The Perils of Mimicry
I am not Leah Donovan.
I look just like her. I have her hair—dirty blonde, ramrod straight—and her green eyes. I am the right height and weight to fit her clothes exactly. I’ve got her freckles and even the little scar on her chin from when she fell playing tag in the fourth grade.
But I am not Leah Donovan.
I am the thing that took her place.
Leah had a family. She had parents, friends, a partner—but none of them noticed when I stepped into her life. One day she was there, and the next I had taken her place, and not one of the people who loved her remarked on a difference.
I fit her life like a glove. I go to her job, a menial secretarial role at a health clinic. I have dinner with her parents. I sleep next to her girlfriend. Leah had to deal with complications like stress and attachment and feelings. I have none of these to contend with. I can work endlessly, mirror any emotion, slip into any situation.
Her boss is overjoyed. Her friends are thrilled that I come to every outing, her parents remark how lovely it is to see me every weekend. I take her girlfriend out on dates every week, buy her gifts, fuck her sweetly. I inhabit Leah’s life better than she, messy and human, ever could have.
And yet.
And yet.
Despite my perfection, despite my superiority, Leah’s life begins to unravel around me.
It starts small. I order a burger when out with Leah’s best friend, and she questions my choice; Leah had been a vegetarian. The next weekend, her mother retrieves a photo album of an old vacation. I don’t feel anything about the pictures; I can’t. Her mother doesn’t hide her disappointment at my blank expression, and I excuse myself to the bathroom.
“Does Leah seem a little off?” she asks when I am out of the room, a half-whisper clearly not meant for me.
Her father rumbles agreement. “A bit strange, sure. She’s been working a lot recently, maybe that's why.”
When I return, they say they want to take a break from weekly dinners.
Leah’s friends begin to withdraw. I attempt to speak about topics of mutual interest—work, recently-watched television shows, idle gossip—but only receive frowns and changes of the subject in response. They are unnerved by me. I sit while they talk amongst themselves, a broad smile plastered onto my face.
I am smarter, faster, funnier—I know every script and every rule and I am prepared for any outcome. I’m superior to Leah. So I strap the smile on harder, sink deeper into Leah’s skin, and attempt to ignore the crawling wrongness as I push forward. I hold tightly to every sliver of connection.
Still, the invitations from her friends recede. I am an unwanted companion, an awkward silence. I don’t understand it.
My performance at work suffers. I continue to push myself beyond a regular human’s breaking point, but it does not bring her coworkers closer to me. Leah’s clothes begin to feel stiff and itchy against me, and I cannot tell if it’s because they are too small or because I am too big. The world becomes noisier.
It is her girlfriend’s rejection that cuts most deeply, because I have been the perfect partner. Leah had a temper: she could be selfish, childish, overly emotional. I am undemanding, uncomplicated. I ask for nothing.
“You’re different,” she says when I come home to find her bags packed. “I don’t understand why, but you are.”
I say, “Don’t go. We can work this out.”
She shakes her head, tears falling freely. “I don’t think you mean that. I don’t even think you love me anymore.”
“Of course I do.” The words ring hollow even to my own ears.
“I don’t think you love anyone anymore. You’re empty.”
After she leaves, the apartment is so terribly quiet. I pull at Leah’s memories, sure that I must have missed something for her life to have worn thin so quickly. Surely I have done everything I can, fulfilled every role to the best of my ability?
In Leah’s memories, her parents embraced her warmly, told her they were proud of her. Her friends laughed at her jokes, exchanged genuine pieces of themselves in stories. Her girlfriend touched her softly, eyes so full of tenderness that the recollection scorches me. I never received any of that.
Time passes, and the space around me becomes colder and emptier. The world becomes louder and harsher, more difficult to bear with nothing to shield me from the sharp, strident bleakness of it all. Soon there will be nothing left of Leah’s life, and I will need to move on, to find another skin. Her friends and family will not miss me.
Because I am not Leah Donovan, and they will never love the thing that ate her.
© 2023 Erin Rockfort
About the Author
Erin Rockfort is a queer, neurodivergent writer and therapist based in Ottawa, Ontario. They have been previously published by Translunar Travelers Lounge and Renaissance Press, and they are an organizer for the Aurora Award-winning conference Can*Con.