006

**Elara Pov**

I continued sitting at the park, watching people walk past me as they went about their lives, some laughing with their friends, some holding hands with their partners, and others simply walking with their heads buried in their phones. I didn't know how long I had been sitting there, but I wasn't ready to go back home yet. Just the thought of seeing Kael's face again made my stomach twist, and I found myself clenching my fingers against the fabric of my skirt as if I could somehow squeeze the memory of him out of my head. That man was the most heartless creature I had ever met in my life, and after everything he had done to me in high school, I couldn't understand how I had ended up living under the same roof as him again. I wished I could go back to the time before our parents got married, before I had to wake up every morning knowing that somewhere in the same house was the boy who had made my life miserable. I wished I could erase him from my life completely, but deep down, I knew that was impossible. As long as Mom was married to his father, Kael would always be somewhere around me.

This morning, I had woken up feeling weak, my head pounding so badly that even opening my eyes had felt like too much work. I had stared at the ceiling for several minutes, wondering why I should even bother getting out of bed and going to school when I already knew how the day would end. What was the point of sitting through classes just to spend every break trying to avoid Kael and his friends? I had pulled the blanket over my head and wished I could stay there forever, but eventually, I forced myself out of bed and left the house instead. I didn't want Mom to find out that I had skipped school, because I knew she would be angry with me, and she would probably give me another lecture about how I needed to stop allowing Kael to get under my skin. She never understood what it felt like to be bullied by someone you couldn't escape from, someone whose voice could still crawl beneath your skin long after he had walked away. Living in the same house as Kael sometimes felt like sleeping in the same room as the devil and pretending you couldn't see the horns growing from his head. He didn't need to touch me to hurt me; sometimes a single look from him was enough to make every humiliating memory from high school come rushing back.

Sometimes, I wished Mom had never married Mr. Richard. Maybe if she hadn't, I would never have crossed paths with Kael again after high school, and perhaps I could have finally forgotten what it felt like to be the girl everyone laughed at because she was too quiet to defend herself. But I couldn't blame Mom completely. She loved Mr. Richard, and she believed marrying him would give us the kind of life we had never been able to afford. She wanted something better for both of us, and I knew she had spent too many years struggling to simply throw away a chance at happiness. If there was anyone I truly blamed, it was my father.

He was the one who had walked away and left Mom to raise me alone, the one who had disappeared when I was only two years old without giving me an explanation I could understand. Even now, whenever I tried to picture his face, there was always something missing, like a piece of a photograph had been ripped away. I had asked Mom about him so many times when I was younger, but she would always become quiet, her fingers tightening around whatever she was holding before she changed the subject. Eventually, I stopped asking.

Sometimes I wondered what my life would have been like if he had stayed. Maybe Mom wouldn't have struggled so much. Maybe we wouldn't have needed Mr. Richard. Maybe I wouldn't be sitting here now, trying to figure out how to survive living with Kael Blackwood. But the thought that hurt the most was knowing that my father hadn't only left me behind; he had taken my twin brother with him. Mom once told me that I had a twin brother, even though I had no memories of him. We were only two years old when we were separated, too young for me to understand what was happening or to remember the sound of his voice, the way he smiled. My father had taken him with him, along with the photographs we had taken together, leaving me with nothing but a story Mom was reluctant to tell.

Sometimes I pressed my fingers against my palm and tried to imagine what it would feel like to have a brother who looked like me, someone who shared the same face, the same blood, and the same beginning. I wondered if he had my eyes. If he smiled the way I did. If he had the same little habits Mom always complained about when I was younger. I wondered if he even knew he had a twin sister somewhere in the world, someone who had spent years looking up at the same sky and wishing that, somehow, the two of us would find each other again. Maybe he had forgotten me completely. Maybe he had been told that I was dead, or that I had never existed at all. The thought made my chest ache, but I had no answers. No one knew about him, not even Mr. Richard or Kael.

I tilted my head back and stared at the sky, letting the cool breeze brush against my face as strands of hair slipped across my cheeks. I closed my eyes and made the same wish I had made countless times before, the one I had whispered silently whenever I found myself wondering about the little boy who had been taken away from me. One day, we will meet again. I didn't know where he was or what kind of man he had become, but I wanted to believe that somewhere out there, he was looking at the same sky and wondering about me too. My throat tightened as I held onto that thought, and when I finally opened my eyes, something warm slipped down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away with the back of my hand, but another tear followed, rolling toward my jaw before I could stop it.

"Here."

The unfamiliar voice came from beside me, and I froze. My fingers stopped halfway to my face as I slowly turned toward the person standing near me. A hand was held out in front of me, and resting between his fingers was a neatly folded handkerchief. For a moment, I simply stared at it, almost forgetting that I had been crying until another tear gathered at the corner of my eye. I reached out slowly, my fingertips brushing against his fingers as I took the handkerchief from him. The brief touch sent a strange sensation through my skin, and I quickly pulled my hand back before pressing the soft fabric against my cheek, wiping away the tears I hadn't even realized were still falling. Only after I had done that did I finally raise my eyes to the person standing before me.

And then I saw his eyes.

I stopped breathing.

They were the same color as mine.

Not similar. Not close.

The same shade.

For a moment, I stared at them without blinking, my fingers slowly lowering from my face. Something about those eyes felt strangely familiar, even though I had never seen this man before in my life. They carried a warmth I couldn't explain, yet there was something deeper beneath it that made my chest tighten. I had spent years wondering what my twin brother's eyes looked like, wondering whether he had inherited them from Mom or Dad.

And now I was staring into a stranger's eyes that looked exactly like mine.

The thought was ridiculous.

It had to be.

The person standing before me was so handsome that for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. His black hair was slightly curled, falling naturally over his forehead, and his pointed nose gave his face a sharp yet attractive look. His pink lips curved slightly as he watched me, his expression calm and friendly, completely unaware of the storm of questions beginning to form inside my head. I found myself staring longer than I should have, taking in every little detail of his face while my fingers tightened around the handkerchief in my lap.

"Hey."

His hand moved slowly in front of my face.

I blinked several times, finally realizing that I had been staring at him again. I quickly shook my head and lowered my gaze, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear as heat crept up my neck. I couldn't understand why I was behaving this way around a stranger. Maybe it was because of his eyes. Maybe my mind was simply searching for a connection where there wasn't one.

"Can I sit with you?"

I heard him ask.

A part of me wanted to shake my head and tell him no. I had come to the park because I wanted to be alone, and the last thing I needed was someone sitting beside me and asking questions about why I was crying. But when I looked at him again, I couldn't bring myself to reject him. Nothing was threatening about him. Instead, there was something oddly comforting in the way he looked at me, as if sitting beside me was the most natural thing in the world.

So I slowly nodded.

I felt the bench shift beneath me as he sat down beside me, leaving a small space between us. I kept my eyes lowered, staring at my hands as I rubbed my thumb over the edge of the handkerchief he had given me. I could feel the warmth coming from his body through the small space between us, and somehow, his presence didn't make me want to move away. My heart continued beating against my ribs, and every few seconds, my eyes betrayed me by drifting toward him before I quickly looked away again.

"Damon."

His voice finally broke the silence.

I slowly raised my head, realizing that he was introducing himself. "Damon," I repeated silently, letting the unfamiliar name settle in my mind.

Then our eyes met again.

Those eyes.

For some strange reason, neither of us looked away. The sounds of the park seemed to fade into the background as we simply stared at each other, our gazes locked for several seconds. I didn't know why his eyes felt so familiar. I didn't know why looking into them made something inside me ache, as though some forgotten memory was desperately trying to claw its way to the surface.

My lips parted, but the words caught somewhere in my throat.

"Elara," I finally whispered.