I cannot remember when she appeared in my life, but it happened long ago, in those silent times when silence seemed heavier than the noise.
She never introduced herself the way other people do. She simply existed with such ease and familiarity that I could never explain it. It felt as though she knew me before I knew myself. She knew how to sit beside me, how to speak without fear. Her presence was so natural and effortless that it comforted me more than it unsettled me.
I never mentioned her to anyone because there was no need to prove her existence, not even to myself.
She was everything I was not.
Where I hesitated, she moved without fear. Where I stayed quiet, she spoke as if the world had never given her a reason to hold back. Even her laughter carried something unfamiliar, something unburdened, as though she had never learned what it meant to swallow a feeling just to survive the moment.
I used to watch her the way one watches a life that does not belong to them, close enough to see, but never close enough to touch.
And for a long time, that was enough.
Until I started forgetting things.
Not small things, but entire moments that should have stayed with me. I could remember what happened, but not how it felt. I could recall what I said, but not why I said it. It was as if parts of my experience were quietly taken from me, leaving only empty outlines of what once felt real.
That’s when I understood that she was always there.
Not clearly, not as before, but in the gaps of my memory—where things felt missing, she seemed to remain. Not as a person I could see, but as a presence I could still feel.
I found the pictures not long after, hidden among things I had forgotten I kept. In them, she appeared again and again, drawn carefully, as if she was never meant to be forgotten.
But what disturbed me most was not her presence.
It was the absence of myself.
Sometimes I was there, but small and quiet, as if I did not fully belong. Other times, I was missing completely, as if my place had been filled by something else.
That was when the thought became clear.
She was not something I imagined.
She was what I had lost.
And maybe worse, she was what had been left behind in my place.
And if that were true, then I am not sure what that makes me now, because I cannot tell if I am the one who stayed, or the one who was left behind.
Written by Jasmine Parohinog
Jasmine Parohinog is a dedicated campus journalist and contributor. Their insightful writing sparks meaningful conversations and keeps the community informed.
