The Version You're Supposed To Be

I don't remember writing half the things in this journal.

The lake doesn't reflect anything. Not trees. Not clouds. Not me.

And I swear to God, someone else is living in this cabin with me.

I came to the hillside for silence. The kind they write about in wellness blogs and overpriced self-help memoirs with watercolour covers. The cabin had five stars. The view was breathtaking. Literally, you walk up the back deck, and the lake yawns beneath you like something from a luxury retreat brochure. Mist in the morning, blue glass by noon. Birds chirp like it's scripted. The sun performs on cue.

It was supposed to fix me.

I booked this retreat after I hyperventilated in the middle of my sister's wedding. Picture-perfect bridesmaids, tasteful dried flower bouquets, her stupid husband holding her hand like a proud hostage negotiator, and me in the back row, swallowing a panic attack like it was prosecco.

I needed space. Time.

I needed, according to the very persistent ad I saw on Instagram, a 3 a.m. to "rediscover the authentic self".

So here I am.

My name is Marla Ellison. I am thirty-seven. I used to work in PR for a publishing firm in Chicago. I had a husband named Greg and a dog named Pike. Greg cheated. Pike died. I stopped sleeping. You know, the usual origin story of someone who ends up journaling alone on a mountain and eating chia pudding with spoonfuls of repressed grief.

Day One: I feel numb, but in a productive way.

The place is beautiful. The kind of curated rustic that smells like pine-filtered trauma. There's no staff, just instructions in a manila envelope and a digital detox lockbox. The WiFi doesn't work, even when I try. There's a workbook titled Realign: The Self You Buried, and a series of morning rituals that include standing barefoot on the wooden deck and whispering affirmations to the sun.

I try. I really do.

But mostly here to decide if I want to go back. Back to my job. To Greg, who still texts sometimes like nothing happened. To the half-life I've been sleepwalking through.

So I journal. I walk. I stare.

I watch the lake.

Day Three: I found a recording on my phone.

I didn't make it.

It's my voice, though. Calm, methodical. Listing regrets.

"I should've left the night I found the lipstick. I should've taken the job in Seattle. I should've told Mom the truth about what happened in 2002."

Click.

I delete it. Assume I must've recorded something in my sleep. But there's a sour taste in my mouth now, and the lake still hasn't reflected me.

Day Four:

By now, I'm talking to myself aloud.

Not in a crazy way. Not yet. Just little mutterings: where's the tea, why does the journal keep moving from nightstand to the window seat, and how did I run out of chamomile already?

Then I see her.

Not clearly. Just movement.

Down by the edge of the lake. Standing at the waterline, in a black hoodie, arms folded.

She looks like me.

I blink. She's gone.

That night, I dream about being buried alive.

Day Six:

I flipped to the back of the workbook today. There's a page I hadn't noticed before.

Prompt: Write a goodbye letter to the version of yourself that has to die for you to become who you're meant to be.

I stare at it for a long time.

And then I write:

Dear Marla,

You were always afraid of being alone. You mistook silence for failure. You apologised every time you said no. You clung to broken things because fixing them made you feel worthy. But that's over now.

You don't get to come back.

That night, I hear footsteps in the kitchen.

I go out with a flashlight. The front door is locked. The tea kettle is hot.

I sleep with the journal under my pillow.

Day Eight:

There's another recording.

Longer this time. It's my voice, but deeper. Firmer. She's laughing.

"She still thinks this is a retreat. Isn't that sweet?"

Another voice, male, replies, "She'll fracture soon. Then she'll choose."

My hands shake as I delete it.

I decide to leave. I pack my bag. I stomp out to the trail.

But the path is gone.

Gone. Like it never existed. Just trees and fog. No marker. No roads. The same landscape in every direction.

I run until I'm breathless.

When I return to the cabin, the door is open.

My journal is on the deck.

There's a new entery i didn't write:

"You're almost ready."

Day Ten:

The woman at the lake came back.

This time, she turned.

It was me.

Not metaphorically. Not metaphor-as-trauma. Not a hallucination. Me.

She smiled like she knew a joke I didn't.

She said, "Finally."

I didn't run. I asked what she was.

She said, "The version you're supposed to be."

Then she walked into the lake and vanished beneath the water like it was nothing.

Day Eleven:

I found a page of my journal ripped out and pinned to the cabin wall.

It read:

"Choose."

I stopped sleeping.

The journal keeps filling itself.

One entry reads:

"You loved too small. You worked too quietly. You shrank to survive. You clung to a version of yourself built by someone else's shame. Let her go. Come back new. Come back, real."

Another:

"She won't leave until you make room."

I throw the journal in the fireplace.

It reappears on my pillow.

Day Twelve:

I find another version of myself in the mirror.

She moves faster. "What do you want from me?"

She replies, "I want to live."

That night, the two versions of me sit across the table.

She's flesh and blood now. Identical, but more radiant. More exact. She eats my food. Drinks my tea.

"Why now?" I ask.

She leans in. "Because you brought me here. You paid for this. You wanted this."

"I never wanted to lose myself."

"No," she says. "You wanted to kill the part of you that couldn't let go. And now you have."

I feel dizzy.

She stands, walks to the edge of the balcony. The moon glows behind her.

"One of us has to go," she says.

"Go where?"

She looks back. "Back to the world. Back to the noise. Back to Greg, to Chicago, to the grind. To the lie."

She gestures to the lake. "Or stay."

"In the cabin?"

"In yourself. The self that doesn't need the noise. The one that isn't afraid to be forgotten."

I step forward.

She holds out her hand.

Choose.

I take it.

The world folds.

Back in Chicago, Greg receives a postcard.

A watercolour painting of a lake, no reflection.

On the back, in unfamiliar handwriting:

"I made the right choice. She fits better in the life I left behind."

He stares.

Then deletes her contact.

Up on the hillside, the cabin door opens.

A new woman steps in, crying.

She finds the journal on the nightstand.

The first page reads:

"Welcome. You're ready now."

The End