Zara's pov
They say some girls are born with silver spoons in their mouths.
I was born with expectations.
Loud ones.
Sharp ones.
Ones that echoed through the marble halls of our house, where my mother walked like a queen and judged like a jury.
I wasn't allowed to cry.
I wasn't allowed to fall behind.
And most of all, I wasn't allowed to forget who Safiya really was.
It started when I was nine.
I was hiding by the stairs, listening to my parents argue — not for the first time.
"He stole the land," my mother hissed. "Your friend. Musa Ahmad. He took what your father left you and gave nothing back."
My father didn't deny it. He just muttered something about "family comes before revenge."
But my mother's voice didn't bend.
"Tell Zara the truth. Let her know who she's living beside. Let her know that girl—Safiya—smiles with a father who made ours kneel."
Something broke in me that day.
Not because I believed her.
But because I wanted not to.
And I couldn't.
Every time Safiya laughed with me, every time we walked home together and braided stories under the mango tree, something twisted in my chest.
She was kind.
Too kind.
That's what made it worse.
I wanted to hate her.
I tried.
But hating her was like stabbing myself and hoping she'd bleed.
Until that one day—
When I saw her walking home with zayd.
Laughing.
Too close.
Too happy.
And something… snapped.
Because I liked him first.
And because he looked at her the way I once looked at her—like she was light.
And I?
I was the shadow.
That's when I made the decision.
To cut her off before she could cut me.
To ruin her before she could replace me.
And when the gossip page admin offered to "make her a trend," I didn't say no.
I sent the notes.
I watched the video.
I laughed louder than anyone else.
And that night—
I cried so hard my throat burned.
But I wasn't sorry.
Because being sorry meant being weak.
And in my mother's house, weakness was sin.