THREE | Hadley

There’s a moment—right between Harper shoving her makeup bag in my face and me sitting half-naked in a towel—where I genuinely consider faking a seizure to get out of this.

“This is illegal,” I mutter as she parts my hair and holds up a bleach bowl like she’s about to perform a chemical lobotomy. “Like, definitely illegal.”

Harper rolls her eyes. “Relax. This is high-end product. It barely even smells like regret.”

Easy for her to say. She's already platinum blonde, glossy as a magazine ad and smug as a cat in cream. Meanwhile, I’m about to fry my scalp to impersonate someone I haven’t spoken to since Twilight was still trending.

“If I go bald,” I warn, “I’m moving into your penthouse and suing you for emotional distress.”

“Technically, you’re already moving into my penthouse.”

“Then I’ll sue you from the penthouse.”

She snorts, but doesn’t argue. Instead, she goes to work, brushing the bleach through my chestnut hair like an artist preparing a canvas. And I do mean artist—this whole thing feels like performance art, the tragic kind where someone ends up crying and questioning the meaning of life.

I close my eyes and try not to panic as the chemicals begin their sizzling little symphony. It's a great thing we both have blue eyes if not I fear what she could do to "fix" me.

Harper hums.

I plot her murder.

Two hours later, I don’t recognize myself in the mirror.

My hair is blonde. Not just blonde—Harper blonde. Ice-kissed and camera-ready. It frames my face like a spotlight, and for a moment I genuinely forget who I am.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “I look like… you.”

“That was the goal,” Harper says, pleased. She hands me a tiny espresso shot and a lipstick the color of soft sin. “Now drink that and shut up. We’ve got five days of training to cram into one afternoon.”

Cue the boot camp montage. Except instead of boxing gloves and inspirational music, it’s contour brushes, hashtags, and the soul-crushing weight of my sister’s social calendar.

“Rule number one,” Harper says, strutting across my sad excuse of a living room in six-inch heels that look like they were designed by NASA. “You do not speak in full paragraphs. Be vague, be pretty, and let the publicist do the heavy lifting.”

I blink. “That sounds like something a spy would say.”

“It’s also how I survived two years of hosting perfume launch parties in Dubai while my manager leaked fake relationships to Page Six. Learn to float, not fight.”

I scribble that down. Float, don’t fight. Got it. Add that to the growing list in my already-fried brain: Walk like Harper, talk like Harper, don’t laugh like Hadley because Harper doesn’t do snorts or the weird hiccup-laugh thing I do when I get nervous.

She makes me practice my voice—lighter, airier, with fewer consonants. Apparently, Harper doesn’t enunciate. She glides through sentences like she’s allergic to punctuation.

“Say it again,” she orders as I sit on the couch, clutching a fake champagne flute.

“My day was… divine, thank you for asking,” I recite, trying not to choke on my own cringe.

“Less sincerity,” she says. “Imagine you’re lying to a billionaire.”

“I am lying to a billionaire.”

“Exactly.”

By the time we break for lunch, I’ve learned the top five poses for pap shots, the brand philosophy behind her perfume deal (inspiring confidence in women by smelling like aspirational sadness, I guess?), and the precise art of how Harper holds her phone in selfies. Arm at forty-five degrees, chin tilt, tongue never out. This is a war, not a college dorm.

"What about your agent, manager whatever you call them?" I ask.

"Emily barely looks up from her iPad when she talks."

What the hell am I doing?

God is for the money, be kind on me.

“You post everyday and for I*******m captions,” she says while chewing a kale salad like it personally offended her. “Keep them short, ironic, and never too deep. You’re a vibe, not a philosopher.”

“You mean no Shakespeare quotes?”

She glares.

I write: “No Shakespeare. No sincerity. Vibes only.”

By hour four, she’s draping me in clothes I couldn’t afford even if I robbed my boss and sold both kidneys. The labels make me sweat. Satin. Silk. Sequins that whisper tax fraud. Everything is tight, chic, and designed to look effortless, which is hilarious because I nearly dislocate a hip putting on one of her damn jumpsuits.

“You’ll wear this to the event tomorrow,” she says, adjusting the neckline so I’m showing exactly enough boob to look expensive. “Keep your sunglasses on at all times. You’re mysterious and jetlagged.”

I stare at the full-length mirror. The woman staring back at me is cool, poised, unbothered. She looks like she eats oysters for lunch and keeps a vision board in her bedroom.

She doesn’t look like the girl who cried in a bathroom stall after being yelled at by her boss for spilling espresso on a customer’s Birkin.

I swallow hard. “What if I screw this up?”

“You won’t,” Harper says, surprisingly gentle. “You’re me now. And I never screw up.”

God, where's Brit when I need her.

"Matthew is to meet you in your penthouse in an hour now. Take it as a trial"

I turn back to her. “So who’s this Matthew guy?”

Her expression freezes.

Then she waves it off, breezy as ever. “You don’t need talk to him. Just smile and be me. He'll do the talking”

“Wait, what—who is he?”

But she’s already moving, packing up her makeup like we’re done for the day. She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t offer a last name. Not even a vague tabloid headline I could G****e.

And I don’t push.

Because the thing is, I stopped checking Harper’s life online years ago. It hurt too much—seeing her glossy and successful while I was counting tips and crying over student loans. Watching the twin who made it while I just… survived.

Now I’m wearing her face, stepping into her world, and about to meet a man I know nothing about.

But sure. Smile and be her.

What could possibly go wrong?