Chapter 3

The grief was a suffocating blanket.

Ava dropped out of her community college classes, quit her barista job.

The diner shifts were all she could manage, a numb routine.

Then, months later, Lucas appeared.

She knew Mateo had a twin, but they weren't close. Lucas was always more... polished, more ambitious in a way that felt different from Mateo' s pure passion.

Seeing him was like seeing a ghost.

The same face, the same build, but the eyes... the eyes were different.

Yet, in her devastation, Ava clung to the resemblance.

It was a lifeline, a twisted sort of hope.

Maybe Mateo' s dreams didn' t have to die with him.

Maybe Lucas could be the vessel.

She told herself it was what Mateo would have wanted.

She poured all her shattered dreams, all her remaining ambition, all of Mateo' s unreleased songs, into Lucas.

He had a decent voice, not Mateo' s raw power, but trainable.

And he had the look.

Ava worked tirelessly, coaching him, refining Mateo' s melodies to fit Lucas' s range, writing new songs infused with her lingering sorrow and Mateo' s spirit.

Especially "Brooklyn Lullaby."

She believed she was honoring Mateo, keeping his music alive.

Lucas, to his credit, soaked it up. He was eager.

He wanted the fame Mateo had dreamed of, and Ava was his key.

She didn't see it as exploitation then.

She saw it as a partnership, a way to salvage something beautiful from the wreckage of her life.

She was wrong.

Deep down, a small, cold voice whispered that Lucas was not Mateo, that this was a dangerous game of substitution.

But she silenced it, desperate to believe in this second chance.