Chapter 393: Mirror
I started small.
Little things, harmless things.
The way Aria would tuck her hair behind her ear when she was thinking, or how her voice tilted upward at the end of a sarcastic remark, like she was both mocking and daring the world to correct her. The way she’d lean back during lectures, arms folded, one eyebrow raised, as if the professor’s every word were an inconvenience to her intelligence.
I practiced in secret, my dorm room mirror when the school was asleep.
Tucked my hair. Raised my brow. Crossed my arms, leaned back, studied the reflection until my chair nearly toppled and I caught myself laughing quietly, like a fraud.
It felt stupid.
But I kept doing it.
Then came the clothes.
Not duplicates, that would have been too obvious, but similar styles.
Worn jeans instead of my usual slacks.
Band shirts instead of blouses. Shoes that collected dirt because she never bothered to clean hers.
When Aria noticed, she smiled that easy, sun-warmed smile.
"Oh, I love that shirt! Where’d you get it?"
"Just... around."
"We’re turning into the same person," she laughed. "Next thing you know, we’ll show up to class matching."
The idea made something inside me flutter, strange, electric.
Yes. That.
So I kept going.
I started talking more in class, copying her cadence, her timing. I made jokes that weren’t mine. Tried to move through the room as she did, with ownership. With the certainty that her presence mattered.
But when she spoke, people listened. When I did, the room went still, not in awe, but discomfort. Their silence was a mirror, reflecting everything that didn’t fit.
When she wore ripped jeans, she looked effortlessly alive. When I did, I looked like a bad imitation.
A counterfeit that still smelled of glue.
The harder I tried, the more visible the space between us became.
She was the original.
I was just... noise.
But still I continued watching her the way I once studied patients, with detached precision. Every gesture, every inflection, every glance catalogued. The way she drummed her fingers when bored. The way she mouthed along when she already knew the answer. The way she stretched like a cat after long hours of stillness, unbothered by eyes on her.
I filled notebooks with her. Not the coursework, her.
I became her echo. Her reflection in warped glass.
But an echo is still just noise. And no matter how faithfully I mirrored her, I was never her. I just remained her shadow.
People still didn’t see me. Not when she was around.
At gatherings, on campus walks, in classrooms, I could stand right beside her, dressed the same, laughing the same, and eyes would pass over me like water.
"Hey, Aria! Oh, and... Sarah, right?"
Always a footnote. Always second.
At night, I’d lie awake, replaying it. Wondering what she had that I didn’t. We were both human, both breathing, both made of the same matter. So why did she burn while I stayed cold?
What was I missing?
What would I have to take to finally become whole?
That was when Cain appeared.
He was tall, with the kind of posture that said he already knew the world would make space for him. Dark hair, easy grin, sharp eyes that always looked like they were in on some private joke. The newly elected class governor, of course he was. Charismatic, ambitious, a little arrogant in the way all people who get what they want tend to be.
He joined our circle after a few joint projects and quickly became part of the background noise of our lives group meetings, shared coffees, casual late-night study sessions.
Aria, at the time, was dating a senior. Some film major who thought quoting Nietzsche made him profound. She wasn’t interested in Cain. I knew that. But it didn’t matter.
People like Cain always fell for people like Aria.
It was practically law.
So when she wasn’t around, I waited for it. The inevitable moment his attention drifted toward her name. But it didn’t.
Not that night.
She had gone off with her boyfriend to some exhibition downtown, leaving me at the campus café with my laptop and a half-drunk cup of coffee. Cain slid into the seat across from me, all grin and warmth.
"Mind if I join you?"
I shrugged. "It’s a free country."
He laughed, and for some reason, it didn’t feel like he was laughing at me.
We talked for hours about classes, about professors, about nothing and everything. He asked about my childhood, and I told him the curated version: quiet, lonely, nothing special. He said he’d been the opposite, always loud, always in trouble. I told him I envied that.
When he walked me back to my dorm that night, he didn’t touch me. Didn’t try to. Just smiled and said, "You’re not what I expected, Sarah."
And for the first time, someone said it like it was a compliment.
It became a habit. Coffee, study sessions, quiet conversations that stretched too long.
He enjoyed my company.
He laughed at my jokes.
He wanted to know me.
I was suspicious at first. Waiting for the reveal, the moment when he’d ask me to put in a good word with Aria, or invite her to join us, or admit that he’d been using me as a back door to getting close to her.
But weeks passed, and he never did.
Aria even commented on it. "You and Cain have gotten close, huh?"
"I guess."
"That’s good! He seems nice. You should invite him to hang out with all of us more."
But I didn’t want to share him with the group. With her. This was mine. This thing where someone saw me first, where I wasn’t the shadow.
We were walking back from a movie, some action thing he’d picked that I’d pretended to enjoy. It was late, the campus mostly empty, streetlights casting long shadows across the paths.
"Can I tell you something?" Cain said suddenly.
"You just did."
He laughed. "Fair. Can I tell you something else?"
"Sure."
He stopped walking, turned to face me. His expression had gone serious in a way I wasn’t used to seeing.
"I like you, Sarah."
I blinked. "I... like you too? I mean, we’re friends—"
"No, I mean—" He ran a hand through his hair. "I mean I like you. I have for a while now. I just wasn’t sure how to say it."
The world tilted slightly.
"You’re smart and funny and you see things other people miss," he continued. "And I know you probably think I’m full of shit, or that I’m going to change my mind, but I’m not. I really like you."
Someone chose me.
Not Aria. Not the girl everyone wanted. Me.
The odd one. The shadow. The girl people usually looked past.
Me.
"I..." My voice came out smaller than I intended. "I don’t know what to say."
"You don’t have to say anything now. I just wanted you to know." He smiled, soft and genuine. "No pressure. I just... yeah. I wanted you to know."
We stood there in the pool of streetlight, and something in my chest cracked open. Something I’d kept carefully locked since the facility, since before then even.
Hope.
Maybe I didn’t need to be Aria. Maybe I didn’t need to steal her skin and wear it like armor. Maybe I could just be Sarah, and maybe that could be enough for someone.
"I like you too," I said.
His whole face lit up. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
And under the soft halo of light, he kissed me... gentle, hesitant, real.
For the first time in my life, someone saw me.
He kissed me then. Soft and tentative, his hand gentle on my jaw. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was the one being seen. The one being chosen. The one who mattered.
---
For three months, I believed it.
I believed that I could have something that wasn’t about Aria. That someone could want me for who I was, not as a stepping stone to someone else. That maybe I’d been wrong about people, about relationships, about the possibility of mattering to someone.
Cain was attentive and affectionate in ways I didn’t know how to process. He’d text me good morning. Hold my hand walking across campus. Introduce me to his friends as his girlfriend with this pride in his voice that made my chest feel strange and tight.
I even told Aria about us.
"Finally!" she’d shrieked, pulling me into a hug. "I was wondering when one of you would make a move. You two are so cute together."
Cute. We were cute. I had a boyfriend who chose me, and a best friend who was happy for me, and for three months I felt almost normal again.
I should have known better.
I should have known that good things didn’t happen to people like me. That there was always a catch, always an angle.
I should have known.
But I didn’t.