Chapter 2

Maya

Ella didn't just wake up one day and decide to hijack my life. The delusion started small.

If someone asked about the Bentley dropping us off, she'd wave it off with a humble brag. "Oh, it's our driver. He just picks Maya up on the way as a favor."

When someone obsessed over the old designer bag I'd given her, she shrugged. "One of the maids dug it out of storage. My closet is literally overflowing, I can't keep track."

She took selfies in my family's garden and posted, Long day. Finally home. She snapped a sneaky pic of my dad's back as he was leaving the house, captioning it, Off to Europe again. CEO life is so boring.

When I first enrolled, my parents went out of their way to keep my profile low. I even took my mom's maiden name, Sinclair, instead of my dad's last name, Brooks, just to stay off the radar. Apart from the principal and a few board members, nobody knew the truth. It was supposed to keep me safe.

But Ella happened to share my dad's last name. She lived on our estate, rode in our car, wore my expensive hand-me-downs, and flooded her Instagram with photos of our home. She never actually said out loud that she was Daniel Brooks's daughter. She just engineered it so everyone else did the talking for her.

I caught onto the rumor at the start of junior year. A group of girls were doing their makeup at the bathroom sinks, completely oblivious to me being in a stall.

"Wait, Ella's dad is Daniel Brooks? She keeps it so low-key."

"No wonder she gets chauffeured in a Bentley."

"Then what's Maya Sinclair's deal?"

"Apparently, she's just some charity case the Brooks family sponsors. Who cares if she gets straight A's? They're practically paying her to exist."

I stepped out of the stall, and the bathroom went dead silent. Ella was standing right by the door. Panic flashed across her face when she saw me.

"I can't mind-control the whole school," I told her, crossing my arms. "But are you seriously letting everyone call my dad yours? Have you no shame?"

Cue the instant waterworks. "I never said that, Maya!"

"Oh, you didn't?" I pulled out my phone and shoved screenshots of her posts in her face.

She bit her lip, cornered. "I was just... jealous. I don't have a dad, and it hurts seeing yours treat you so perfectly."

"So being jealous gives you a free pass to steal my life?"

More girls pushed into the bathroom to watch the drama unfold. Ella immediately dialed up the tears. "Maya, I know you hate me. But my mom and I have taken care of you for years. Why do you have to be so vicious over a misunderstanding?"

In one breath, she'd flipped the script and made me the villain again.

By that evening, a post blew up on the school gossip forum: Charity student bullies rich classmate in public out of pure jealousy.

It didn't drop my name, but the comment section dragged me through the mud. They called me a toxic freeloader trying to take over the house that fed me. Someone even dug up an old photo of me in a designer coat, claiming I was digging through Ella's trash just to fake being rich.

I marched straight to Ella's room, my blood running hot. She had her head down, like she'd been waiting for me.

"Did you write that post?"

Right on cue, her voice broke. "I didn't! Why do you always blame me, Maya? I've never said a single bad word about you."

"Then drop a comment right now. Tell everyone you aren't Daniel Brooks's daughter and clear this up."

All the color drained from her face. Silence stretched between us.

"Are you seriously going to back me into a corner over this?" she finally asked.

"I'm backing you into a corner?"

She looked me dead in the eye. "Do you know how people treat me here? As long as they think I'm his daughter, I actually matter. If they find out my mom is just the maid, I'm socially dead. I'll never survive this school."

"So your master plan is to step on my neck to climb the social ladder?"

She didn't answer. She didn't have to. From that day on, she threw out the rulebook and went all-in on the lie.