He wasn’t talking to me; he was trying to speak to his Eds through me. The only interaction we had was his persistent question: “Will she come back?”
Every three days, he would ask stubbornly. And each time, I gave him the same answer: “No.”
“Hector, no one wants a secondary personality to replace the main one. I am Edna. The fake Edna will never return!”
“She’s not the fake Edna!” Hector’s voice suddenly rose, nearly shouting. It startled me. He was rarely this emotional. Usually, he was composed, detached, and silent.
I swallowed the bitterness in my throat and tried to change the subject with a smile. “Let’s go to the concert. Look—it’s Kian Soltani’s. Didn’t you say you loved his cello the last time we watched him?”
I pulled two tickets from my bag, tickets I had spent a small fortune on, and held them out. But Hector stepped back as if I were holding something poisonous. He left abruptly, without a word.
In my desperation, I tried imitating the fake Edna, drinking poison to quench my thirst. I secretly learned piano, practicing for two hours every evening after work before heading home. I spent another thirty minutes each night perfecting my smile in the mirror. The fake Edna had been vibrant and lively—everything I was not.
I even forced myself to eat spicy food, enduring swollen lips and teary eyes. I popped a piece of candy in my mouth and kept going. Eventually, my body gave out, and I ended up in the hospital.
When Hector found out, he flew back from Japan immediately.
You see, it worked. When I used to get sick, Hector would just make a phone call, express polite concern, and have his assistant send over some skincare products. But now? Now I received the kind of attention that only the fake Edna had been afforded.
Still, his mood was dark, and his anger and contempt were unmasked.
“Can you stop this nonsense? No matter how hard you try to act like her, you’re not her!”
“Eds was a musical genius. You’ve been practicing for so long, and you still can’t play even the simplest piece. Her smile came from the heart—genuine and beautiful. Yours is stiff and forced.”
“And you’re not allowed to eat spicy food, stay up late, or drink alcohol. It’s bad for your health.”
Then, in a softer voice, almost a whisper carried away by the wind, he added, “What will you do if Eds comes back and your health is ruined?”
But I heard him.
It felt like my tail had been stepped on. I grabbed the nearest cup and hurled it at him.
“She is me! She’s all of me! This is my body—I can do whatever I want with it!”
“She doesn’t exist! She’s not real!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face, repeating the words like a broken record.
It was the first time I had ever lashed out at Hector. Normally, I kept everything bottled up. I was naturally reserved, avoiding conflict whenever possible. Besides, Hector had always emphasized that he valued calm and sensible women, saying he despised those who made a scene.
But in that moment, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I didn’t know how else to release the frustration and helplessness boiling inside me.
The memories of those two years haunted me, constantly reminding me that being “sensible” wasn’t a prerequisite for being loved.
Hector’s blatant favoritism was like a slap to the face, forcing me to confront the truth: she wasn’t me.
Even though we shared the same face, Edna wasn’t the fake Edna.
No, I realized bitterly, to Hector, I was probably the fake one.
That day ended in yet another unhappy parting between us.
I didn’t have the courage to ask him to celebrate my birthday with me. Not that it mattered—he wouldn’t have agreed, even if I had.
A call from my childhood friend, Kim Kennedy, felt like a lifeline. She said she’d be back the next day and insisted we celebrate my birthday together.
“Don’t you dare ditch me for Hector!” she warned teasingly. “Don’t put love over friendship, okay?”
