I shut the phone screen off now, closing the portal to all the memories I would have if this life were mine. I suppose there’s a chance my real life isn’t real, and Kiera and Jim are right—I lost my memories and replaced them with a fantastical story. That would explain why I know to find my sweatpants and the whiskey, and why I have such a deep feeling of fondness for Kiera and Cillian. It would also explain why, when I had come across a photo of Maureen begging happily beneath the table, there was a faint recollection or essence of a memory of how it felt to be sitting in this little front yard and playing cards late into that night with Cillian. The taste of the chilled red wine in my juice glass, the sight of his ropey-muscled arm reaching across for a salty olive from a glazed terra-cotta bowl.

Yet, isn’t this the mental trick I use to act? Pretending has always been my best ability. I don’t use the power for evil; I’m not manipulative. I don’t lie. But I can fool people. It’s what acting is. The problem is that I can also fool myself. It’s why I can get so easily into character, building a world around them in my mind. It’s why I’m so good at denial. It’s why I’m afraid I’ll pop my clutch and lose my mind one day. I feel as though—or I fear as though—the curtain between reality and imagination is whisper thin in my mind.

I put down the phone and coffee, rubbing my eyes and feeling a little drained by all the information.

I get up and go over to the journals to look for clues there too. But as Kiera said, most are empty. Some are empty with missing pages, and some have my scrawling handwriting. In one, I wrote the things I was grateful for each day—looks like I kept it up for about nine days. Some entries include:

1. Cillian
2. Kiera
3. Butter

1. Maureen
2. Avalon
3. Having a TV

1. Short work shifts
2. New lotion
3. Meditation

I roll my eyes. Not at meditation, but at myself for writing it. I feel absolutely certain the other me did it weakly for about ten minutes max, for a handful of days, and then wrote it here. Who is she kidding.

I know that because same.

Most of what I was grateful for were people and things. Some I completely stand by, like not having to wake up for school ever ever again. But some days other-me couldn’t come up with a third thing.

I find myself wanting to fill all the empty journals with gratitude for this mysterious other life.