Chapter 36: Aria's Confession

Noah shared his pain. I owed him mine.

We were still standing on the sidewalk outside my apartment building, bathed in the amber glow of the streetlights. The city hummed around us—a distant siren, the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement—but the air between us felt still, heavy with the secrets we had just exchanged over greasy fries.

He had opened his chest and shown me the seven-year-old boy waiting for pancakes that never came. He had entrusted me with his origin story.

And I was still hiding behind the mask of the "difficult" twin.

"You asked me something earlier," I said quietly, leaning against the cold metal of my car door. "About my mother. Why she treats me like... an accessory."

Noah stepped closer, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes focused entirely on me. "I did."

"Being the 'other' twin wasn't a role I chose," I began, my voice trembling slightly. "It was assigned at birth."

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

"Sienna was born first," I said. "Twelve