Aria rolled her shoulders slowly, drawing in a long breath. Her usual energy was muted, simring beneath the surface instead of exploding outward like it normally did. A strange calm had settled over her features, but her eyes still sparkled with that familiar fire.
Then, with a quiet exhale, her wings began to grow.
Feathers shimred into place, light bending around them as they rapidly stretched outward until they reached their original, enormous size. The sheer wingspan brushed against the walls and ceiling of the gym, casting shifting shadows across the faces of the group. Their presence was striking, powerful and undeniablly beautiful.
Aria stood tall beneath them and looked around at the others, her expression more serious than any of them were used to.
"Well," she said, her voice casual at first, "since everyone’s in the mood to get real... I guess it’s my turn."
Adam stiffened slightly. His brows pulled together in concern.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "You don’t have to, Aria. Nobody here is going to hold anything against you if you want to keep it to yourself."
Aria blinked, surprised. Her gaze softened as she turned to him, lips twitching upward in a grateful smile.
"No secrets, right?"
Adam exhaled and raised both hands in surrender, stepping back without another word.
Aria nodded once, then turned back to face the rest of the group. She took one more breath and cleared her throat.
"As you all know, my stage na is Ari. The reason for that is because my father, Gerard Eversong decided that. He wanted to market as a man not as a ans to protect but that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want a daughter who can sing and dance...he wanted a son to do that."
Aria’s voice wavered for the first ti as the words left her mouth. She cleared her throat again, trying to steady it.
"I wasn’t even supposed to be Aria," she continued, looking down at her hands. "My father, Gerard Eversong, made sure of that. From the mont I could talk, he told that being wasn’t enough. He decided who I would be. ’Ari’ wasn’t a nickna. It was a disguise. A brand."
The feathers on her wings fluttered slightly as her emotions stirred behind her carefully composed expression.
"He dressed it up like protection. Said the industry wouldn’t accept otherwise. That no one would respect a girl singing the way I did. He had this whole plan laid out. A marketing machine. He gave my stage na, my look, my songs. But the truth is, he didn’t want a daughter at all."
Lily’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Rachel crossed her arms, lips pursed. Penny looked visibly angry but remained still, letting Aria speak.
Aria tilted her chin up and kept going. "I followed the plan. I played along. I wanted to make him proud. And I was good at it. The fa ca easy. Fans, interviews, all of it. But every ti I looked in the mirror, I saw soone that didn’t exist. Soone he built out of expectations and lies."
She looked up at the group now, her expression harder. "I was trapped in a perfect little cage. No one saw the real . And if I even tried to show it, he’d remind how much I owed him. He said I was nothing without his vision. That I’d be forgotten in a week if I dared to be myself."
She crossed her arms in front of her chest as if she was comforting herself as her voice dropped to a near whisper as Adam began shifting, clearly feeling a bit uncomfortable himself.
"Then one day he told that we were going to seal a deal that would solve all my problems. As if being a woman was so bad..."
The girls began to scowl, their own anger starting to soar as they listened to Aria’s history.
Luna’s jaw tightened as her gaze dropped to the floor, shadows falling across her face. Penny muttered sothing under her breath that was definitely not appropriate for polite company, her fists clenched at her sides. Even Lily, who was often cold and unreadable, looked visibly disgusted, her eyes narrowing further with every word Aria spoke. Rachel said nothing, but her tail flicked behind her like a whip, a silent but seething reaction.
Aria gave a small, bitter laugh.
"My father took to the Samael family estate not long after. He didn’t say why, just told to dress the part and keep my mouth shut. I did."
She paused and looked over at Adam, her expression unreadable. "That’s when I t you. And Blair."
Adam’s brows drew tight as a flicker of sothing painful passed through his expression. He nodded slowly, already dreading what ca next.
"I didn’t know what the eting was about at first," Aria said. "But it didn’t take long. My father had made a deal with Blair. In exchange for backing the Samael family politically and financially, he wanted Blair to... fix ."
Leo shifted uncomfortably, frowning. Greg was still and quiet, but his fingers curled against his arm like he was holding sothing in. Rachel blinked and looked from Aria to Adam with growing realization. Penny straightened, her mouth set in a thin line.
"He didn’t an therapy," Aria said flatly. "He didn’t an rebranding. He wanted a full transformation. Body, hormones, surgery. A complete erasure. He wanted to turn his product of Ari into a man. A real man. So Blair could do whatever the hell he wanted to perfect it. Blair then chose Adam to ’lead’ this endeavour. "
Everyone looked at Adam in shock but he remained quiet and shook his head. This was her story to tell. Just as Rachel was about to ask a question, Aria smiled for the first ti since she began talking about her past.
"But instead of listening to Blair or my father, Adam did his own thing. He pretended to go along with their request but said in order to succeed, he would need to take custody of for a while...I thought my father would have decked him then and there...but he agreed. In an odd way, Adam was the one who set free from my cage...even if it’s only temporary."
Everyone had a violent reaction at the final word.
"Temporary?" Leo growled, cracking his knuckles, already imagining the man he wanted to punch in the face...repeatedly.
"I do not agree to that!" Lily practically shouted while Rachel followed up with a nod of her head
"You’re ours now! We ain’t giving you back! If he has a problem with that, he can go suck a dick!"
Penny stomped her foot and scread "Ugh! What a fucking asshole! Greg! Adam! Leo! Let’s go find this prick and jump him!"
Greg stretched his arms as he nodded his head in a serious manner "That sounds like a plan to !"
Aria seeing the guys so eager to gang up and beat up her father was both alarming and amusing to her. She tried her best to not laugh but she couldn’t stop the giggles that kept slipping from her lips.
It felt really good to have supportive friends like these.
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