So, Ive got this story to shareits a proper emotional rollercoaster. Right, here we go:
Im Edward, sixty-one this year. My wife passed away eight years ago, and since then, lifes felt like one long, quiet evening that never quite ends. My kids are lovely, popping round now and then with bags of shopping, dropping off my prescriptions, but theyre always rushing off again. Their lives move at a hundred miles an hour, and Im just here.
I thought Id got used to being on my ownuntil one night, scrolling through Facebook, I saw a name I never thought Id see again: *Sophie Hartley*.
Sophiemy first love. The girl I swore Id marry one day. She had hair like golden wheat and a laugh thats stayed with me for forty-odd years. But life got in the way. Her family moved to Scotland overnight, and before I could even say goodbye, she was married off to someone else.
Then there she washer photo staring back at me, silver streaks in her hair but that same soft smile. Time might as well have rewound itself. We started chatting, reminiscing over messages, then phone calls, then meeting up for tea in little cafés in Bath. It was like no time had passed at all.
So, at sixty-one, I married my first love.
We kept it simple. I wore my best tweed jacket; she wore a cream lace dress. Our friends said we looked like a pair of lovestruck teenagers. For the first time in years, I felt properly alive.
That night, after everyone had left, I poured us each a glass of sherry and led her upstairs. Our wedding nightsomething I never thought Id have again.
But when I helped her out of her dress, I noticed something odda scar near her shoulder, another on her wrist. I didnt care about the scars, but the way she stiffened when I touched them that worried me.
Sophie, I said gently, did someone hurt you?
She went still. Her eyes dartedfear, guilt, then sheer panicbefore she whispered something that turned my stomach to ice.
Edward my name isnt Sophie.
The room went dead silent. My heart hammered like mad.
What what dyou mean?
She looked down, shaking.
Sophie was my sister.
I stumbled back, my head spinning. The girl Id carried in my heart all these yearsgone?
She died, the woman said, tears rolling down her cheeks. Years ago. My parents never talked about it. But everyone always said I was her spitting imagesame voice, same mannerisms. I was just her shadow. When you found me online, I I couldnt help myself. You thought I was her. And for once, someone looked at me the way they used to look at Sophie. I didnt want to let that go.
The floor might as well have dropped out from under me. My first love was gone. The woman in front of me wasnt herjust a reflection, wearing Sophies memories like a borrowed coat.
I wanted to shout, to demand why shed lied. But as I looked at hertrembling, ashamedI didnt see a liar. I saw a woman whod spent her whole life invisible, always second-best.
My eyes stung. My chest achedfor Sophie, for the years we lost, for the rotten twist of fate.
I swallowed hard. So who are you, then?
She lifted her face, shattered.
My name is Beatrice. And all I ever wanted was to know what it felt like to be loved. Just once.
That night, I lay awake beside her, staring at the ceiling. My heart was split right down the middlebetween the ghost of the girl Id loved and the lonely woman whod taken her place.
And it hit me then: love when youre older isnt always a blessing.
Sometimes, its a testone cruel enough to prove that even after all these years, your heart can still shatter.
