"She's the reason I can't love you."
For several seconds, Amelia couldn't move.
The rain had grown heavier, striking the windows of the old music room with a relentless rhythm. The photograph trembled between her fingers, but she barely noticed it.
Rei stood in front of her, his expression unreadable.
"Say something," Amelia whispered.
He lowered his eyes.
"Amelia..."
"No. You don't get to say my name like that and expect everything to become easier." She held up the photograph. "Who is she?"
"Liora."
"I know her name. I want to know why she's standing beside us in a photograph taken on the night I supposedly disappeared."
Rei's jaw tightened.
"Because she was there."
"Where?"
"At the conservatory."
Amelia stared at him.
"Then why did she tell me I disappeared that night? Why does everyone talk as if something happened that nobody is willing to explain?"
"Because something did happen."
"And you know what it was."
He didn't answer.
Amelia laughed once, without humour.
"Wonderful. Another secret. I was beginning to worry we'd run out."
She moved towards the door.
Rei caught up with her, but he didn't touch her.
"Please, just listen to me."
"Why? So you can tell me another half-truth?"
"Because I owe you the truth, even if you never forgive me for it."
That stopped her.
For the first time, Rei looked less like someone guarding a secret and more like someone who had been carrying it for so long that he had forgotten how to put it down.
"Then start talking," Amelia said.
Rei took a slow breath.
"Do you remember the last time we played our song together as children?"
"Of course I do."
"Tell me what you remember."
Amelia frowned.
"We were at the conservatory. You kept playing the wrong note, and I told you that if you ruined our song one more time, I'd never play with you again."
"You threw a music book at me."
"You deserved it."
"You missed."
"I was eight!"
Despite everything, a faint smile touched his face.
Then it vanished.
"You were angry with me," he continued. "You ran out of the room. I followed you, but you wouldn't tell me what was wrong."
"I don't remember that part."
"Because that's where your memory becomes unclear."
Amelia's stomach tightened.
"What are you saying?"
"That night, you discovered something about your family. Something you weren't supposed to discover that way."
"Liora?"
He nodded.
"Your mother had been keeping her existence a secret. She wanted to tell you eventually, but she was afraid of what you would think. Your father knew, too. So did mine."
Amelia felt the room tilt around her.
"My father knew I had a sister?"
"Yes."
"And nobody told me?"
"No."
"Not even you?"
Rei looked directly at her.
"I was a child, Amelia. I didn't understand the whole story. I only knew that the adults were arguing, that you were upset, and that you wanted answers."
She looked down at the photograph again.
Three children, standing outside the conservatory.
Her childhood had contained a whole person she had never known existed.
"Where did Liora live?"
"With your mother's older sister. She grew up believing that staying away from your family was the best way to protect everyone."
"Protect them from what?"
"From the consequences of a decision the adults had made years earlier."
Amelia shook her head.
"That isn't an answer."
"I know."
"Then why are you telling me all this?"
"Because you deserve to know that Liora didn't appear out of nowhere. She was part of your family before you ever learned her name."
"And what happened that night?"
Rei looked towards the darkened piano.
"You ran away from the conservatory. I followed you. We argued, and I let you walk away because I thought you wanted to be alone."
His voice faltered.
"When I realised you hadn't gone home, I searched for you. Liora helped me. We found you at the old railway station just before midnight."
Amelia's lips parted.
"The railway station?"
"You were sitting on a bench with your music notebook. You'd been crying. You kept saying that nobody had told you the truth about your own life."
A strange sensation moved through her. Not a memory, exactly. More like the faint impression of a song heard through a closed door.
A cold bench.
Wet shoes.
Someone calling her name.
She pressed her fingers to her forehead.
"I remember the station."
Rei stepped closer.
"What?"
"Not everything. Just... a light above a bench. And someone holding my hand."
"That was me."
She looked up sharply.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't know whether remembering would hurt you. And because I was ashamed of what happened afterward."
"What happened afterward?"
"Our families decided that things had to change. Your parents arranged for you to stay with your aunt for a while. My father took a job in another city, and I had to go with him."
"You made it sound as though you chose to abandon me."
"I know."
"You could have written."
"I tried."
Amelia went still.
"What?"
"I wrote to you. More than once. My father told me your family wanted you to move on, that you were trying to recover from everything that happened. I believed him."
"Did you send the letters?"
"Three. The first came back. The other two..." He swallowed. "I never found out what happened to them."
"And you never tried again?"
"I was fifteen. I thought that if you wanted to speak to me, you would find a way. I didn't understand how easily adults could close a door between two people and convince them it was for their own good."
The anger in Amelia's chest shifted, but it didn't disappear.
"That still doesn't explain why you said you can't love me."
Rei looked away.
"Because I promised Liora I wouldn't let our feelings become another reason for the families to keep lying."
Amelia stared at him.
"That makes no sense."
"I know how it sounds."
"No, Rei. It sounds like an excuse."
He accepted the accusation without defending himself.
"Perhaps it is."
The honesty hurt more than another denial would have.
Amelia stepped back.
"I waited for you. I kept our song alive because I thought one day you'd return and we'd finish it together. And now you're standing here telling me that you came back because of my sister, that you know things about my childhood that I don't, and that you refuse to love me because of a promise I never agreed to."
"Amelia..."
"You don't get to make that decision for both of us."
She placed the photograph on the piano.
Then she walked towards the door.
This time, Rei didn't follow.
"Amelia?"
She paused without turning around.
"I never stopped loving you," he said.
The words hung between them, fragile and irreversible.
She closed her eyes.
"Then stop treating your feelings like a crime."
She left before he could answer.
Outside, the rain had begun to fade.
Amelia walked all the way home with her hands in her pockets, carrying a photograph that had changed everything she thought she knew.
For the first time, she wasn't searching for the boy who had left her.
She was searching for the truth about the girl she had been.
And somewhere across the city, Liora was waiting.
---
The next morning, Amelia found a letter beneath her bedroom door.
Her mother's handwriting covered the envelope.
Inside was a single sentence.
If you have met Liora, then you deserve to know what I should have told you years ago.
Below it was an address.
And a time.
Four o'clock. The old conservatory. Come alone.
Amelia read the letter twice.
Then she picked up her phone and called Rei.
He answered immediately.
"Amelia?"
"I'm going to meet Liora."
"I'll come with you."
"No."
A pause.
"You're not going alone."
"That's exactly what the letter says."
"Then your mother has learned nothing about making sensible decisions."
Despite herself, Amelia nearly smiled.
"Rei."
"I'm listening."
"I don't know if I can trust you yet."
"I understand."
"But if you want a chance to earn it, meet me outside the conservatory at four. You can walk in with me, but you don't get to answer questions on my behalf."
"I won't."
"And no more deciding what is best for me without asking."
"I promise."
She hesitated.
"One more thing."
"Anything."
"Bring the handkerchief."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then his voice softened.
"Always."
Amelia ended the call before he could hear the smile she couldn't quite suppress.
For the first time in years, she had a chance to finish the story that had been taken from her.
And this time, she wouldn't let anyone turn the page for her.