My Best Life
/I’ve been following this man for… a long time. Months, at least.
I don’t remember exactly how it started. He comes to the coffee shop I work at. Worked at. I was cleaning when he walked in. He didn’t notice as I stared, dumbfounded, and I almost didn’t catch myself as he turned to look around the shop. I spun and quickly started scrubbing at something nonexistent on the table next to me, already cleaned. It was hard not to notice that he was dressed nicely, with light dress pants, a dark button-up dress shirt, and brown leather shoes.
“You didn’t notice anything about that guy? Nothing weird?” I asked my co-worker, the one who served him, as soon as the man left. I don’t remember looking at her. I think I was still watching the last spot I’d seen him, as he walked out the door.
“No, nothing really.” She studied my face quizzically for a moment. “Y’know, he did have a scar under his eye, kind of like you.” I may have nodded in response.
He doesn’t have a scar “kind of like me.” This guy looks exactly like me. He is me. He’s the same height as me, roughly the same build. He has my face. He has my curly black hair, my long nose, and my pale, sunless complexion. He has a beard like the one I once had. And he has my scar. The scar that follows the socket of my left eye, from when I fell off my bike as a child.
If he’d only visited once, things would be different. I would have just had this funny story about a secret twin. But he was in the shop every other day ordering my drink, a large mocha. I never served him, so I had to check his order after he left to see. I guess at some point I was waiting for him on my day off. I followed him to the university and discovered that he teaches there. He gives lectures to very large classes, two or three hundred people, easy for me to sit in on. I also learned that he has my name. He has my face and my name. He teaches classical history; that’s what I studied before I dropped out of school.
I’ve been following him everywhere - to work, to his appointments, to where he runs errands, and to his home, a nice house within walking distance of the college. His nice house, nice car, and his pretty wife. I noticed that he jogs early in the morning on days that he doesn’t go to the coffee shop.
I can’t stop watching him. He has everything I want. I don’t have an apartment anymore. My clothes were dingy before, but now? And my car… I don’t have enough money to refill the gas tank next time it gets low. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but this man…
He’s living my best life.
COURTESY OF GERALT from PIXELBAY.COM
Andrew Gilvary is a current student of Algonquin’s Professional Writing program. He enjoys deconstructing stories and ideas, and in his free time he plays cards and board games, reads comics, and watches TV and movies.
