And there she is, staring into the mirror at the Violet, wearing the same dress, her hair done up in a twist, wearing a red lip, her nails burgundy and coffin shaped. In another, she’s sitting outside at a restaurant, sunglasses on, smile wide, the picture taker out of view. She’s drinking a bellini, the pink bubbles of the drink contrasting with the white linens of the table. A pasta dish with seafood sits in front of her, untouched, waiting for the photo to be over.

And this, this resonates somehow, too.

My mind can’t keep up with my hand. I’m onto the next solo shot. And the next. All of them at different restaurants, galleries, bars, in various well-crafted outfits. All of them achingly familiar. Too familiar. Like I’m looking in a mirror that’s been punched and warped, the glass about to shatter onto someone’s head, cut it wide-open.

I close my laptop with a start. Shut my eyes. Breathe. But I have to know. I have to know for sure. So I open it back up again.

I click on my profile and start stalking myself again. And there I am at brunch, smiling with some coworkers at Pastel’s in Greenpoint where I ordered the seafood pasta, my bellini raised high and proud, a week before she went, before she sat at that table and ordered what I ordered and ate what I ate and posed like I posed, her stomach, her eyes, getting their fill of me.

But is it me? Is it Odilie? As I toggle between the two tabs, the images, I’m not sure anymore. And after a while I can’t tell us apart, our faces, hair, anything that would make us distinct washed away in the images, blown up on my computer screen. Our matching smiles and pouts and manicured hands holding our phones for selfies in our matching outfits and meals and geotagged locations and lives.

I throw my computer, watch it bounce and land with a sickening crack on the hardwood floor. But I can’t look anymore, at this parallel life, this uncanny valley of a woman who is dead, who can’t explain herself, who for months seemingly wanted to impersonate me, to be me.

I feel the wetness on my cheeks before I realize I’m crying, shaking. I’m afraid. For the first time, I’m really afraid.

19

ODILIE

Ten years ago

Tom took her breath away.

It didn’t matter how cheesy that sounded. Whenever Odilie thought of him, it was like a punch to the gut. Her body, it buzzed with the memories, washing through her like a warm bubbling bath, the faucet turned on a little too hot. He enveloped her every thought, clinging to them like film, no matter what she was doing, where she was, whom she was with.