The woman slowly reached out.<\/p>\n
Her fingers stopped just before touching the golden leaf brooch.<\/p>\n
Like she was afraid it might vanish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you get this?\u201d she asked again, quieter now.<\/p>\n
The boy\u2019s hands shook.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom gave it to me,\u201d he said. \u201cShe said\u2026 if I ever saw someone with the same one, I should show it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s face went pale.<\/p>\n
Her breath hitched.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her hands finally closed around the brooch.<\/p>\n
The moment she touched it\u2014her composure broke.<\/p>\n
Because she remembered.<\/p>\n
Not vaguely.<\/p>\n
Not slowly.<\/p>\n
All at once.<\/p>\n
A hospital room.<\/p>\n
A younger version of herself.<\/p>\n
A decision made under pressure.<\/p>\n
A goodbye she never thought had consequences.<\/p>\n
The boy watched her carefully, unsure if he had done something wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d he asked softly.<\/p>\n
The question snapped her back.<\/p>\n
She looked at him properly now.<\/p>\n
Really looked.<\/p>\n
Same eyes.<\/p>\n
Same shape of face she had once seen in a mirror years ago and tried to forget.<\/p>\n
Her voice trembled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mom\u2026 what\u2019s her name?\u201d<\/p>\n
The boy swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name hit her like a blow.<\/p>\n
Her knees nearly gave out.<\/p>\n
Around them, the city kept moving\u2014cars, horns, footsteps, life continuing like nothing had changed.<\/p>\n
But for her\u2014<\/p>\n
everything had stopped.<\/p>\n
Because the brooch wasn\u2019t just jewelry.<\/p>\n
It was a promise she had left behind.<\/p>\n
And the boy in front of her wasn\u2019t a coincidence.<\/p>\n
He was the consequence of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The woman slowly reached out. Her fingers stopped just before touching the golden leaf brooch. Like she was afraid it might vanish. \u201cWhere did you get this?\u201d she asked again, quieter now. The boy\u2019s hands shook. \u201cMy mom gave it to me,\u201d he said. \u201cShe said\u2026 if I ever saw someone with the same one, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}