Chapter Eleven – The Double Life
By day, Cinderella played the role of the quiet, obedient girl living under the roof of a woman who wore smiles like armor and spoke in sugary tones laced with venom. But by night—and in every moment she could carve out in between—she was someone else entirely.
She was a watcher. A recorder. A planner.
She was no longer waiting to be rescued. She was building the path herself.
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It began with a spreadsheet.
Each row listed a name: Rebecca, Stephen, Penelope. Each column tracked date, time, location, what was said, what was done, and any witnesses present. Cinderella stored it in a hidden folder on a cloud account accessible only by fingerprint.
She kept copies on a flash drive tucked behind the lining of one of her old ballet flats—a place no one would think to look.
Her documentation wasn't limited to words anymore. She took pictures when she could. Short videos. Voice recordings, especially of Rebecca's phone conversations when she spoke just loud enough in the kitchen or living room. Cinderella had an old burner phone Heather gave her, disguised as a clunky, outdated music player. That phone recorded everything.
Rebecca, unaware, gave her so much.
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Stephen had started sneaking out at night. Cinderella had tracked him twice, once after 11 p.m. on a Saturday. She followed from a distance, staying in the shadows, her phone camera steady. He met up with a group of older teens behind the abandoned hardware store at the edge of town. She filmed him exchanging a wad of cash for something in a paper bag.
She didn't need to know what it was.
She had the time stamp, the footage, the faces.
Penelope, on the other hand, had a different kind of secret.
She had a private Instagram account—@PennyRoyale_X—which she used to post filtered selfies, cruel captions, and snide videos mocking classmates. Cinderella had discovered it through mutual tags, and though the account was set to private, she made a fake profile, posed as a trendy fashion enthusiast, and was accepted within 24 hours.
The things Penelope posted were golden.
Cruelty on full display.
Evidence that her "sweet girl" image was nothing more than a carefully curated lie.
Cinderella took screenshots daily.
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But the most dangerous duplicity came from Rebecca herself.
She wasn't just visiting the law firm every Wednesday.
She was also meeting a man. Not Desmond. Not a business associate.
Cinderella had first noticed it during her walk home from school, taking a shortcut past the downtown cafés. Rebecca was sitting at an outdoor table, leaning close to a sharply dressed man in his forties with a gold watch and no wedding ring. They were laughing, touching hands across the table.
She snapped a photo just as Rebecca kissed the man's cheek.
The betrayal boiled in her veins—but not for Desmond's sake.
It was for her mother.
Caroline had loved Desmond. Had been devoted to him. And this woman—this imposter—was replacing her not just in the home, but in his heart. While simultaneously entertaining another man.
Cinderella printed the photo, tucked it into an envelope, and wrote on the front in neat letters: Truth is patient.
Then she placed it into her secret folder and locked the drawer.
Everything in its time.
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But gathering evidence wasn't enough. Cinderella knew she needed a foundation—something of her own. A way to gain independence. To earn money.
She couldn't rely on Desmond's protection or resources.
She needed her own.
And so, she began with the thing that came naturally—art.
She created a digital profile on an anonymous freelance platform under the alias "AshBelle"—a nod to the ash she was once named after and the beauty she was becoming. With Heather's help, she took clear photos of her drawings, cleaned them up digitally, and uploaded them to a print-on-demand site.
To her surprise, her first sketch—The Illusion of Power—was purchased as a canvas print by a user in another state. Then came more orders. A t-shirt design. A commissioned illustration for a poem. A book cover design for a self-published author.
Within two weeks, Cinderella had made $114.
It wasn't much.
But it was hers.
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Her second income stream came from tutoring.
Heather had spread the word at school, telling students Cinderella was offering quiet, private help with literature essays and art theory for a small fee. Within a few days, Cinderella had her first two clients. They met in the library after school, paid her in cash, and praised her patience and insight.
One of them, a shy junior named Elle, whispered, "You make me feel like I'm not stupid."
That compliment stayed with Cinderella all week.
Because she'd once believed she was, too.
She kept her earnings hidden in a small tin box, tucked behind a panel in her wardrobe. She didn't spend any of it—yet. It was emergency money. A silent lifeline. Freedom stitched together dollar by dollar.
Her days became a balance of survival and strategy.
School. Tutoring. Sketching late into the night. Recording Rebecca's calls. Screenshotting Penelope's venom. Mapping Stephen's movements. Filing it all away.
Rebecca may have thought Cinderella was just a ghost in the house—a leftover piece of Caroline's life too broken to fight back.
But ghosts could haunt.
And Cinderella had no intention of fading.
One Sunday afternoon, as the house buzzed with Desmond's weekend energy and Rebecca's theatrical hospitality, Cinderella sat calmly on the sofa, her sketchpad resting on her knees. Penelope scrolled through her phone beside her, snickering at something on her screen. Stephen was playing a video game in the corner.
Rebecca walked in, holding a tray of lemonade.
"Cinderella," she said with her ever-fake sweetness. "I noticed your laundry's been sitting for days. I'm sure you'd rather not live in such... untidy conditions."
Cinderella didn't even look up. "I'll take care of it after I finish tutoring this afternoon."
Rebecca's smile faltered just slightly. "Oh? Tutoring?"
"Yes," she replied, flipping to a new page. "For money. You know—something earned, not taken."
Rebecca blinked.
Desmond, who had just entered, chuckled. "That's my girl. Just like her mom—always independent."
Cinderella smiled without looking away from her paper.
She was no longer playing the victim.
She was playing the long game.
And in that game, knowledge was power. Money was leverage.
And secrets?
Well, secrets were the key to everything.