3. Realisation

Lila 

The hospital let me go a few days later and Eve helped me settle the bills. I didn’t ask why she was being so kind. I just welcomed it because God knew how much I needed someone to hold my hand.

I had learned, after much confusion, that Eve was my best friend. At least, she was the best friend of the woman whose body I occupied.

Eve talked the whole ride, talking about how she was happy to have me out of the hospital and how my mom was happy to hear the news.

We stopped in a part of town that I did not know even existed. The building was old, the paint on the outside was peeling. It did not look fit for living.

“Home sweet home!” Eve said, leading me up a flight of stairs that smelled like mold and dust.

She opened a door, and I walked into Sera’s life.

The apartment was small. So small that I did not think it qualified to be called an apartment. I could see everything from the door. The couch had a blanket thrown over a worn out spot. The tile colors were mismatched and stained. This wasn’t a home, it was a shoebox. 

Eve only watched me as I took everything in and all I could do was stare back.

“Okay, first order of business,” Eve said, pulling a box from her bag. “You need a phone. I know yours was… well, it’s gone. I got you a cheap one. We can’t have you cut off from the world.”

I took the phone. It was light and plastic and from a brand I had never heard of. It looked like something a child was supposed to play with.

“Thank you,” I whispered, hoping my face did not show how I truly felt.

That first night alone I didn’t look in the mirror. Not once. I had avoided doing it even at the hospital.

I brushed my teeth with my eyes closed and undressed in the darkest corner I could find. 

I didn’t want to meet the person I had become, because that would make it real.

That night I was truly alone and in the dark, and my mind started spinning with crazy ideas.

What if I jumped off a building again? Would that shock my soul back into my real body? What if I found a witch doctor? I was thinking insane thoughts because the real, logical world offered me no way out.

But without my body, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t even know where I was being kept.

At one point, I found myself typing “how to get your body back” into the search bar. The results were worse. Conspiracy blogs, shamans, mediums, a video of a woman claiming she had swapped bodies with her cat. It was all useless. 

And that was the night that I finally broke down.

The tears fell and I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I sobbed for everything I had lost. My body. My name. My company. My life. My freedom.

And right there I realized I had no one to call.

In my old life, I had acquaintances. I had business partners. But I didn’t have a single real friend. Not one person I could call and tell of my fuc.ked up situation, and they would believe me.

Orion had been my beginning and my end. My first real boyfriend. My fiancé. I had poured everything into him and our relationship. I was so stupid. I had everything, and I never invested in silly, simple things, like friendship. Now, I had nothing.

The next few days were a blur. I didn’t shower. I barely ate. I thought about … ending it all. Just lying in bed until I rotted away. What was the point of living?

Eve had kept calling the new phone, her voice full of worry every time I picked up. “Sera? You have to get up. You start work at Stavros Inc. tomorrow. You need this job!”

I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be a secretary, but that was not something I could tell her.

Then, I made a mistake. I turned on the small, old TV in the corner.

Orion. My fiance.

There he was, standing beside the company's lawyer in front of Sterling Global headquarters. Cameras flashed, reporters shouted, and Orion was smiling. 

Beside him was Victoria, all white teeth, conveniently holding his hand.

The headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen,

New Leadership at Sterling Global: Orion Vale Assumes Control.

I froze. I had forgotten about the clause in my parents’ will, the one that granted my spouse half the company upon engagement. Engagement, not marriage. All he had to do was propose.

And he had.

To me.

I stared at the footage, waiting for someone to mention that I was in a hospital bed somewhere, brain-dead but alive. No one did.

The camera zoomed in on Orion as he adjusted his cufflinks. 

He was talking to the reporter, “It’s a difficult time, of course. Our focus as her family and friends is on stabilizing the company Lila loved so much. She would have wanted that.”

Something in the frame made me pause. His left hand.

No ring.

The engagement ring was missing. 

He wasn’t even pretending to grieve his lost fiancée anymore. He was celebrating his new role as CEO.

The rage that filled me was so hot, it burned away the self-pity and dried my tears.

I stood up from the couch for the first time in days, I walked towards the mirror. I took a deep, shaking breath, and I forced myself to look.

A stranger stared back. Honey, blonde hair. Big, blue, scared eyes. A face that was too soft and young.

It wasn’t my face, but it would have to do.

I was going to that secretary job. It was the one thing that could get me close enough to make Orion pay for everything he had stolen from me.