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Just eat more. Just push harder. Just... be better.

Be like Taly—the effortlessly strong, naturally graceful, always-rightSaviorof them all.

“Stair runs.” Taly flicked her chin towards the stairs. “Three times up and down. Then you can have a minute rest.”

“Oh, howgenerous,” Aimee grumbled, dragging herself to her feet. Her legs felt like lead. That horrid “protein” concoction Talya had forced on her for breakfast churned ominously in her stomach. She could still taste it—somewhere between burnt oats and wet chalk.

“And remember, they’re called stairruns, Aimee. Not staircrawls,” Taly called after her. “I want to see those knees up today.”

That something drew taut. Like a thread on a seam pulled too tight. It didn’t tear, but it bunched. Pulled the whole shape off-center.

“Can I get a spot?” Aiden asked

“Ooh,” Taly drawled. “Let me guess. Getting buff for Mina?”

He shushed her. “Keep your voice down.”

Taly’s laugh carried over the scrape of weights.

Aimee barely had the energy to grind her teeth. With Cori, the world had been split clean: the two of them on one side, everyone else—including Aiden—on the other.

But Cori was gone, and Aiden had chosen his side.

Her chest ached, exhaustion and grief blurring together into a single ugly feeling. How easily he laughed with Taly. How comfortably they whispered and joked—like Cori had never existed. Like Aimee was the only one who couldn’t move on.

Before she knew it, she’d spun. “He’s lying, by the way.”

Aiden’s brows rose.

“It’snotokay,” she spat. “He misses her. And every time you fail to remember, it’s like you’re killing her all over again. Do you understand, Taly? You’rehurtinghim.”

Taly’s eyes widened.

Aiden shook his head. “Aimee—”

But she scoffed. “Don’t you‘Aimee’me. Just because you’re not willing to say anything doesn’t mean I can’t. Why should you have to keep swallowing your grief just to protect her feelings when she’s the one who can’t remember?”

Aiden sighed. “Taly, I’m sorry. I don’t why she’s acting like this.”

Aimee barked a laugh, harsh and joyless.

Taly only shook her head, features schooled, but her throat bobbed with a hard swallow she couldn’t quite hide. “Come on, Aiden. It’s not like I don’t know your sister can be a bitch.”

Aimee’s smile was knife-thin. “Better a bitch and honest than someone who hurts the people she supposedly cares about.”

“Honest? You?” Taly laughed. “The same woman who thought pretending to not have a brain would make Skye fall in love. You must be working off a different definition.”

Aiden glanced between them. “Fuck.” He looked for an exit, only to realize he was caged on both sides.

“You—” Aimee growled, hands curling into fists. “You’re a selfish, insufferable brat!”

“And you’re vapid and shallow,” Taly shot back.

“I genuinely wonder how we could possibly share ancestors.”

“Oh, believe me, the feeling’s mutual.”

“Cori was good.”