CHAPTER 1
Nia never knew when the shift would happen. One moment, she’d be eating breakfast in her tiny kitchen while her brother cursed at a cracked phone screen, and the next, blink, and she’d be in a sunlit marble hallway, her feet brushing against Persian carpets.
Two versions of her. Two versions of life.
It began three months ago. Or at least, that’s when she noticed the pattern. At first, she thought she was dreaming. The world with her uncle and aunt felt too polished to be real, with chandeliers, private chefs, quiet conversations full of hollow words, and loud silences. But it wasn’t a dream. She’d wake up in either life with the memory of the other. Clothes changed. Time synced. Wounds crossed over.
And K was in both.
In her “real” world, where she lived in a cramped apartment with her mother, father, and impulsive brother, K was someone she barely spoke to anymore. They’d shared a strange, almost-love once. Words left unsaid. A connection is unfinished. She’d always thought maybe… maybe if life was easier, if she had time, if she was better at not needing to be everything for everyone…
She can also have her world together with him, her K.
But in the other world, K was around. Present. At events. On balconies. Sometimes distant, sometimes watching her like he was trying to figure out where he knew her from. Maybe he did know her. Maybe he was splitting, too. Maybe this whole city was cracking under some cosmic glitch.
One night, standing by the pool in her aunt’s estate, dressed in a sleek black gown she’d never have afforded in her other life, she said it.
“I like you,” she whispered.
He looked at her, lips parting slightly.
“I know,” he replied. “But I don’t know which version of you does.”
That was the moment she knew this world was responding. And a shock run on her face, plain white, as if she had seen a ghost.
She tried to speak, ah, um, wha …. But nothing, except a gash of air that came out of her mouth.
She left abruptly, reflecting her choices. But also… pushing her to make one that matters.
Days passed.
She tried to live both lives with intention. She helped her brother submit his college applications in one world, and in the other, she performed well-rehearsed smiles at charity galas.
Her aunt praised her poise, her etiquette. Her uncle hinted at leaving her something in the will if she stayed “committed to the family’s image.”
The same image that exhausted her.
In one world, she was tired of love and responsibility. On the other hand, she was tired of pretending that she wasn’t tired at all.
The shifts became harder. She began to forget which version was actually hers originally. She carried over habits called her luxury-world aunt “Ma” once. Spilled too much truth in a real-world argument with her brother, referencing something he hadn’t done. The walls between realities were thinning.
And then it happened. The only thing she ever wished for, to just end this madness, and let her be free, from a facade she’s living, she’s surviving.
She woke up only in one.
The city felt duller. No soft violin music playing at dawn. No scent of peonies in the corridors. She sat up in her childhood bed, the paint chipped, her fan rattling like it always did.
She was back. Truly back.
The marble life was gone.
For days, she waited. Touched mirrors. Sat silently, trying to will herself into a shift. Nothing came.
Panic gave way to clarity. Maybe she had made her choice without realizing it.
She walked to the bus stop, feeling the heat of the pavement. Bought her own groceries. Hugged her brother after a particularly bad fight. Sat beside her mother in the kitchen, not saying anything, just breathing in the smell of fried onions and tomatoes.
That night, she found a letter tucked in one of her journals, the one she always carried in both worlds.
It was written in her handwriting.
When given the chance to become who they think I should be,
Nia
I almost stayed. It was beautiful there. Beautifully lonely.
Everything I thought I wanted, until I realized I couldn’t even breathe calmy. Couldn’t cry.
Couldn’t even laugh out loud.
Couldn’t just be without asking who I wanted to be.
And that needs to change.
K was right. Both versions of me exist. But only one is whole.
She folded the note back in, her chest aching with something soft and sharp at once, and continued to live her life.
A week later, she saw him.
One day, while walking along Wallaby St., she saw him, her K.
He was outside a bookstore, near the train station. He hadn’t changed much, and yet he looked different to her.
Less sculpted by fantasy. More real.
She walked past him, but something made her stop, her heart beating fast, her thoughts racing, hoping, maybe just maybe he remembered her, as she turned around from her right slowly,
she smiled faintly. “Hey.”
He blinked, surprised. “Nia?” Nia Sharma, is that you?
Nia smiled with grace and love in her eyes, the longing she felt, her lashes blinked away the first tear, and then another slipped down her cheek, her heart had held that longing for too long, and now it was spilling over.
With teary eyes, she said “I was going to keep walking. But I figured I’ve done enough of that already.”
A pause. Then a half-smile from him. “So what now?”
She shrugged. “Now? I will stay”
A quiet passed between them, not uncomfortable, just true.
She didn’t expect magic. Didn’t expect him to say he’d missed her or loved her in another world. That wasn’t the point.
She’d finally chosen her reality, the world that didn’t dress her in diamonds or a facade, but truly accept herself.
It wasn’t perfect. Some days still felt like too much. Some dreams still held marble staircases and chandeliers.
But each morning, she woke up knowing, the truth isn’t always grand.
It’s gritty. Flawed. Painfully intimate.
And yet, it’s yours.
Would you rather live in the ease of illusion or the weight of reality?
She had chosen.
And this time, she chose herself in the reality she breathes.
-Yarhi
