After spending six months in a coma, I awoke to find an unfamiliar scar across my stomach—fifteen years later, a girl who looked exactly like me entered my bookstore.
Fifteen years before, I believed I was about to experience the happiest day of my life.
At age twenty-three, I was driving to my fiancé’s birthday at his family’s lake house.
His parents called me twice that morning.
They asked questions about my route, whether I was traveling alone, and if I’d be there before it got dark.
Back then, I thought they were just being attentive future family.
I never made it to the lake house.
A truck didn’t stop at a red light.
The next moment I remember is waking up in a hospital, six months later.
There were tubes everywhere on my body.
My physical self was nearly unrecognizable.
There was a long scar on my abdomen.
The doctors told me my organs had suffered major injuries in the crash.
They explained that surgery on my abdomen saved me.
I accepted their explanation.
What alternative did I have?
It took me years to recover.
My fiancé left before I was able to walk properly again.
He said to me:
“I can’t do this anymore.”
After that, I felt broken inside. All my relationships ended. Every effort to start a family stopped before it could really begin.
The most painful thing was when, later, a doctor said that my accident injuries might prevent me from having children.
I grieved for months, then for years.
Eventually, I worked a quiet job at a small bookstore.
Then last Thursday, everything was different. A teenage girl walked in, moving among the shelves but watching me at the counter instead of looking at books.
I thought she might be planning to shoplift, so I went to check if she needed assistance.
She raised her head.
I had to steady myself by holding a shelf.
Her face mirrored mine exactly. My eyes. The dimple I always had on my chin.
She looked at me silently for several moments.
Then she took an envelope out of her backpack.
My heart raced.
She spoke before I could say anything.
“I found something terrible in my grandmother’s drawer,” she said in a low voice. “I came to tell you her secret.”
She paused.
“AND YOURS.” ⬇️