Emma stepped toward the microphone.
“There’s something else you should know.”
She looked across the gym at the students who had been laughing only minutes earlier.
“The boy in this picture isn’t my boyfriend. He isn’t a joke. And he isn’t a prop I brought because I wanted attention.”
Her voice cracked.
“His name was Felix Carter.”
She paused.
“He was my twin brother.”
The room fell silent.
A girl in the front row slowly lowered her phone.
Emma continued.
“He went to this school. He sat in your classrooms. He complained about homework. He cheated at card games. He was terrible at basketball, but he kept trying because he thought quitting was embarrassing.”
A few students gave nervous, uncertain smiles.
“He had a heart condition. When we were fifteen, he started getting too sick to attend school regularly. Sometimes he missed weeks. Sometimes he missed months. But he kept doing his assignments because he wanted to graduate with us.”
