WASHINGTON — To see the official White House photograph is to see an American success story: Romario Accime, an 18-year-old student from Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood, posing with Michelle Obama, poised and confident, a precocious young man not only on the way up, but already there.

But there’s another story here you can’t see. This one is about poverty and chance, about the ease with which accomplished young people on an upward trajectory can be derailed by life’s circumstances. It’s also about how a sense of family and stability can be found in the most unlikely places — in Accime’s case, in a public school that wouldn’t let him sink, and a rarefied museum.