My name is Iris. I’m twenty-eight, and I’ve spent my life editing the stories of others, but I never expected to be cast as a lead in someone else’s tragedy.
It started with a call from Camille. Camille was the kind of friend who lived in the margins—sharp, guarded, and perpetually composed. But that night, her voice sounded like frayed wire.
“Iris, I need you to be someone else for three hours,” she whispered. “Please. No questions. Just show up.”
I should have hung up. But Camille had pulled me out of my own darkness a year prior when I lost my job and my apartment. Loyalty is a heavy debt.
“Okay,” I said, my heart starting a slow, thumping rhythm. “Who am I?”
She picked me up in a car that smelled of nervous sweat and expensive perfume. She handed me a garment bag containing a charcoal-grey silk shift dress—muted, elegant, and entirely not my style.
“Your name is Elena,” Camille said, her knuckles white on the steering wheel as we drove toward The Gilded Lily, an upscale bistro where the lighting was designed to hide secrets.
“Elena is my sister,” she continued, her voice robotic. “We grew up in Windsor Heights. Our father, Arthur, is a retired architect. Our mother, Eleanor, is a quilter. You’ve been living in London for the last five years. You’re vague about your work. You’re tired from the flight. If you get stuck, look at me and cough.”
“Camille, why am I doing this?” I asked, looking at the small “cheat sheet” she’d tucked into the bag.
“Because they’re dying, Iris,” she snapped, then softened. “Their hearts are dying. Just give them this one dinner.”
The restaurant was a cathedral of hushed conversations and clinking crystal. At a corner table sat Arthur and Eleanor. The moment they saw me, the air left the room. It wasn’t a look of recognition; it was a look of hunger.
“Elena?” Eleanor breathed, her hand flying to her throat.
I sat down, the charcoal silk feeling like lead. Camille squeezed my wrist under the table—a warning. Throughout the appetizers, I felt like an escaped convict. Every time I mentioned “London,” Eleanor’s eyes would fill with a desperate, shimmering light. Arthur just watched me, his gaze navigating the lines of my face as if searching for a blueprint he’d lost years ago.
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