The house smelled like garlic knots, freshly cut flowers, and too many personalities in one room. The kind of familiar chaos that only a McRae family reunion could pull off. Aunts laughed like foghorns from the kitchen. Cousins darted barefoot across the living room, sugar-crazed and sticky with juice. Someone had already spilled red wine on the white rug. And your dad, bless him, was trying to man the grill in the backyard like it was a high-stakes warzone.

You were trying to exist in the in-between.

Not the kitchen, not the backyard, not the loud spaces where people asked what you were working on now and smiled in that way that was kind but also pitying. You hovered by the bookshelf in the hallway, drink in hand, pretending to study the old framed photos—Tate with braces and you with a scraped knee, matching gap-toothed grins and marker-stained fingers.

That was back before everything.

Before millions of followers. Before stadiums. Before she became Tate McRae™ and you became Tate McRae’s twin.

“She’s here!” someone called from the front hall, and you already felt your breath catch in your throat.

It was like a storm rolling in—excitement swirled and shifted through the room. Heads turned, voices raised, camera phones appeared like magic.

Tate entered with no fanfare, baseball cap low over her forehead, sunglasses halfway tucked into the collar of her tank top, clutching a Tupperware of her signature pasta salad. She tried—really tried—to come in quiet. She even nudged her hip into yours when she passed and said, “You wore that shirt I love.” Softly, privately.

You smiled. But the wave had already started.

“Aghhh, she’s so much taller in person!”

“She’s got that celebrity glow, doesn’t she?”

“Can I get a selfie real quick?”

And just like that, she was swallowed whole by a sea of uncles and second cousins and people you barely remembered sharing Christmas with. Her pasta salad ended up abandoned on the counter, untouched. Everyone wanted a piece of her, as always. Even when she didn’t want to be the center, she was the sun.

You took a long sip of your drink and turned to head outside.

It was your house. Your backyard. Your guest list. But it didn’t feel like yours anymore.

You found refuge by the fire pit, poking at charred wood with a stick, the crackle of embers louder than the low chatter from inside. You didn’t mind being second. You never said you minded. But sometimes it felt like being second wasn’t even yours to choose.

“Hey.” Her voice behind you, hushed, careful.

You didn’t look up. “Shouldn’t you be inside charming the universe?”

She sat down beside you on the ground, crossed her legs, and leaned back on her palms. “I tried to not make it a big thing.”

“I know.”

“I came in late on purpose. Didn’t wear makeup. Literally brought pasta salad.”

You huffed out a laugh. “It was a noble attempt.”

A long silence stretched between you, soft and a little heavy.

Tate sighed. “You know what sucks?”

“What?”

“That they ask you about me more than they ask you about you. I hear it. Every time.”

You looked at her then. Same eyes. Same cheekbones. Same dimple in the left cheek. But hers was always captured in slow-motion, drenched in spotlight. Yours was… real-time. Unfiltered. Quiet.

“I’m not mad at you,” you said finally. “Just tired.”

She nodded. “Tired of living in the echo of my name.”

That made your chest tighten.

“I don’t want to be the reason you feel small,” she whispered.

You shook your head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You worked your ass off and got everything you deserve. But sometimes… I wish they saw us as two people, you know? Two different people.”

Tate leaned over, resting her head on your shoulder. “You’re better than me at like—twenty different things. Seriously. You’re funnier. You’re more patient. You remember birthdays. I forget what day it is half the time.”