I shut my eyes and shut off the phone screen, letting my wrist go limp over my knee.

Okay, so, it seems that the life I know is not the one I’m in. I am not Lana Lord. There is no Lana Lord—that I recognize anyway. I’m not an actress on Brilliance. I’m a normal weight, I’ve had no plastic surgery done, and the people in Avalon seem to know me.

It’s not a dream, I know that, but can you hallucinate this vividly? This thoroughly and convincingly?

Maybe you can, but probably not without feeling otherwise off. I feel completely normal, except for being entirely exhausted and a little buzzed. I didn’t do any strange drugs; that half a Xanax barely scratched the surface and it’s already the lowest dose. I don’t think I’ve experienced any skull trauma.

Does international jet lag secretly mean this and no one ever mentioned it?

I got on a plane, I got off a plane, I went through customs, I got my bags, I got in a cab. I did all of that while feeling completely fine—if, again, drained—and then woke up outside of the cottage in Avalon, where I expected to wake up. The only thing that was unusual is that I fell asleep in the car. I never fall asleep in cars. Ever. But after that, the house was as I expected it before I set off for the pub. Wasn’t it?

I seem to have woken up in a different world. One where I am not a celebrity but at least two strangers in Ireland seem to know me by my real name.

I get up, leaving the phone on the coffee table and taking my glass with me as I walk around the house, searching for clues.

The first thing that pops out is a piece of art above the bed.

It’s a large print of New York Movie, a painting by Edward Hopper. It depicts a young blond woman standing in the dimly lit hallway of a theater, deep in thought, while a movie plays in the darkened room on just the other side of the wall.

I used to have a print of it pinned on my wall as a teenager. This one is framed, but mine had been thumbtacked over and over again as I rearranged my room. In fact, I still have it rolled up with a hair tie in the back of a closet somewhere at Grayson’s house. I wanted to hang it, but Grayson said, “You don’t need to hang a ratty poster of the thing, I’ll get you the real one if I land the Marvel movie.”

He did, of course, get the Marvel role, and he did not, of course, miraculously obtain the painting. Last I checked, it still hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.