REBORN: PAST AND PRESENT Chapter 5

Chapter 5

NOAH'S POV

Noah Lopez-Lumier [Omega]

They didn’t come

No Alfred. No "family." No one at the discharge desk. Just silence and a nurse with pity in her eyes as she wheeled me out.

I sat in the backseat of the taxi, hands numb, body cold despite the sun.

Habit made me check my phone. I don’t know why. Maybe part of me still hoped there’d be a message. A call. Something. Anything. But what I found was worse.

A post

A perfect goddamn picture

Nigel. Smiling like a prince on a stage. Surrounded by my parents. My husband. In his concert. Roses, applause, lights—he was glowing.

And there they were, my family, proud as ever. Front row, beaming.

My thumb hovered over the screen. I couldn’t breathe for a second. It wasn’t just the betrayal—it was the familiarity of it. Because this wasn’t the first time.

I was seventeen when I met the Lopez family. They told me I was one of them. Welcomed me in. Nigel was already a prodigy on the piano. But I had something too. Music flowed through me like blood. I still remember the letter—admitted to one of the top conservatories abroad. A scholarship. My dream.

I ran to them, clutching the paper like it was my future. But they told me to wait. “You just got here,” they said. “Stay close to your family. There will be more chances. You’re more talented than Nigel anyway.”

And yet… when Nigel applied to that same school a year later, suddenly it was fine.

Suddenly they were proud.

Every step I took forward, Nigel was one step ahead—because he took the step I was about to make. He wore my future like it was made for him, and they all applauded.

And I swallowed it. I told myself it didn’t matter. I had Alfred. He picked me.

Nigel was supposed to marry him. That was the plan. But Alfred chose me. Held my hand. Looked at me like I was the only one in the room. For a while, I believed that meant something.

But fate is funny.

There is no “mine.”

Not when your whole life is a shelf other people take from.

Now they’re all in that photo. A perfect picture without me. Nigel shining with my family. My husband. Like I never existed.

And me?

I sit in a taxi. Alone. Carrying a broken bond and a baby that never got to breathe.

But I’m done being silent.

Noah Lopez-Lumier [Omega]

💭Let them have their pictures.

Noah Lopez-Lumier [Omega]

💭Their smiles...

Noah Lopez-Lumier [Omega]