Chapter 19 - THE ANNIVERSARY
One year to the day after everything changed—after the performance, the truth, the revelations—we gathered in the living room. My father. Claire. Me.
My father placed Elena’s blue journals on the coffee table. And beside them, the silver locket.
“Today,” he said, “we remember everything. We remember the pain. We remember the loss. But we also remember what we found. And what we saved.”
He opened the locket. Inside were Elena’s photo, the letter I wrote to her, and the torn and carefully taped pieces of Vanessa’s list.
“Every piece of our past belongs here,” he said. “The good and the bad. The truth and the lies. But we do not have to be defined by it. We are defined by what we choose.”
I reached out and touched the locket. “I choose love.”
May you like
Claire smiled. “I choose family.”
My father took both our hands. “I choose us.”
