“My uncle once asked me, ‘Are you a virgin?’ when I was already 27 years old. From that moment, I started to be afraid of him. And a few days later, when he took me to a hotel outside the city, he leaned close to my ear by the pool and whispered, ‘After the pool, come up to my room…’”

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To open my own small photography studio.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and started crying.

“Why did he never tell me?”

Richard smiled sadly.

“Because he wanted you to choose your own life. And if, at twenty-seven, you still wanted the same dream, then I was supposed to bring you here.”

Then he pointed to the last photograph pinned to the wall.

It was the final picture of my father and me together.

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Underneath it was a single sentence in his handwriting.

“If I can’t be there when she finally starts chasing her dream, let my brother stand beside her in my place.”

I looked at Richard.

Only a few hours earlier, I had almost run away from him.

Now he was sitting across from me, barely holding back his own tears.

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“So that’s why you were acting so strangely?”