It was deep, familiar and something like a song I could hum without thinking. The other was a woman. She laughed. The laugh was light. It sounded like bells.

Curiosity burned like a coal behind my ribs. I moved up step by step. The steps curled like shells. I placed my hand on the railing and felt the wood tremble under my palm. The voices shifted. The woman giggled again. My throat turned dry. The sound made something warm and sharp ache inside me.

Part of me wanted to call out. A stronger part wanted to fling open the door and jump in with a joke. I rehearsed the line: “Hey, surprise! I brought cheesecake.” I wanted to see the way he would look—a moment of confusion and then pleasure at my face.

Another part of me feared what lay behind that closed door. The fears I carried were the quiet kind that grow in corners. I could feel them bloom like frost on glass. What if he had someone else? What if Elena had been right about being replaced? What if I was just a visitor in my own life?

I reached the top of the stairs. The door stood at the end of the short hallway like a painted promise. The knob was warm from someone’s hand. I stood there for a breath. My fingers felt small. My whole body hummed like a tight violin string. I told myself one more time that I was foolish. I told myself to breathe.

I turned the knob.

And then, I opened the door.

The sight stopped me mid-breath. My lungs forgot to work. The room folded into a single frozen frame. My hand tightened on the cheesecake box until the paper creased.

I could not breathe. The door swung closed behind me with the soft click of a lock.