You stood frozen in the attic, dust motes swirling around you like ghosts of something you didn’t want to name. Christopher hovered nearby, shoulders tense, lips pressed into a hard line as he held the yellowed birth certificate in trembling hands.

“This can’t be real,” you whispered, though the words felt hollow in your throat.

Christopher didn’t look at you—his eyes were fixed on the paper, reading the names again and again like the truth would change if he just willed it hard enough. “Same mother,” he said, barely above a murmur. “Same father.”

Your breath caught. “They lied to us.”

He finally looked at you. There was something raw in his expression—anger, betrayal, disbelief—but deeper than that, a kind of heartbreak that mirrored your own.

“All this time,” he said slowly, as if each word hurt to say. “I thought we were cousins. I thought… this was normal.”

You blinked hard, trying to make sense of the pieces. The shared glances at family dinners. The strange way your parents tightened up whenever you and Christopher got too close. The awkward silences no one ever explained.

“They kept us apart,” you said, your voice shaking. “And now they’re pretending none of it ever happened.”

Christopher stepped closer, the paper still in his hand, crumpling slightly under the pressure of his grip. “They covered it up,” he said. “Because they were ashamed.”