Imposter

A Story by Essie W

First person story of a life lived not comfortable in one's skin. Magical realism? Fantasy?

When I came of age it was decided by the powers that be that I would go live with my cousin in San Francisco. I had never been there, heck, I had barely even ever left my tiny isolated community. But the time had come and I couldn’t just sit around, I needed to actually do something; or at least that is what I had been told. Back then I wasn’t one for making my own decisions, mostly because I had never really had the chance to make any real decisions for myself.

So, I was given some money, a cell phone, a bicycle, and instructions on how to find my cousin. All I can remember from that train ride is sitting alone, how self conscious I felt. I knew I was different, that I didn’t belong with all these nice families traveling together on vacation and business professionals focused on doing something. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my own skin before.

There was a voice in my head, telling me that somehow they must know that I’m not like them, I’m not normal. There wasn’t really any reason why I might have stood out or why I would not appear to be anything other than a simple young adult, not bothering anyone, but I thought that these sophisticated people, these people who sit on the train and type on their computers and drink their coffee, they must know that I do not belong in their train.

When I got off the train, my cousin Seleh was waiting for me at the station. She had been living in the city for three years, and I hadn’t got a chance to see her since she moved. It was odd seeing her like this, so comfortable with the craziness around us. She gave me a big hug and asked about how my journey was and how the family was. I didn’t tell her how overwhelmed I felt, but she must have known because she looked at me and said in a lower, knowing voice, “the first few weeks can be pretty rough, but you’ll get to like it soon enough. You’re lucky, the bus isn’t too busy this time of day. We got about an hour ride and then we can just chill and get pizza delivery.”

I nodded. She helped me put my bike on the bus and we sat down in front. Selah asked me a few more questions and after a few blocks she started what I soon recognized as the inevitable zoning out state that happens when one sits on a bus. Selah, always the social butterfly, alternated between texting her boyfriend, her three best friends, someone at work, her ex-boyfriend, her next boyfriend, and a client at her side gig. I didn’t mind because I learned a lot about the city on that first bus ride; I saw people of all walks of life get on and off the bus, and despite what I had feared, no one cared. There was just an acceptance of being in space and not caring about who the people around you are because you don’t want to know. That is one of the reasons why I loved the bus - because you can exist in a space and still be completely anonymous because people actively don’t want to know things about you. No one in San Francisco cared who that person on the bus is as long as they were left alone. My whole time in the city, I was only really ever comfortable in places where I was anonymous - in buses, in crowds, on the street, on the ferry. When I was anonymous, it was a little less difficult to keep up appearances.

After two more buses and 45 minutes, Selah ordered us a pizza from her phone. Eventually we got off the bus on a dark street corner and walked down a small side street. The air smelled like salt from the waves. Voices drifted from a bar a few blocks away. We walked up three flights of stairs to find a woman in a bathrobe waiting outside Selah’s door. She opened the door and stepped away to talk to the woman. I was pleasantly surprised at the apartment. It was musty and didn’t have a dishwasher or an oven, but at least we had plenty of space.

Selah came in a few minutes later with the pizza and I asked what was going on with the woman. She rolled her eyes, “This building is owned by some LLC that is owned by some distant family. We get reduced rent for dealing with the other units’ issues.” I looked happy, so she quickly added, “that’s reduced rent from market rate though, so the rent is still horrible. I’ve been working two jobs and three side gigs since Uncle Jeou moved out three months ago. I’ve already arranged for you to take over my dishwashing shift at the Himalayan restaurant three blocks down starting on Tuesday and I booked you a notary certification course next week, so you can help with my mobile notary business.”

Being thrust into an ultra busy life didn’t give me the chance to explore that I thought that I would have, but at least it meant that I also had to always keep on the move. I didn’t have a moment to stop and think about who I was or what I was doing with my life. I went from dishwasher to bartender at the restaurant. Fall changed into Winter which changed into Spring with no discernible change in weather. Eventually I learned my way around the city and started to make some friends, but I could never shake that self conscious feeling that I first felt on the train. I felt like a fraud, an imposter. I felt like there was something deep down inside of me that was wrong, that didn’t belong, but somehow no one could see that. I was just waiting for the day that someone would notice, that I would slip up - one tiny mistake, one astute glance, and someone would know.

But it didn’t.

Day after day I made fancy cocktails, I rode my bike up and down hills, I notarized mortgages, I stopped at the corner store for some lettuce, I went to see the bison in the park; day after day, I lived my life expecting it to come crashing down, but somehow, it didn’t. Everyone thought I was kind, sociable, and trustworthy. No one suspected I didn’t know what I was doing. No one suspected that this face that I wore in public wasn’t really me. But there came a point that I had worn that face so long that I no longer knew what my real face looked like.

A year after I moved in, Yina, a distant relation of some sort, moved in with us. She shared a room with Selah; Selah was at her boyfriends’ houses more often than not, so it wasn’t like it was that big of an inconvenience. A year after that, Selah moved home; she said she was done with this phase in her life.

Eventually I met someone, Mahmoud, a regular at the restaurant bar, who didn’t become my boyfriend, but he also wasn’t my boyfriend. I was already thinking about Selah back home and whether I would end up going back home too, I wasn’t ready for commitment and Mahmoud wasn’t ready for anything substantial either. We had planned to visit Mahmoud’s family as ‘just friends’ for a few days around Christmas. On the day we were supposed to leave, he came into the bar crying, because his parents had found out that I wasn’t just his friend and they weren’t happy. I pointed out that we had a connecting flight in Las Vegas and we weren’t taking any checked luggage, so the problem solved itself.

That Christmas day, me and Mahmoud laid next to each other in matching deck chairs next to a pool, sipping overpriced watered down cocktails. He told me that he was surprised that I was so happy just laying in the desert sun. “You shouldn’t be too surprised, you should know by now that I am cold blooded, I can’t get enough sun.” Those few days were some of the happiest I had ever had, but already the idea of home was getting bigger and bigger in my head.

I thought I loved Mahmoud and my musty apartment and my job at the bar and the ocean winds and walking in the park, but I could never figure out whether that life that I loved was actually mine. I felt like I was living someone else's life, a life I didn’t deserve. At this point, the real me had vanished behind the mask that I wore everyday, and I genuinely didn’t know whether I was actually happy or if I had just deluded myself like I had deluded everyone else. So, I just kept living, despite becoming more and more restless and more and more uncomfortable in my skin.

Until one day I just couldn’t do it any more. There was no breaking point, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong in my life. There was just some instinct telling me that it was time to go. I went to Mahmoud’s apartment during the day when he was working, and took everything that was mine. I left my key and a note telling him that I loved him but I needed to go. I told Yina and she understood. I gave her everything I had, other than my bicycle and the smallest amount of money I thought I could get by with.

I rode the bus one last time to the train station, finally feeling at peace with the idea that I will be going home. When I got on the train, I had the same self conscious feeling like I didn’t belong, but at least after five years of living in the city, I knew that no one would suspect anything.

I got off the train and rode my bicycle in midday heat down a long country road. I was not a particularly fast cyclist, so I knew that I would not reach home until long after sunset. I enjoyed every minute of it, as the terrain became more familiar even the air felt better. It was summer so it remained warm even when it grew dark. The crickets chirped and the car noise faded away. Several hours later, I turned down a dirt road onto the property where I had grown up. At the end of the dirt road was a simple tree and a small house. Before I could go in and join my family, I left my bicycle next to the tree, right where I had picked it up the first time, and lay down underneath the tree. I didn’t want to disturb everyone at night.

As I slept, I could feel myself becoming who I was meant to be.

When I awoke, I was new.

I had never felt so comfortable in my skin. I had sloughed my humanoid exterior during the night and my brand new skin was pebbled green. I blinked and felt my third eyelid had finally come in. I stuck out my tongue into the air and was amazed at how my senses had heightened. I took one last look at the exterior world, the human world. I realized now that even though I had been hiding something, the feelings I had and the love I had felt was all real.

I opened the door of the house, which contained only a single elevator. I pressed the down button. I had lived a life I loved as a human, and while I was sad to leave my human life, I was ready to begin my next life phase of life happy in my reptilian skin.