13 Chapter 13

Julia kept trembling as Nick held her hand tightly.

"You look like Julia but you are not the same person," Nick grumbled. "Tell me who you are?"

Julia remained silent so he tightened his grasp around her hand. Julia groaned in pain.

Daniel was observing them the entire time. He came to their table and asked, "Is everything alright?"

Nick slowly retracted his hand and said in a tone as casual as possible, "Yes. Everything's fine."

Daniel then turned to Julia and repeated, "Is everything alright?"

Julia briefly glanced at Nick who was giving her a stone-cold glare and replied, "Yes. Everything's alright."

"Great," he said and left.

As soon as Daniel went away, Nick said in a whisper, loud enough to be heard by Julia, "You are not leaving until you tell me who you are."

Julia was shivering like a cornered prey. Nick waited for her response. He was serious about it. He won't let her go without getting to know the truth.

Nick leaned back on his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, and said, "Take your time. I will wait."

Julia was staring down at the table, her head lowered, fingers trembling. She took a few deep breaths and whispered, "You are right."

Nick leaned forward and said, "Louder."

Julia locked her fingers together tightly and said, "You are right. I am not really Julia."

"Then who are you and why did you pretend to be her?"

She took a couple more deep breaths and said, "I am her sister - Jessilyn. Jessilyn Ambrose."

A brief silence hung in the air. Then Nick said, "You haven't answered all my questions yet."

Julia finally looked up at him, into his eyes. There was a slight hint of embarrassment for getting caught and the feeling of guilt to be an imposter, but predominantly her eyes were reflecting immense pain and sorrow. Nick could tell that whatever the answer was, it was not pleasant for her.

"My elder sister, Julia, whom you knew dearly, died two years ago."

The news stuck Nick like a bolt of lighting. He was speechless. He was partly confused and mostly heartbroken.

"When....how...?"

"It was during the Fall. She was cycling back home. It was her birthday. We were all waiting for her to return. We even planned a nice surprise party for her at home. Her close friends, relatives were present. I was the one who chose the cake. We kept waiting but she never came back. Instead, it was the news of her death that we received after two hours. Some stupid guy was driving while being drunk. He was unharmed but my sister...she couldn't make it to her surprise birthday party."

Tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on the table.

Nick felt too heavy in his chest.

Julia is dead! How could that happen? The saying is true then - God is too jealous of beautiful people to let them live longer.

"My mother was affected the worst by her death. She went into a state of denial. She thought we were lying to her about Julia's death while she was kept hidden from everyone else, even though she attended her funeral a few days ago. We tried to convince her that Julia was truly gone and would never come back, but she didn't believe us, rather she didn't want to believe us. Her mind broke and the explanation she came up with her disappearance was that we were pulling a prank on her."

"So you decided to pretend to be your sister and make your mother believe that she was not gone."

"Something like that. My mom had isolated herself from us by locking herself in her room. She refused to eat or even come out of the room until we presented Julia to her. On top of my sister's death, it was huge trouble for us.

My father was the one who suggested that I go to her looking like my sister. She hired a few makeup artists who made me look a lot like her. Of course, there were several dissimilarities, but he hoped that my mother wouldn't notice those flaws. And he couldn't be more right about that. She was so happy to see me as my elder sister, that she finally agreed to eat with everyone else for the first time in weeks. That time she went to sleep without sleeping pills. Her condition improved so dramatically overnight that my dad made me undergo plastic surgery to look like my sister permanently. The result is this face you are looking at right now."

She paused to breathe and continued, "She got better in a matter of few days. She was convinced that it was Julia and not me in disguise. She didn't even notice my birthmark like you did. And do you know what the worst part was? She never asked what happened to me. She didn't want to see me again. In her mind, I magically vanished. Her world only consisted of herself, my father, and Julia. There was no place for me. I was never needed and was removed from my parents' lives seamlessly. Nobody questioned anything, no one protested. Instead, everyone was glad to see her face again. It didn't bother them that I was gone. They were just too excited to get her back. And over time, they started to forget about my real identity. They behaved to me as if I was the real Julia. They were happy about the revival of Julia. They did not mourn the loss of Jessilyn. They never liked Jessilyn. All they cared about was Julia, Julia's face to be precise. They didn't care whose body it was, but as long as it portrayed the same beautiful face, they were happy about it. Months passed by as I became more and more Julia and drifted further apart from being Jessilyn. And at some point, I was more of Julia than being myself. I had turned into my sister. She was again being adorned like she used to be, while Jessilyn was out of their sights and hence out of their minds, forever."

Nick was too shocked to speak. Not only he couldn't digest the fact that Julia was dead, but he also felt extremely uncomfortable hearing the story.

"And are you okay with that?" he managed to say. "Living the rest of your life as your sister abandoning your true identity?"

Jessilyn laughed. "I have no other choice. I used to hate her a lot when she was alive. And now I hate her even more. She was always the center of attraction while I was treated as a failure, a disappointment, best kept hidden in her shadows. I was never loved, barely noticed by anyone, not even by my own parents. I was invisible to everyone. And look at what has happened to me now. Even after her death, she is living, keeping me in her shadows. It makes me super mad at her, but it's also the reason I am finally being noticed, showered with love, treated as an important person. This is a life of disgrace, being identified as someone else, someone I always hated, while my own identity is lost forever, but if that's the price I have to pay to enjoy the amount of attention I am getting now, I am okay with that, I am okay with being Julia for the rest of my life."

"What about Jessilyn?"

"Jessilyn was a failure. She could never match Julia in terms of beauty. She got what she deserved. She was better to be forgotten than living an insignificant, unhonoured life. Julia is what the world needs- a feast to everyone's eyes. I am far from being her. She was much more than just being pretty. She was good at so many things that I can never be able to match with. But I'll try my best. I need to become as close to being Julia as possible. That way I can live a fulfilling life while being loved by people."

Nick was meeting this girl for the first time and yet he could feel a tiny fraction of the sadness she was feeling. He had never seen someone living such a miserable life before. It was hard for him to empathize with her given the ridiculous situation she was in, but he felt immensely sad for her.

"But you hate Julia and surely you hate being herself as well. So why?"

"True. I despise her. I am jealous of her. But I pity her too."

"You pity her?"

"I do. You must remember what a great allrounder she was back then. She could have lived happily just with the pretty face she was gifted with, but she worked really hard to be good at so many fields too. She was being called pretty since she was a little girl, and she had observed how people were attracted to her because of her beauty. That's what made her promise to herself that she would prove to everyone that beauty was not the only parameter she should be measured with. Her worth was much more than that. She was hailed for being good at almost every field she had touched upon. But the sad part is that even after all the efforts she put in to bring people's attention to her talents, they still remember her for her beauty and not what she was capable of. My transformation proved that point precisely. I am not as good as her in studying, or gymnastics, or acting, but I am still being recognized as Julia, just because my face resembles her. That's all the surgery could change, my face and nothing else is similar to her. Did nobody notice that? Of course, they did. Were they bothered about it? Not at all. As long as Julia's face lives, they will be happy. Not just me, Nick, but Julia herself lost to her pretty face. She failed to become more than a mere doll."

Jessilyn, or the present Julia, rested her head on her hand as she looked outside. It could just be Nick's imagination, but he saw the corner of her eyes getting moist.

Julia is gone, he thought. Technically, she is alive, but not as the same person. She has left the world cursing her sister's life forever, the curse of pretending to be someone else as long as she lives. What a crazy world it is!

Suddenly a thought came to his mind so he asked, "How do you know me?"

Julia smiled at this. "She had mentioned you to me on several occasions. We didn't talk much, because she was always surrounded by other people and I used to avoid her deliberately. But she still insisted that we should talk to each other. So yeah, she told me that she had a friend named Nicholas, and she liked that guy for his honesty. She was usually surrounded by pretentious people, but you were different. I knew that you two never dated, but I did not know whether you proposed to her or not. Although she had once told me that she would like it if you wouldn't. She treasured the friendship and didn't want to get things complicated."

Nick felt a bit excited to hear that. Sure, Julia wanted them to be just friends, but the fact that she told her sister, who didn't like her much, that she liked Nick and enjoyed the friendship between them, meant a lot to Nick. It was great to know how she truly felt about them. He suddenly missed her. He had never missed her so much in the last few years since they split apart. But now that he knew that Julia was gone and he would never be able to see her again, his soul felt a sudden urge to meet her. The urge was so immense that he thought it would break him apart. The impact materialized as an unbearable pain in the chest. It was as if his heart was burning and only the presence of the real Julia could extinguish that fire.

"Listen, Nick, I know you must be distressed right now with everything I just told you, and you probably have started hating me too, which you are completely allowed to do. You need some time, I guess, to accept the truth and get used to it. I realize you were very close to her, so this will take quite some time for you to do that. If you don't want to see my face ever again, that's fine with me. But if you ever feel like talking to me, about anything, not just Julia, don't hesitate, just contact me, and I will come."

She opened her purse and took out some cash to pay for her portion and put them on the table. Then she got up and said, "Bye, Nick. And I am sorry for today."

His head was spinning. He had come to the diner with so much anticipation and ended up spending a totally different evening with a girl who wasn't even the person he expected her to be. He just found out that his first crush was dead for the last two years and he had no clue about it. Life is full of surprises, mostly odd ones for Nick.

"Julia, wait," Nick called.

Julia slowly turned around.

"You are forgetting something."

Julia looked at where she was sitting earlier to see if she left anything behind.

"The picture," Nick said. "We didn't take the photo together."