He stood there in his battered leather vest, smudged with dirt and grease, surrounded by a room full of strangers—doctors, lawyers, faculty—people he could never imagine coming face to face with. In his trembling hands, he clutched a small gift—something I didn’t want from him, from a man I’d spent the past ten years pretending was dead. He was a ghost I’d buried deep, a ghost I refused to face. My classmates stared at him, their eyes wide and cold. A few whisper with curiosity, others with disd