Chapter 3
Harper didn't actually pass out in the end. Half an hour later, she kicked open my apartment door carrying a blast of cold air with her.
"Sophie!"
She slammed her bag onto the couch, her chest heaving hard. Her eyes were red, like she'd just been crying.
"You need to explain yourself.
"And it better be a damn good explanation."
I came out of the studio and poured her a cup of coffee.
"Harper, sit down. Let's talk."
One look at my calm face, and she got even more upset. "How am I supposed to sit down? Everything outside is a total disaster!"
"The company's phones are blowing up, our partners are demanding answers, and some of them are already threatening to cut ties!
"We're done, Sophie! We're completely done for!"
The desperation in her voice was real. I pressed the warm mug into her freezing hands.
"No, we're not."
I looked her in the eye and said it seriously.
"Harper, how long have you been with me?"
"Three years and two months," she answered without even thinking.
"In those three years, have I ever lied to you?"
Harper froze. She looked at me with a complicated expression.
When she first took me on three years ago, I was just a broke nobody of an illustrator. She'd been with me every step of the way, from total obscurity to the little name I'd made for myself now.
She knew all my habits, but about my past, she knew nothing. I never talked about it, and she never asked. That was our unspoken understanding.
Today, that understanding had been broken.
She took a deep breath, like she was making some huge decision.
"Fine.
"Sophie, I'll trust you one last time.
"Now tell me what the hell is going on.
"Why did you say you never went to college or high school?
"We checked your background before. Riverdale School of Arts, all the records are there. It can't be fake."
I opened a storage cabinet beside the studio and dragged out a dusty metal box from the very back. It was old, with faded cartoon stickers still stuck to it.
I blew off the dust and opened the rusty lock. Harper leaned in, curious.
Inside, there were no diplomas or old yearbooks like she expected. Just a stack of yellowed papers and a small black-and-white ID photo.
The girl in the picture looked maybe seven or eight, with two little braids and cheeks still carrying a bit of baby fat. She was grinning at the camera like she didn't have a care in the world.
She was adorable. And completely unfamiliar.
Harper picked up the photo.
"Is this... you as a kid?
"It doesn't look like you."
I pulled one sheet from the stack of papers and handed it to her. It was a school transfer certificate.
Transferred from Starlight Elementary to Greenhill Primary School. On the student's name line was a name I had not used in years: Sadie Wells.
The transfer date was twenty years ago.
Harper's pupils shrank. She looked from the paper back to me, her face full of pure shock and confusion.
"Sadie Wells... who is that?
"Starlight Home?"
I didn't answer. I just took out the second item from the box: an old MP3 player with chipped paint, so outdated it belonged in a museum.
I handed Harper the earphones.
"Listen to this."
She put them on, confused. I pressed play.
After a burst of static, a childish voice came through. It was a little girl reciting a lesson, broken and stumbling, every sentence full of stops.
In the background, there was laughter and noise from other kids. And also... a sharp, nasty female voice.
"Useless! You can't even memorize one stupid passage!
"No dinner for you! You don't eat until you can recite it!"
Bit by bit, the color drained from Harper's face. She started to take the earphones off, but I pressed down on her hand.
"Keep listening."
Then the little girl's crying came through the earphones, quiet, stifled sobbing. Then another girl's voice spoke up, smug and proud.
"Teacher, she's just stupid. She'll never learn in her whole life.
"Sadie, your mom didn't want you, and your dad didn't want you either. You're just a useless burden nobody wants.
"You're only fit for the trash heap."
That voice... Harper jerked her head up to look at me, horror filling her eyes.
She knew that voice too well. It was younger, sure, but that particular tone and rhythm were exactly the same as today's top star, Emily.
The recording kept playing.
The little girl shouted, "Emily! That's a lie!"
It was the girl called Sadie, crying as she shouted back.
"You're the trash! Your mom got caught stealing!"
Emily shrieked, "Shut up! Say that again and I'll rip your mouth apart!"
Then came the sounds of struggling and scuffling, along with the girls' sharp screams. And there, the recording cut off all at once.
Harper yanked off the earphones, her hands trembling slightly. She looked at me, lips moving, but no words came out.
I turned off the MP3, put it back into the box, and closed the lid, like I was sealing away a rotten piece of the past.
"My degree from Riverdale School of Arts is real."
I finally spoke, my voice still as still water. "But that belongs to Sophie Wells, not Sadie Wells."
"Sadie died when she was fifteen.
"She died in that group home during the winter."
I lifted my head and met Harper's stunned gaze. Then I logged into a social media account I hadn't touched in ten years.
And sent a message to a gray profile picture that had been buried in dust for just as long.
[Do you still remember Sadie Wells?]