“But when the second one was born,” she continued, her voice dropping to a fragile whisper, “he was taken away. I didn’t even get to see his face or touch his skin. I just saw him being carried off into the cold hallway.”
Afonso exhaled sharply, clearly struggling to keep his temper in check. “You need to see a psychiatrist, Penelope. This isn’t normal anymore. You need professional help to scrub these delusions from your head. It’s the exact same dream every single time. My love, we only had one child. You were only pregnant with Ashton. They weren’t twins.”
My mother didn’t answer right away. Her lost gaze drifted across the dark room while her mind desperately clawed at the past. She remembered the pregnancy with crystal clarity. The sheer, exaggerated size of her belly at barely six months. The endless, exhausting doctor visits. She remembered looking at Afonso, her eyes shining with hope, telling him she could swear she felt two distinct heartbeats fluttering inside her.
“I was so sure,” she murmured, the emotion thick in her throat. “So completely sure there were two. It wasn’t just a physical feeling. It was like I already knew their souls, even before they took their first breath.”
She remembered the crushing disappointment in that sterile doctor’s office when the sonographer dryly stated there was only one baby. Even on delivery day, a deep part of her had waited for two cries to fill the delivery room.
Afonso’s heavy hand pulled her back to the present. “Honey, let’s leave this behind us. You’ll seek help tomorrow. I’ll even go with you if you want,” he offered smoothly, eager to shut the conversation down.
Penelope gave a slow, defeated nod. Afonso clicked off the lamp, rolled over, and was snoring within minutes. But my mother stayed awake, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, wondering why the phantom ache of a missing child never left her soul. She promised herself that, at dawn, she would bury the past and focus only on me.
The next morning, the sun crept over the horizon, casting a shy golden light across the breakfast table. Looking tired but carrying herself with her usual fierce elegance, my mother finished her coffee. I was sitting right across from her, silently pushing my food around my plate.
“I’ll drop Ashton off at school and then head straight to the company,” she announced, adjusting the strap of her purse. “Will you join me at the office, Afonso?”
My father, dressed in sharp, casual clothes, smiled. But the warmth never reached his eyes. “I’ll be along a bit later, dear. I need to stop by my sister’s house first.”
The moment he mentioned his sister, my stomach twisted into a tight, ugly knot. A quick, dark frown slipped onto my face. I couldn’t stand the woman. My mother, busy gathering her keys, didn’t catch my reaction. But Afonso saw it. He just stared right through me, pretending I hadn’t reacted at all. A few minutes later, Mom and I were out the door.
The second the sound of our car engine faded down the driveway, the charming husband routine vanished. Afonso’s face hardened into a mask of pure, severe panic. His hands actually shook as he grabbed his phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.
“Penelope is having those dreams about twin children again, and it’s happening more often,” he hissed into the receiver, his voice dripping with tension. He paced the empty living room, glancing over his shoulder like a cornered animal. “I fear she might somehow dig up what really happened on the day of Ashton’s birth. I’m on my way there right now. We need to talk. I need your help to rip this story out of her head before it’s too late.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply, grabbed his keys, and bolted out the door. The dark secret he had spent over a decade burying was clawing its way to the surface, threatening to burn his luxurious life to the ground.
A few hours later, I was sitting in my classroom, but my mind was millions of miles away. The school hummed with the usual morning energy, but I was entirely checked out. I stared blankly at the chalk equations on the board, seeing nothing but deep blue eyes and dirt-smudged cheeks.
“Ashton? Is everything alright?”
My teacher’s gentle voice broke through the fog. She stepped up to my desk, looking concerned. “You seem terribly distracted today.”
I jerked upright, forcing a quick, apologetic smile. “Sorry, teacher. I just didn’t sleep very well last night,” I lied smoothly.
Knowing I was usually at the top of the class, she gave me a sympathetic nod and moved on. I tried to focus, but it was like trying to catch water with my bare hands. The dirty boy from the alley simply wouldn’t let me go.
When the recess bell finally screamed through the halls, I shot out of my chair, practically running over my classmates to get to the door. I was halfway across the sunlit courtyard when I heard my name.
“Ashton, wait up!”
Hazel, my absolute best friend and the smartest girl I knew, jogged up behind me, totally breathless. I stopped and turned to face her. She crossed her arms, her sharp eyes studying my face.
“What is going on with you? You’re acting super weird today. You haven’t even looked at me.” She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is it because of what you saw your father doing?”
I quickly glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind the large oak tree at the edge of the yard.
“It has nothing to do with my father,” I muttered, kicking at the dirt. “It’s something else. Something that happened yesterday outside the party. Something totally bizarre.”
Hazel’s eyes lit up like fireworks. She lived for drama. “What? You have to tell me,” she practically begged.
I took a deep, shaky breath. “I saw a boy, Hazel. A boy who looked exactly like me.”
She frowned, waving her hand dismissively. “Like a doppelganger? That’s completely normal. My mom read an article saying everyone has at least three doppelgangers walking around in the world.”
“No, Hazel, listen to me,” I insisted, grabbing her shoulders. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t just a strong resemblance. He was identical. Same exact height. Same eye color. Same hair. Even his voice sounded just like mine.”
Hazel stopped moving, her jaw dropping slightly.
“Except he was covered in dirt,” I rushed on. “His clothes were shredded. It was like looking at myself living a completely different life. Like someone tore a hole into a parallel universe, you know?”
She tapped her chin, the gears in her head turning at top speed. “Are you absolutely sure? Exactly alike?”
I nodded so hard my neck hurt. “I swear to you. Identical.”
“So, what did you do?” she demanded.
