My Fiancé Swapped Places With His Twin At The Altar Chapter 21
On the drive back to the hotel, the city lights blurred past the car window.
This city had once been the place I knew best.
I had grown up here. I had spent five years chasing after Matteo here.
I used to think that if I just tried a little harder, they would finally see me.
Looking back now, it all felt very far away.
Alessio asked me, “Are you sad?”
I thought about it, then nodded.
“A little.”
Not because of Ashley, and not because of my family’s downfall.
I was thinking about the girl I used to be.
The girl who had tried so hard to make her family love her.
She would fight for a dress, for a slice of cake, for a single fair word, for someone to stand on her side.
But in the end, she learned that some people had never considered her one of them in the first place.
“It’s normal to feel sad.”
I turned to look at Alessio.
He was looking out the window, his voice lower than usual.
“I used to feel that way too.”
It was the first time he had ever spoken to me about his past.
Alessio rarely talked about himself.
In the Moretti family, he had always been a quiet shadow.
Matteo was bright and adored, born to stand in the light.
Alessio had the exact same face, and yet he was always overlooked.
I asked, “When you were little?”
He hummed in affirmation.
“Matteo was sickly, so the whole family revolved around him.”
“Anything he wanted, they gave him.”
“Anything I wanted, they first asked if Matteo liked it.”
“If we were both sick, the doctor saw him first.”
“If we both did well, the praise still went to him.”
My chest tightened.
He said it all so calmly, as if he were telling someone else’s story.
“After a while, I stopped fighting for things.”
“They thought I didn’t want them, but that wasn’t it.”
“I just knew I couldn’t win, and I didn’t want to make myself look any more pathetic.”