Before I Became Him
- Reads 6,733
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- Parts 20
Ongoing3h 43m
Last published Mon, Jun 22, 2026
Arden Landry wakes up in an alley believing he is fifteen years old, only to discover he is twenty-four and missing nine years of his life.
His older brother, Ayven, has spent six years blaming Arden for the choices that brought dangerous people to their family's door. But the Arden who comes home bleeding and terrified remembers none of it. He only remembers loving Ayven, trusting him, and looking up to him.
As a police investigation unfolds and secrets from Arden's missing years resurface, the brothers are forced into an impossible question: how do you forgive someone who does not remember becoming the person who hurt you?
Before I Became Him is an emotional brotherhood drama about grief, memory, blame, protection, and finding a way forward when the past belongs to a stranger wearing your face.
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I'm not a boy, but I'm not a man either. What I am is eighteen, standing in a truck stop parking lot, abandoned by a father who designed me to be quiet, useful, and too afraid to ask for help. Then a smart-mouthed contractor with a habit of bringing home strays looked at me and couldn't walk away. Lynk gave me a job, food, safety, and the first bed I'd ever slept in that didn't live above wheels. His wife, Kilah, gave me kindness, warmth, and an education I was never supposed to have. My father taught me rules that controlled me. Lynk taught me rules that protected me. The longer I stayed with them, the more I wanted to believe I could keep that life. A home. A family. A place where I'm more than just a tool to my father. But wanting it only made me more terrified of losing it when they learned the truth about me and my father. Then Dad came back. And he doesn't just threaten to take me away. He threatens to break everything Lynk and Kilah taught me how to build. I thought I was the one hiding the worst secrets. I had no idea my father had buried bigger ones.
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