But here, I put on some music, find some Greek yogurt in the fridge, and top it with granola. I make a cup of coffee, add the fresh cream I find on the top shelf of the fridge, add a few pumps of vanilla syrup, and sit down to go through the pictures on the phone. My phone. The one filled with proof of another life I might have led.

It’s strange. It’s kind of like an ultra-curated Instagram feed of images guaranteed to catch my interest. Lots of food, drinks, and selfies. People and places I don’t know but I can see why I took a picture. There are lots of Cillian and Kiera.

I click on a video. It was taken at the pub—the doctor might have been right that I am there too much—and it’s a slow zoom on Cillian behind the bar. When he catches me filming, he looks irritated, but in that somewhat adoring way of his that I’m coming to recognize. “Cut that out,” he says from the distance between us.

“What?” comes my voice, feigning innocence. He gives a casual wink and then takes someone’s order. “He’s so hot,” I say.

Then I recognize Kiera’s voice in the background saying, “You two, I swear.”

I watch it twice more. I agree with other-world me. Cillian is so … ugh. Hot isn’t even the right word.

I sit back, drinking my coffee and sliding through more pictures. It looks like such a good life. So warm and filled with love and friendship and laughter. And maybe I’m focusing too much on it, but food. Real food!

But where is Aimee?

I think for a moment, and then open the Hidden Photos folder. It needs my Face ID but then it unlocks. In it is a treasure trove.

It feels a little like invading someone else’s privacy to look.

As I predicted, there are a fair number of nudes. Not that many, but some. I look pretty good, I decide, though I can see that I used some unfortunate photo editing in some of them. I mean, even in LA, my waist isn’t that small. I inspect them all with strange fascination.

But it’s not only nudes that I wanted to hide. It’s also a lot of normal pictures of Aimee, of me and Aimee, of Kiera and Aimee. And then of a couple of kids that I assume must be hers.

It’s a thrill to see her life go on past nineteen, but also terribly melancholy. This is the life she was supposed to live. I know it.