CHAPTER 24
Diary
The rain pours harder through the trees.
I can’t move. My body feels frozen where I stand, like the ground beneath my feet has turned to stone. My mind is racing too fast to hold onto any single thought. Dominic steps closer. Carefully. Like he’s approaching someone fragile.
“I have hers—” He stops himself, swallowing hard. “Your notebook,” he corrects quietly. “You… you write in it every day.” My head tilts slightly, confusion clouding my thoughts. “In my office,” he continues. “You always sit at the same chair. Same time every day.”
His voice softens. “You kept a diary in the drawer in my office. The one you always locked.” He pauses. “You always put it under my black scarf… the one from St. Luke.”
Another shock runs through me, sharp, sudden. My breath catches in my throat. The scarf. My mind flashes back to the drawer. The black fabric, the initials I thought meant something else. I thought it belonged to Sophie. I thought Dominic had hidden her scarf like some sick trophy.
But it wasn’t hers, It was his.
A St. Luke hospital scarf.
The kind doctors wear with their coats during long shifts in cold hallways and night rounds. Something normal, something ordinary, something every doctor at the hospital probably owns and suddenly the memory of that moment in the drawer twists painfully inside my chest.
I got it wrong.
All of it.
Every accusation, every assumption, every moment I thought Dominic was hiding evidence. My fingers tremble at my sides. The rain runs down my face but I barely feel it anymore because another terrifying thought settles into place.
If the scarf wasn’t Sophie’s…
Then the thing I believed proved Dominic was guilty, was never proof at all. A strange numbness spreads through my body. Not relief, not peace…Just emptiness.
Because the more the truth reveals itself…
The less I understand about my own life.
Dominic’s voice pulls me back. “I knew Era wasn’t the one standing in front of me anymore.” His voice lowers. “I knew it was you.” My stomach twists. “Sera.”
The name feels different now. Heavy and real.
“The moment you dyed your hair,” Dominic continues slowly, “I knew something had changed.” His jaw tightens. “I knew you were splitting again.”
My breathing becomes uneven.
“And when you asked me about the locked drawer… that’s when I knew you didn’t remember anything.” His eyes search my face. “You didn’t remember Marcus.” The name hits something deep inside my chest.
“Marcus was your psychiatrist, Sera,” Dominic says quietly. “He treated you a year ago.” My head spins. “He helped you when this started happening before.”
Dominic exhales slowly.
“I told him everything that happened… before we all met again.” He swallows. “He wanted to see for himself. Just to be sure.”
And suddenly, something clicks in my mind.
The park.
Marcus.
Running into him while I was walking and his strange concern. The way he spoke to me like he already knew me. Offering help. Watching me carefully. It wasn’t an accident, he was checking on me.
Confirming whether I recognized him. Confirming whether I was Era…
or Sera.
The memory cracks open inside my head.
A flash. Marcus sitting across from me in a quiet office. His voice calm, professional and gentle.
“Do you remember where you are right now?” he asks. Silence. “Do you remember what your name is?”
I’m sitting there. Blonde hair falling past my shoulders, staring at the wall. Completely still. No emotion, no reaction…Just emptiness.
Marcus watches me carefully. Writing something in a notebook. Observing, waiting. Trying to see who he’s talking to.
Another flash crashes in. A bathroom mirror. The hum of fluorescent lights above me. My hands gripping a box of black hair dye. My reflection staring back at me.
Blonde hair.
But the person in the mirror doesn’t look alive.
My eyes are empty. Like there’s a space between me and the reflection staring back.
A void. Like two people standing on opposite sides of a glass wall.
My hands move slowly. Almost mechanically.
The dye spreads through the blonde strands. Turning them darker.
Black.
And the moment the color changes, something inside my mind shifts. Like two halves of a broken mirror finally separating.
Before we split.
Before Era… and Sera became two different people.
The forest spins around me again. The rain continues falling. And for the first time, I understand why my dreams were never dreams. They were pieces of a life I had been living… without ever knowing it.
Dominic watches me carefully.
Rain runs down his face, but he doesn’t seem to notice it anymore.
“Sera—”
He stops himself.
Then tries again. “You… came out for the first time when Era found out about Evelyn.”
I go still.
Dominic swallows before continuing. “She couldn’t handle it.” His voice softens, almost like he’s choosing his words carefully. “The truth about Evelyn broke something inside her.”
He looks at me with a mixture of sadness and guilt. “Her mind needed a way to survive it.” A pause. “So it created you.”
The rain taps softly against the leaves above us.
“You weren’t something she chose consciously,” he continues. “You were something her mind built to protect itself… to carry what she couldn’t.”
My breathing grows uneven. “After she found out about Evelyn… everything about you changed.” Dominic studies me closely. “Your personality. The way you moved. The way you spoke.”
He exhales slowly.
“Era has always been the opposite of you.” The words land heavily between us. “Era is bright,” he says quietly. “She talks to everyone. She fills a room without even trying.”
A faint, sad smile touches his face. “She’s the kind of person who makes strangers feel like they’ve known her forever.” The smile fades. “But you…” His eyes search mine. “You’re different.”
His voice lowers. “You avoid people. You don’t like crowds. You keep to yourself… like you’re more comfortable hiding in the shadows than standing in the light.”
The world closes in, and I can’t breathe through it.
“You watch people more than you talk to them.” He gestures slightly toward me. “You’re guarded. Quiet. Careful with every word you say.”
The rain falls harder around us. Dominic’s voice grows softer. “Era runs toward the world.” A beat. “You run away from it.” His eyes stay locked on mine. “And that’s how I knew it wasn’t her anymore.”
Rain slides down my face, but I barely feel it anymore. Dominic’s words echo inside my head, repeating over and over.
You were created to protect her.
No.
My mind fights against it, that can’t be real, that can’t be me. I shake my head slowly, trying to push his voice out, trying to force the pieces back into the life I thought I understood.
But the more I resist it…
The more it makes sense.
A sickening kind of sense.
Because when I try to reach for my life, really reach for it, there are gaps.
Huge ones.
Sharp ache hits me out of nowhere as I search through my memories.
The day before the conference. I remember leaving the house. I remember seeing Dominic in the back. I remember the blonde woman kissing him.
But before that? Nothing but darkness.
I try harder.
What was I doing earlier that day? What was I wearing? What did I eat for breakfast? My mind draws a blank.
A hollow space where something should be.
Panic creeps into my chest as I search deeper.
My childhood. My parents. Their faces, I can’t see them.
I try to picture my mother. Her smile. Her voice.
Nothing comes. Just empty fog. My breathing becomes uneven.
Why can’t I remember? Why does it feel like I’m searching through someone else’s life?
Because it wasn’t mine. The thought hits me so suddenly it makes my knees weak. It was Era’s. Not mine.
Dominic suddenly reaches into his coat. “I need to show you something.”
Before I can react, he pulls out a small notebook. My stomach turns over on itself. I recognize it instantly. My hands begin trembling as he places it in front of me.
“You wrote in this every day,” he says softly. “Your diary.”
I take it slowly. The pages are worn, the edges softened from being opened again and again. My fingers shake as I flip the first page.
Tuesday
The handwriting is familiar.
But it doesn’t feel like mine.
Dom burned the pancakes again this morning.
A small smiley face sits beside the words.
He tries so hard though, so I ate them anyway. They tasted like charcoal but I told him they were perfect.
Chest pain slices through me, quick and precise.
Sometimes I watch him cooking and think about what our kids might look like one day.
Would they have his eyes?
I hope they do.
The words blur as tears fill my eyes as I turn the page.
Wednesday
Dom worked late again tonight.
I waited up because he always pretends he’s not tired when he comes home.
I made him tea.
He fell asleep halfway through drinking it.
I think I love him more when he doesn’t know I’m watching.
My throat tightens painfully.
This isn’t my voice. It’s hers.
Era.
I flip more pages.
Weeks of entries, little pieces of a life I don’t remember living. The sound of rain fills the silence around me. Then I reach the last entry.
Two months ago. The handwriting looks shakier here. Like the person writing it knew something was about to happen. My breath catches as I read.
Sera…
The name makes my hands tremble.
I know you’re about to come out again.
My vision blurs.
I told Dominic that if I get lost and he needs me back, he’ll need to show you this diary.
And I’ll find my way back.
I inhale, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Sera, don’t be afraid.
I am you.
And you are me.
A tear falls onto the page.
I know about you. I’ve always known. I’ve been here… in the back… watching everything you do without being able to control anything.
My heart pounds harder.
Last time this happened, you took over.
And I just sat there and watched every moment.
You helped me.
You shielded me.
You took my hands and wrapped them with yours.
My breathing falters.
And I will always be grateful for that.
The page shakes in my hands as I stare at the final words because for the first time, I realize something terrifying. Era knew about me all along.
And I never knew about her.