Chapter 3: Chapter Three: Cracks in the Mirror
Eliza threw herself onto her bed, the creak of the old springs cutting through the silence of her tiny room. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to push away the thoughts swirling in her head. It wasn't even about the Sinclair twins, not really. But being around them—being in their world—made the cracks in her own life feel so much bigger.
She shifted on the mattress, pulling her knees up to her chest. The blankets felt scratchy against her skin, the room too warm and too stuffy. A deep breath did nothing to calm her, and she turned her head to the side, eyes landing on the photo of her and her mom sitting on the small dresser. They were both smiling in that picture, arms wrapped around each other, frozen in a moment that felt like it belonged to another lifetime.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back, hating herself for it. Crying wasn't going to change anything. It wasn't going to close the yawning gap between her and the life she wanted—or maybe it was the life she felt like she should have. After all, she wasn't asking for private jets or designer clothes. She just wanted the basics, to feel like she could keep up, to not be the outsider, constantly reminded of how different she was.
Her chest tightened as memories began to rise to the surface, memories she didn't like to linger on. But once they started, it was like opening a floodgate she couldn't close.
It was the day her father left. She had been six years old, small enough to still believe that parents didn't leave, that dads didn't just walk out and never come back. But that's exactly what he did. The image was seared into her mind: him standing by the door, bags at his feet, avoiding her gaze. Her mother had been there too, standing behind her, holding her shoulders, silently crying but not saying a word.
The door clicked shut, and Eliza's world had split in half.
After that, it had just been the two of them—Eliza and her mom, making their way in a world that never made things easy. Her mom had been a rock, but Eliza had seen the cracks. She'd watched as her mom wiped away tears late at night, thinking Eliza was asleep. She'd seen the exhaustion in her eyes after working double shifts at the small boutique she ran. The store had become their lifeline, a place her mom had built from scratch after her dad left. A modest little shop that sold handmade clothes and accessories, nothing fancy, but it paid the bills. Barely.
Her mom had worked herself to the bone to keep that shop open. Eliza had grown up there, spending hours doing homework on the counter, watching her mom hustle to make ends meet. Her mother never complained, but Eliza had seen how hard it was. The long hours, the constant stress of keeping the lights on, the fear of not making enough to cover rent.
Eliza could still smell the place—the scent of fresh cotton, the lavender sachets her mom always made to hang by the register, the slight tang of coffee that came from the shop next door. It had been their world for so long. She remembered the late nights when her mom would sit at the kitchen table, sewing dresses or fixing alterations. She'd sometimes fall asleep there, needle and thread still in her hands.
As Eliza got older, she did what she could to help. She worked weekends at the shop, even though most of her friends spent their Saturdays hanging out or going to parties. She didn't mind. It was what they had to do. She and her mom were a team, and they always had been.
But then came high school, and with it, the Sinclair twins. Vanessa and Tessa had taken to her right away, drawn by something in her that Eliza still didn't quite understand. Maybe they liked the challenge, the idea of lifting someone out of their world and into theirs, like a charity project they didn't realize was a project at all.
They weren't bad people, far from it. The twins were sweet, generous, always including her, always inviting her to things she could never dream of affording. And for a while, Eliza had been able to go along with it. She'd laugh with them, shop with them, party with them. But it didn't take long for the cracks to show. The designer clothes, the spontaneous vacations, the expensive dinners where the bill was casually handed over without a second glance—it all started to weigh on her. She wasn't just playing along anymore. She was struggling to keep up.
The worst part wasn't their wealth, though. It was how easy it all seemed for them. They didn't think twice about anything—money, plans, the future. They had it all mapped out, with every door wide open. Meanwhile, Eliza was constantly grinding, studying harder than anyone just to hold onto her scholarship at Brookfield. One bad grade, and she could lose everything. And while they worried about things like what to wear to the next party, Eliza's mind was occupied with whether her mom had enough customers that week to cover the electric bill.
The tears she had been holding back started to slip down her face. She wiped them away roughly, angry at herself for feeling like this. She didn't want to resent them. The twins were her friends, and they didn't mean to make her feel small. But that didn't change the fact that she did. She felt like a stranger in their world, always on the outside looking in, pretending to belong.
The image of tonight's dinner flashed in her mind—the long table under twinkling lights, the fancy food, the conversations about vacations and yachts and things that felt so foreign, like they were speaking a language she didn't understand. And then there was her, sitting there, trying to smile, trying to laugh along, while her stomach churned with the knowledge that she didn't fit. She never had, and she never would.
The worst moment had been when Lauren, one of the twins' friends, brought up Eliza's scholarship. "That's so impressive," Lauren had said, like it was a compliment. But to Eliza, it felt like a spotlight shining on all the ways she didn't belong. Sure, she was smart. Sure, she worked hard. But the scholarship wasn't a badge of honor. It was a lifeline. A reminder that without it, she'd have nothing.
She hated the way they made her feel without even trying. Like she was a charity case, someone they had to "figure out" how to include. The invitation to St. Barts had been the final straw. They wanted her to come, they genuinely did, but they didn't understand what it was like to not even be able to afford the plane ticket, let alone the rest of it.
Her chest tightened again, the weight of it all pressing down until she could barely breathe. She rolled onto her side, pulling her knees tighter against her chest, trying to hold herself together. She couldn't keep living like this—straddling two worlds, never fully belonging to either one.
Maybe it was her own fault. Maybe she should have never let herself get this close to the twins, never let herself believe that she could fit into their world. But it was too late now. The cracks had formed, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hold everything together anymore.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, pulling her out of her thoughts. She glanced at the screen. It was a message from Vanessa.
Vanessa: "Hey, are you okay? Missed you at the end of the party."
Eliza stared at the message for a long moment, her heart aching. She knew Vanessa meant well, but right now, it was too much. She couldn't deal with their world and her world colliding any more tonight.
She typed out a quick reply:
Eliza: "Yeah, I'm fine. Just really tired. Talk tomorrow?"
She hit send and then tossed the phone onto the bed, rolling onto her back again. She closed her eyes, willing herself to stop crying, to stop feeling so lost. She needed to figure this out. She couldn't keep pretending everything was fine, but she also couldn't just walk away from the twins. They were her friends. They cared about her.
But tonight, in the quiet of her room, Eliza couldn't help but wonder how much longer she could keep pretending to live in two worlds—one that felt like home, and one that never would.
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