They Loved My Replacement More

Summary

The day my body finally became mine again, I opened my eyes to the dizzying roar of a celebration.

The air smelled of expensive salt spray and champagne. My parents’ voices drifted over the music, warm and intimate, but they were calling out a name that wasn’t mine. They were saying the ceremony was about to begin.

To understand how I lost myself, you have to go back to the lake. Two years ago, I almost drowned, and in that suffocating darkness, two entities—infiltrators, they called themselves—slid into the vacant spaces of my soul.