SOMEONE ELSE BEHIND HER EYES

Anthony could not help noticing that something about his girlfriend had changed.

At first, the differences were small. She stopped watching the soap operas she had followed faithfully for years. Her strict diet disappeared, and she no longer spent an hour getting ready before going out.

“You look fine,” she would say, taking his hand. “Come on. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

She laughed more easily now. She listened when he spoke. Even their intimate moments had changed; she seemed more confident, more adventurous, and far more interested in what made him happy.

Anthony enjoyed it.

That was what made his growing suspicion so uncomfortable.

One evening, while she was out, he looked through her phone. He felt ashamed of himself until he found an email referring to a possession ritual.

Then he found the replies.

By the time she came home, he was sitting at the kitchen table with her phone in front of him.

“How long?” he asked.

She stopped in the doorway.

“What do you mean?”

“How long have you been in her body?”

For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

“Six weeks.”

Anthony had braced for denials, excuses, maybe an argument. The calm admission left him struggling for words.

“So you’re a man?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been pretending to be her all this time?”

The person wearing his girlfriend’s face lowered their eyes.

“Yes.”

Anthony pushed the phone across the table.

“Were you really going to empty our accounts?”

“That was the plan. Take the money and disappear before you realised anything was wrong.”

“What changed?”

“You.”

Anthony gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Don’t.”

“I know how it sounds.” The familiar hands tightened around one another. “But being in her body wasn’t what I expected. There were feelings here. Memories. When you came home, I felt glad to see you before I even understood why.”

Anthony stared across the table.

“At first, I thought it was just her love for you,” the man continued. “Then I started looking forward to our evenings together. I wanted to hear about your day. I wanted to make you laugh. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about leaving.”

“And where is she?”

“She’s still here. I can feel her sometimes.”

“That isn’t much of an answer.”

“No,” came the quiet reply. “It isn’t.”

Anthony stood and walked to the window. Outside, a neighbour was putting out the bins. Someone further down the street was calling a cat indoors. Everything looked painfully ordinary.

Behind him sat a stranger with the face of the woman he loved.

Yet the last six weeks had been the happiest they had shared in a long time.

He hated how much that mattered.

They talked late into the night. Anthony asked questions, returned to earlier answers, and sometimes simply sat in silence. The confession did not erase the deception. Nor did it erase the affection he had begun to feel for this unfamiliar person.

Eventually, he returned to the table.

“I need time,” he said.

“I understand.”

“A couple of weeks. Then we talk again and decide whether this is really what we both want.”

Hope flickered across his girlfriend’s face.

“You’d let me stay?”

“For now.”

Anthony reached across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the other hand met his.

Later, he led his unexpected companion toward the bedroom, both moving cautiously now, with the secret finally spoken aloud.

As they passed the hallway mirror, Anthony glanced at their reflection.

For an instant, he thought he saw fear in her eyes.

Then she smiled at him, and he looked away.