Chapter 2

"Ethan, what are you talking about?" My mom's voice sounded tight and terribly strained. "Claire and Chloe were identical twins. Of course she looks like her..."

My dad let out a heavy sigh. "Losing Claire crushed all of us. But please, son, don't say things like this..."

Ethan looked at them like they were the ones who had lost their minds. "Who's joking? This is Claire! Why do you keep insisting she's Chloe? Do you really think I wouldn't recognize my own girlfriend?!"

"Claire, look at me. Look at me!" Ethan grabbed my hand again, his voice dropping into a desperate plea. "Stop messing with me, please?"

I pulled my hand free. "I'm not her. I'm Chloe. You're mistaken."

My parents quickly stepped between us and hurried me away.

Once we got back to the house, my mom sat beside me on the couch, running a trembling hand through my curls, her eyes brimmed with sorrow.

"Chloe... are you... are you really Chloe?"

My dad stood by the window, chain-smoking in silence, before sharply barking, "What kind of crazy nonsense is that to ask her?!"

Yet he made no move to stop her. His gaze drifted toward me, lingering with unspoken doubt.

A sharp, suffocating ache flared in my chest. They really were wondering it, weren't they? Was the girl in that grave truly my sister?

Tears welled up in my eyes, burning hot as I stared at my mom with a red-rimmed gaze. "If... if only one of us could have made it out alive... did you both wish with all your hearts that it was her... and not me?"

I didn't want to cry, but the moment the words tumbled out, my voice fractured into a sob.

Growing up, with Claire always standing ahead of me, I was forever the one cast into the background, an invisible shadow trailing behind her brilliance.

Her name meant light; mine was just a quiet echo. The moon produces no light of its own—it merely reflects the radiance of the sun.

But even when it came down to life and death, was I still supposed to be the disposable one? I was their daughter too. Why did it have to be so unfair?

"Sweetheart, that's not what Mom meant..." Seeing the raw hurt and tears streaming down my cheeks, my mom let out a ragged breath and seemed to snap back to reality.

Of course. Claire never looked helpless or broke down in tears like this.

When we were little, some cash went missing from my mom's purse, and she assumed my sister and I had sneaked it out to buy candy.

Back then, being wrongfully accused made me dissolve into a puddle of tears, sobbing over and over that I didn't touch it.

Claire, however, had held her head high and looked our mom right in the eye. She said Dad bought us all the candy we ever wanted, so we had no reason to steal money, and that Mom must have misplaced it somewhere and shouldn't pin the blame on us.

Claire always tackled problems with calm, razor-sharp logic. She never whimpered in a corner.

That night, sleep completely eluded me. I sat up in bed and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

An identical face.

Yet never as widely loved as hers.

Still, Claire had always been wonderful to me. She loved me fiercely, and I loved her just as much.

I had no right to resent her.

Ethan called me Claire, utterly convinced I was his girl.

What he didn't know was just how desperately I had wished to be her.

For all those years, God, how I had longed to become Claire.