I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

Not everybody wants to be somebody. Some people just want to be somebody else. Acting is easy; it’s being me that I find difficult. I

“I’m home,” I say to another empty space. It feels like a lie to describe this as my home; it has never felt like one. A bird never chooses its own cage.

Refusing to let me become a mother was cruel. Thinking I’d just accept his choices as my own was foolish. But I’m good at pretending. I’ve made a living out of it. Papering over the cracks doesn’t mean they’re not there, but life is prettier when you do.

Relationship fraud is endemic nowadays.

Sometimes it only takes one person to believe in you to change your life forever. Sometimes it only takes one person not believing in you to destroy it. Humans are a highly sensitive species.

“If you only remember one thing that I tell you while I’m your agent, then I hope it’s this. You should always fight, especially when you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.” “Thank you,” I whisper, and leave before he can see me cry.

They’re all far too busy staring at their phones, partaking in the daily withdrawal from wonder and the world around them. We’ve all got so busy staring down at our screens that we’ve forgotten to look up at the stars.

Everything was practically perfect until a few months after our wedding. Then we lived happily never after.

She suspects that knowing the end is coming is worse than the end itself.

She checks her emails, then checks Aimee’s; she knows all her passwords. She can also see exactly where she is, thanks to the phone tracker app she installed on Aimee’s mobile. She just knew that Aimee and Jack Anderson were having an affair.

As he starts to gently snore, I hear only one voice inside my head, and it is Maggie’s, not my own. So long as you never forget who you really are, acting will save you.

Life is like a game of chess; you just have to play it backwards and work out all the moves you need to make in advance, to get where you need to be.

You hate all the attention acting brings anyway—” I seize on this. The most believable lies always contain fragments of truth.