I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

I wear the idea of him like a blanket, and it makes me feel safe and warm, the cloak of fantasy always more reliable than cold reality. But lust is only ever a temporary cure for loneliness. I close the front door behind me, leaving longing back in the shadows, out on the street. I switch on the lights of real life, finding them a little bright; they permit me to see more than I want to.

You can never predict how you will behave when life goes nonlinear; you don’t know until it happens to you. People are capable of all kinds of surprising things.

I think homes might be a little bit like children; maybe you need to establish a bond as soon as possible to achieve a lasting emotional attachment.

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.

Twenty-six London, 2017 I’m woken by a sound I can’t translate. I sit up in the bed, coated in my own sweat. I’m panting and shaking and crying because I know that what I have just experienced was a dream of a memory, rather than a memory of a dream. I remember how badly Ben hurt me the last time I saw him. I remember how he followed me back from the restaurant after I said I wanted a divorce, kicked the bedroom door open, and did what he did. I didn’t even ask him to stop. I think on some level, I thought I deserved it. We marry our own reflections; someone who is the opposite of ourselves, but who we see as the same.

We are all conditioned and fine-tuned to our own unique brand of normal; we wear it like a fingerprint. We’re taught to fit in with others and learn what is expected of us from the moment we are born. Everything we ever do is an act.

I thought I knew, but I was wrong. I was seduced by our whirlwind romance, and I thought I might lose him if I said no. I thought we were the same. I thought he was my mirror, until I looked properly and realized too late that I needed to run from what I saw. I spent month after month dipping into my savings of happier memories, until the account was empty. I thought I could change him.

We’ve all got so busy staring down at our screens that we’ve forgotten to look up at the stars. I think it can be dangerous to spend too long watching the lives of others; you might run out of time to live your own. Technology is devolving the human race. Eating up our emotional intelligence, spitting out any remnants of privacy it can’t quite swallow. The world will keep on spinning and the stars will always shine, regardless of whether anyone is looking.

People say we can be anyone we want to be in life. That’s a lie. The truth is, we can be anyone we believe we can be. There’s a big difference. If I believe I am Aimee Sinclair, then I am. If I believe I am an actress, then I am. If I believe I am loved, then I am. Destroy the belief, destroy the reality it gave birth to.