Mason lived in an old brownstone in Brooklyn. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Ethan found the address and rang the doorbell.
The moment the door swung open, both men froze.
It was like looking into a mirror—except the reflection wore different clothes. Ethan was in a plaid shirt and jeans; Mason sported a linen shirt and chinos. Their hair lengths varied too—Ethan's was cropped short, while Mason's fell to his nape.
"You..." Mason was the first to speak.
"I'm Ethan," Ethan replied, his voice trembling slightly. "We look exactly the same."
Mason stepped aside to let him in. The apartment was decorated with an artistic flair, walls lined with photos he'd taken across the globe. Ethan's gaze landed on a row of high school yearbooks on the bookshelf—identical to the one from their alma mater.
They sat side by side on the sofa, mirror images of each other.
"I've checked," Ethan said. "Up until our junior year of high school, every step of our lives was identical. Even the date we broke our left radius bone in third grade—April 12, 1999—was the same."
Mason nodded, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a pale, faint scar on his forearm. "I still have this mark."
"But we picked different college majors," Ethan pointed out.
"I actually wanted to study computer science too," Mason explained. "But my dad got seriously ill that summer of 1999. The family needed money. NYU's communication program had lower tuition and offered grants."
Ethan went still. In the summer of 1999, his own father's company had landed a huge project, drastically improving their financial situation—allowing him to afford the pricier engineering program.
"The divergence point..." Ethan murmured. "It was 1999."