Chapter 2 - The Boy in the Photograph
My hands wouldn't cooperate.
A hundred and six people sat frozen in their pews, watching me hold a photograph face-down at my own wedding, and I could not make my fingers turn it over.
"Wesley." My voice came out thin, unfamiliar even to me. "What is this?"
He didn't answer right away. His jaw was set tight, his eyes glassy and wet.
My maid of honor, Priya, took one small step toward the altar, her heels clicking once against stone before she stopped herself.
The priest stood completely still, his hands folded, waiting.
Slowly, I flipped the photograph over.
It showed a little boy and a little girl, maybe five years old, standing in front of a house I recognized instantly — Wesley's old house, four doors down. The girl had a gap in her front teeth and crooked pigtails.
That was me.
But the boy in the photo wasn't him. It wasn't Wesley.
I looked up, searching his face. "Who is this?"
"That's me," he said quietly. "The real me."
Something shifted through the church, a ripple of confusion moving pew by pew. Somebody near the back let out a small, startled sound.
"I wasn't the boy you grew up with, Claire." His voice broke clean in half on my name. "Wesley was. Wesley was my older brother. He died two years after we moved. I've been carrying his name this whole time because I didn't know any other way to come back to you."
My grandmother's veil suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds on my head.
"Then who are you?"
He opened his mouth to answer.
That's when the church doors swung open behind us.
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What Claire found out next — and who walked through those doors — changes everything.
The full story is at the link below. You won't be able to stop reading.
