It’s been five years since the air in our apartment went cold. Five years since I looked into her room, expecting to see her rumpled bed or her stack of half-read books, and instead found nothing. Just the chilling silence of absence.
She was my roommate, but more than that, she was my other half. We’d moved into that tiny, sun-drenched two-bedroom right after college, full of dreams and cheap wine. We’d spent nights talking about futures, about careers, about finding love. She knew my deepest fears, my wildest ambitions. I knew hers. Or so I thought. Every single memory I have of her now feels tainted, twisted.
One Tuesday, she just wasn’t there. No note, no call, no trace. Her toothbrush was still in the holder. Her favorite mug was on the drying rack. Her car was still in the parking lot. It was like she evaporated. The police came, asked questions I couldn’t answer. Did she have enemies? Was she seeing anyone I didn’t know about? Secret problems? How could I not know? How could I be so blind? Every answer I gave was a question mark hanging in the air.
A teenage girl in a red shirt, looking apprehensive | Source: Midjourney
The days bled into weeks, the weeks into months. I kept her room exactly as it was, a shrine to a life abruptly cut short. I’d sit on her bed, trying to breathe in her scent, trying to conjure her presence. I missed her laugh, her ridiculously optimistic outlook, her habit of leaving passive-aggressive notes about my dirty dishes. The guilt was a physical ache, a constant pressure behind my ribs. I replayed every conversation, every argument, every shared moment, searching for a sign, a clue, anything I might have missed. Did I say something? Did I do something? Was she in trouble and I just… wasn’t paying attention?
Years passed. I moved out of that apartment eventually, the silence too heavy to bear. But the ghost of her absence followed me. Every time a news report flashed across the screen about a missing person, my heart would clench. Every unfamiliar face in a crowd would trigger a flicker of hope, immediately extinguished by reality. I never stopped thinking about her. Never stopped wondering. The mystery became a part of me, a scar on my soul.
Then, last month, I got a call from the old landlord. They were renovating, finally tearing down walls, upgrading everything. He asked if I wanted to retrieve any old mail or anything I might have forgotten. A part of me just wanted to let it all go, to finally let her go. But a stronger, inexplicable pull guided my feet back to that familiar building.
The apartment was stripped bare, echoing and cold. The walls were already partially demolished, exposing raw plaster and ancient wiring. I walked into what used to be her room, a strange mix of nostalgia and dread washing over me. The afternoon light streamed through the dusty windows, illuminating a faint outline on the wall where her bed used to be. I ran my hand along the rough surface, a phantom touch of memory.
That’s when I saw it. A faint discoloration, a slightly raised seam just behind where her headboard would have stood. It wasn’t visible before, hidden by the bed and a large poster she had hung. The renovation had exposed it. A small, almost invisible panel, expertly cut into the drywall. A secret compartment. My heart started to pound. This wasn’t something the landlord or I had ever known about.
An angry-looking woman in a living room | Source: Midjourney
My hands trembled as I worked at the edges. It gave way with a soft crackle of old plaster. Inside, nestled in the dark recess, was a small, unassuming wooden box. It wasn’t locked. I lifted the lid, my breath catching in my throat.
Inside, meticulously arranged, were things that made no sense. A small, tarnished silver locket that I’d given her years ago, a friendship gift. My birth certificate. MY birth certificate. A faded photo of my parents from their wedding day. And then, a stack of journals, her neat handwriting covering page after page.
I picked up the locket first, my fingers tracing the familiar engraving. Then, my eyes fell on my birth certificate, then the photo. Why did she have these? A cold dread began to seep into my bones, a kind of fear I had never known.
I opened the top journal. The first entry was dated weeks before she vanished. It wasn’t a diary of her life, not exactly. It was about my life. Her observations of me, her notes on my habits, my aspirations, my insecurities. My entire life laid bare, analyzed with chilling precision. Page after page, a meticulous record. My likes, my dislikes, the way I wore my hair, my favorite coffee order. My dreams of becoming a writer. My estranged relationship with my father. Every detail, recorded.
Then came the later entries. Plans. Elaborate, detailed plans. For a new identity. For a new life. My life. She documented how she’d begun subtly changing her appearance to match mine, how she’d started mimicking my mannerisms, how she’d been collecting my personal documents, learning to forge signatures. She wasn’t just my roommate. She was studying me. Learning to BE me.
The final entries. Her reasons. Not envy, not jealousy, but a deep, twisted conviction. A belief that she was meant to live my life. That my dreams were hers. That she deserved what I had. “She won’t even miss it,” one entry read. “She’ll be too busy grieving. And then, she’ll just fade.”
My vision blurred. I dropped the journal. My roommate hadn’t vanished. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She hadn’t run away. SHE BECAME ME. She faked her disappearance to shed her own identity, to step into mine. While I was haunted by her absence, believing her lost, or worse, hurt, she was out there, somewhere, living my life. Using my past. Perhaps even pursuing my dreams, the ones we talked about late into the night.
A woman smiling as she reveals something in conversation | Source: Midjourney
The silence in the demolished apartment was no longer just the silence of absence. It was the deafening roar of a betrayal so profound, so utterly unthinkable, it shredded my reality. My roommate didn’t vanish. SHE STOLE ME. And I’ve been grieving for a ghost that never existed. I’ve been grieving for myself.
