I wanted to scream, to curse, to demand why she had deceived me. But as I looked at her—shaking, fragile, drowning in shame—I saw not a liar, but a woman who had spent her entire life in someone else’s shadow, unseen and unloved.

Tears burned my eyes. My chest ached with grief—for Anna, for the years stolen, for the cruel trick of fate.

I whispered hoarsely, “So who are you, really?”

She lifted her face, broken.

“My name is Eleanor. And all I wanted was… to know what it feels like to be chosen. Just once.”

That night, I lay awake beside her, unable to close my eyes. My heart was torn in two—between the ghost of the girl I once loved and the lonely woman who had borrowed her face.

And I realized then: love in old age isn’t always a gift.

Sometimes, it’s a test—one cruel enough to remind you that even the heart, after all these years, can still break.