Shadows Beneath the Surface

“I know who you are. Meet me at Pier 21 at midnight.” 

After three years of living as an ordinary man, Quenclin’s secret had been found out.

It began with a letter. A plain, unmarked envelope slipped under the door of his small apartment. Inside was a single black-and-white photograph. His house. His real house, from 5 years ago. The one he abandoned. Staring at the picture, his dinner threatened to make an appearance on the floor for what must have been the billionth time today.

He hadn’t meant to lie to everyone. It was meant to be an escape. The small town he grew up in was suffocating, filled with memories he couldn’t bear to keep. His father, a billionaire the CEO of RLS Trade, expected Quenclin to follow in his footsteps. It required Quenclin to get a degree in foreign trade and marketing, learn a new language, and to “live up to his legacy” by being a prodigy, or so it seemed. But he didn’t want to. Not at all. Then one day, on November 11th, 2008, the last straw came. His father, in a fit of rage, smashed a vase, causing his mother to fall and lose all sensation in her legs. Instead of giving her treatment, she was made to stay in the house all day, lest the press find out. Quenclin couldn’t take it anymore, living with such a twisted family. So one day, he packed his bags and left everything behind—family, friends, and the expectations that weighed him down. He became ‘Lencen Grey’, or Lennie. A person who didn’t have to answer for the choices Quenclin made.

Lencen’s life was simple. He loved his job as a bartender. 

For a few hours, talking to someone unknown felt like stepping into a different life, free from the burden of wearing a false identity. 

 He’d even started dating Sarah, a girl he comforted at the bar when she was bawling her eyes out. She loved his quiet nature. His mysteriousness attracted her. He liked that she didn’t ask too many questions. But the more comfortable he got with this life, the more uneasy he felt. The lies piled up, one on top of the other, until he could barely keep them straight. And now, with the photograph, someone had shattered the mask he had worn so carefully.

The next day, another envelope appeared. This time, it wasn’t a photograph. It was a note, written in a scrawling script.

“I know who you are. Meet me at Pier 21 at midnight.”

Quenclin felt the weight of dread settle deep in his chest. Whoever this was, they knew the truth. But instead of running—like he always had—he went. At midnight, he stood at the edge of the pier, the cold wind biting at his skin. A figure approached from the shadows.

It was Sarah.

“I knew something was off,” she said, her voice cold, but trembling. “I hired a private investigator. You’re not who you say you are.”

Quenclin’s heart sank. The one person he’d let into his new life had uncovered everything. He wanted to explain, but the words stuck in his throat.

“You lied to me,” she continued, her eyes filled with anger and betrayal. “For years.”

“I’m sorry,” Quenclin whispered, finally finding his voice. “I never meant for it to go this far. I just… I couldn’t be that person anymore.”

“But you are,” Sarah said quietly. “You can’t just erase your past, Lencen. No matter how much you run.”

Her words cut into him like a knife. For so long, he’d believed that changing his name, changing his life, would free him. But he realized now that no amount of running or lying could make him someone else. He was still Quenclin, with all his mistakes and regrets, and now, it was time to face them.

“You never told me you were the son of the richest man in our country. You had me believe you were poor, as insignificant to the world as I am,” she cried.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. His throat was tight, like a knot had formed there and wouldn’t let his words out. The howling wind off of the pier tossed his hair around his face like it was just as angry as Sarah.

“Sorry?” Sarah scoffed, folding her arms. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Quenclin. You lied about everything. Everything!”

He flinched at the sound of his real name on her lips. It felt foreign, like it didn’t belong to him anymore, yet it was undeniably his. Quenclin. He hadn’t allowed a single soul in this city to know it, hadn’t heard it in so long. Not Sarah, not his coworkers, not even himself in the mirror. Lencen had been safe. Lencen didn’t have a past. But now, standing here, it felt like every wall he’d built was crumbling in on itself. 

“I didn’t mean to lie to you–” Quenclin began. 

“Didn’t mean to?” Sarah’s eyes burned with fury. Her voice was rising now, a blend of anger and pain. “You pretended to be someone you’re not. For years. You made me believe you were just…normal. Like me.”

She looked away, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. “How could you do that? To me? To us?”

“But I am normal. Who my father is doesn’t change anything about me. I am still the Lencen you knew before,” Quenclin tried to explain.

“No! You are someone else entirely, with a different background and entire life from who I thought you were. How can that be the same?” Her voice was hysterical.

Quenclin’s heart ached seeing the way her body trembled. He reached out a hand, but she flinched back. Her rejection was a knife twisting deeper into his chest. He didn’t blame her; he couldn’t. What had he expected? That she’d just forgive him, forget the years of deception?

“I wanted to be normal,” he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I needed to be someone else. You don’t understand, Sarah, the pressure, the expectations my family had. I couldn’t breathe. So I ran. I ran as far as I could.”

“You ran. And you left your mother alone with that monster,” Sarah said quietly, her voice more controlled but no less fierce.

At that Quenclin flinched, the memories of his fathers violent outbursts playing like a broken record in his mind. His mother, helpless and weak, had become nothing more than a wraith haunting the mansion. And Quenclin…he had left. He had been too cowardly to stay and fight for her, too consumed by his own desperation to escape. 

“I thought it would be better if I wasn’t there,” he admitted. “I thought maybe my father would change if I wasn’t around to disappoint him.”

“And he?” Sarah asked, eyes narrowing.

Quenclin shook his head, the weight of his guilt heavy on his shoulders. “No. He didn’t.”

Sarah sighed, rubbing her hands over her face, her anger momentarily giving way to something that looked more like sadness. “So what now?” she asked, her voice quieter. “What happens to us?”

He didn’t have an answer. How could he possibly explain everything? How could he fix the wreckage he had created with his lies? He stared down at his hands, the hands of a man who had built an entire life on the foundation of falsehoods. He was no bartender named Lencen Grey. He was Quenclin of the infamous RLS Trade dynasty, the son of a tyrant, the boy who had abandoned his family and fled into anonymity.

“I don’t know,” Quenclin finally said, defeated. “I don’t know how to make this right.” 

Sarah looked at him, her eyes hardening once more. “You can’t just walk away from everything. Not again. You have to go back. You have to face the truth.”

Her words echoed in his head, reverberating through the fragile walls of his carefully constructed life. Go back? To what? To the life he’d tried so hard to escape? To his father’s expectations? To the ghosts of his past?

But as much as he wanted to run, he knew deep down that Sarah was right. He couldn’t keep pretending. He couldn’t keep running. His past wasn’t something he could erase. It was a part of him, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

“I don’t know if I can,” he whispered, more to himself than to Sarah.

“You have to,” she insisted, her voice firm. “You owe it to your mother. To yourself.”

He nodded, though his heart still wavered. He didn’t know how to face the demons that awaited him back home. But maybe Sarah was right. Maybe it was time to stop pretending, to stop hiding behind a name that wasn’t his.

“I’ll go back,” he said, the decision solidifying in his chest. “I’ll face it.”

Sarah didn’t respond for a while, but something in her expression softened. “Good,” she said. “It’s about time.” 

Quenclin stood in silence for a moment, the weight of everything settling on him. He had lived so long as Lencen Grey that the thought of becoming Quenclin again filled him with dread. But maybe—just maybe—he could be both. Maybe he could reconcile the two halves of himself, the man he was and the man he had become.

“What about us?” he asked quietly, his heart in his throat. “Is there any chance that we…?”

Sarah looked at him, her eyes searching his face. For a moment, hope flickered in his chest, but it was quickly extinguished when she shook her head. 

“I don’t know, Quenclin,” she said softly. “I need time. You hurt me.”

He swallowed hard, the sting of her words hitting him like a physical blow. “I understand,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

Sarah gave him a long, hard look before turning to leave. “Take care of yourself, Quenclin,” she said over her shoulder. And then she was gone, disappearing into the night, leaving him alone on the pier. 

Quenclin stood there for what felt like hours, staring out over the dark, churning waters of the harbor. The cold wind bit into his skin, but he barely felt it. His mind was too busy reeling from the weight of the truth that had finally caught up to him.

For the first time in years, he was no longer running. And for the first time in years, he didn’t know what would come next.

The lies he had built his life around had finally fallen apart, and now, all he had left was the truth.