Chapter 3 Bad First Days

Wearing your dead twin's blazer is a strange kind of grief.

It scratches the back of your neck. It smells like him, even though he's not here. It fits too well, but still doesn't feel like yours.

Sonia stared at herself in the cracked dorm mirror, adjusting her collar and tying Silas's tie the way he used to...sloppy on purpose, just enough to say I don't care, without actually getting detention.

The note from the night before still sat in her desk drawer.

Folded.

Untouched.

Like a threat she wasn't ready to answer.

"You're not him. And you won't survive pretending to be."

No signature.

No scent.

No clue who had been in her room. But they had seen through her already. And that meant time was running out.

---

The bell tower rang at exactly 6 a.m., echoing across Daxton like a war horn.

Sonia walked through the main hallway, past portraits of stern billionaires in oil paint frames. Daxton's morning ritual had already begun: uniforms crisp, hair flawless, secrets carefully tucked behind every smile.

She passed a group of students huddled by the fountain.

They turned when she walked by.

Some stared.

Some whispered.

"He's back." "Isn't he supposed to be...?"

"He looks different."

She kept walking, jaw tight. Silas would've winked. Teased. Thrived under the attention. Sonia wanted to disappear into the bricks.

But disappearing wasn't part of the plan.

---

"Mr. Vale," said a clipped voice as she stepped into homeroom. Professor Helena Gage, Literature teacher and Daxton's official mood killer, narrowed her eyes over a pair of thin silver glasses.

"Alive, I see." Sonia fought the urge to blink.

"Most days." A few students chuckled.

Gage didn't. "Take your seat. We're reading Byron today. You'll try to keep up." Sonia nodded and slid into the only empty chair, right beside Eric Blackbourne.

Of course. He didn't glance at her.

Just leaned back in his chair, flipping open a copy of Childe Harold like it was light reading.

Sonia fumbled through her bag, pulling out Silas's annotated version. Scribbles in the margins, doodles in the corners. Her chest clenched. Gage read aloud in her dry British drawl, "I only know that summer sang in me....A little while, that in me sings no more..." And Sonia suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe. --- After class, Eric caught her at her locker. "Didn't peg you for a poetry guy," he said.

She shrugged, keeping her tone even. "I'm full of surprises."

"You were quiet in there," he said, watching her closely.

"Not the Silas I remember." "Maybe I grew up." Eric tilted his head. "Or maybe... you're still pretending."

Her heart jumped, but she forced a smirk. "I thought you liked mysteries." "I do," he murmured, leaning closer. "But I like answers more."

---

The day didn't get easier. In Ethics, Sonia was called out for not remembering the school's investment module. In Business Tactics, she accidentally answered with a fact Silas had once challenged publicly, and half the class raised their eyebrows. She played it off, but she could feel the cracks forming.

Lunch was worse. Mavina Cross spotted her across the courtyard and made her move, heels clicking, lips curled into a smirk.

"Silas," she purred, wrapping her arm around Sonia's. "Back and still handsome."

Sonia froze.

Mavina turned to the crowd. "Everyone, say hi to my boyfriend." Gasps. Whispers. Some clapped. A girl actually dropped her smoothie. Sonia coughed. "Mavina..."

"You look tense," she interrupted, smiling sweetly.

"Come. Sit with me." Before Sonia could protest, she was dragged to the golden table, the one reserved for Daxton's elite.

Mavina leaned in close and whispered, "Don't act shocked.

You think I'd let anyone else claim you now that you're back?"

"You're not worried what people might think?"

Sonia asked, masking the edge in her voice. Mavina smiled wider.

"I don't care what they think. I only care what they see."

---

That evening, Sonia stumbled back into her room, her head pounding.

Her chest binder was cutting off her breath.

Her feet ached from walking like Silas.

Her voice felt sore from dropping into a lower register all day. She collapsed onto her bed and closed her eyes.

Then she heard it. A knock not at the door, but her window. It was slow and deliberate. She sat up, her skin turning to ice.

The window was cracked open. She was three floors up.

No balcony. She walked over slowly, heart hammering.

Outside, nothing, just the dark courtyard below. She reached out to close it and that's when she saw it. Scratched faintly into the glass, almost invisible:

"You're not safe here."