I learned long ago that Aribba wasn’t always venom. We grew up sharing secrets under blankets, whispering dreams like they were sacred scriptures. When I married Daniel at twenty-two, she cried harder than I did. She hugged me, swearing she would always protect me. But I learned a hard lesson after Daniel died: some people are only kind when you are beneath them. As long as I was the happy wife, she was the supportive sister.

But after the cancer took Daniel, after I was left with a toddler, crushing medical debts, and a grief that hollowed out my bones, she changed. My vulnerability fed her ego. My struggle became her stage. When I lost the apartment and had to move into our mother’s guest wing temporarily, I became the family punchline. They laughed at the widow. The broke one. The failure.

Every joke carved something out of me. Every snide comment about my worn-out shoes or Mina’s hand-me-down clothes chipped away at my soul. But I stayed quiet. I learned that silence was not weakness. It was storage. I was archiving everything.

“Smile, Samara,” Aribba called out, raising her glass toward me. “It’s a celebration. Don’t look so tragic. It spoils the aesthetic.”