Okay, two weeks and 4 days to be precise. March 19, 2026

As a little sneak peek  here’s the first chapter!

The hanger slid with the sharp rasp of metal on metal as I shoved another handful of clothes to the side.

Ugh, nothing in here was right. Did I own anything that had a glimmer of style, or even trendy fashion to it? The fabric was worn. I may not have a lot of money for new clothes, that wasn’t my issue. Without a waistline in sight, everything was vaguely sack-like and covered in floral print in an attempt at being pretty. Everything was frumpy.

‘You dressed like this all the time?’ I asked. The words were in my head, just as it seemed the presence of Addison Rouche was. Her fashion sense came from a combination of economics, comfort, and lack of self–confidence. I blamed her mother.

I lifted one dress, a shapeless potato sack of a garment with bell sleeves. Addy must have thought it fancy at one point, considering it was a daring glowing magenta with darker tiger like stripes. It looked like the kind of thing someone trying to hide their figure would wear.

The entire wardrobe was full of clothes that hid this body under a tarp. My closet looked like it belonged to a middle-aged woman.

“How old am I?” I asked the woman sitting in the middle of my bed. She flipped through a photo album as I searched for anything I might be able to salvage before I took the entire lot down to the thrift store and completely replaced all of my clothes.

I took one look at the person who was my mother, and realization dawned. These clothes looked exactly like the things Kristen wore. And she had the kind of domineering personality to run her opinion rough-shod over her daughter.

‘Twenty- six,’ the apparition of Addy said nanoseconds before her mother answered.

“You’re twenty-six, Addy.”

I grumbled low in my chest. “Please don’t call me that.”

Kristen sniffed. “But it’s your name.”

“My name is Addison,” I choked out. “I accept that, but I am not Addy. Addy didn’t come out of the water. I did.”

Just over three months earlier, while on vacation in Hawaii, there had been an accident and Addy had drowned. When the Coast Guard had resuscitated the body I was there, not Addison.

‘I did, too, come out of the water.’

‘A month ago, Addy. You left me alone in residence for two months.’

My name is Mancey Heartlove, and once upon a time I was the sweetheart of Hollywood.

“Why do you say such hurtful things?”

It took me a second to regroup. Balancing the two conversations was a challenge when one of us wasn’t aware there was a third person in the room. I sat on the bed next to Kristen, the magenta tiger striped dress still in my grasp. “I’m not saying it to be hurtful.”

“You’re punishing your father and I for trying to save your marriage.” She held open the album and showed me a page of photos. “You were so happy.”

The picture showed a couple that were practically total opposites. The man looked old and boney. He was long and thin, with a wispy mustache and small eyes. He looked like a weasel. A dirty trucker cap hid his mangy hair. The woman had a sweetheart shaped face with a short nose, big eyes, and thick, dark hair that hung to her shoulders. She was young and plump. It was a picture of Addy and her ex, Tyler.

In the picture, Addy wasn’t smiling. She grimaced through too much makeup. The man next to her didn’t have his arm lovingly draped over her shoulders, no, he had a grip on the back of her neck like he was trying to control a dog, or scruff a cat. What the photo didn’t show were the bruises.

“I’ve asked you not to show me pictures of my life with Tyler. You aren’t supposed to mention him.”

“I just want you to remember who you are.”

“Kristen,” I started.

“Mom, I’m mom. Don’t you remember?” She wiped at tears.

I was getting tired of this same conversation. I should have walked away months ago, but I was having some issues navigating the world. Apparently dying wasn’t exactly easy on the body. And Addy didn’t have any money. If she had savings, Tyler had taken all of it. I was broke and broken. Staying with Kristen and Bob was the best I could do for now.

When Addy resurfaced into this life, she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details. I knew Tyler was someone to be avoided. I also knew Addy was desperate for her mother’s approval.

I placed my finger over the face of Tyler. “I know he is my ex-husband because you keep telling me. And the only memory I have of him is a gut feeling that he is not good. Addy is not smiling in these pictures, she’s faking it, badly.”

“Why must you constantly refer to yourself in the third person?” Kristen wailed. She was always so dramatic when she got this way.

I stood and began pinching at the fabric of the dress. Maybe I could take it in, show off the curves that Addy had been trying to hide her entire life. She had a banging body, I should know, I was in it. The curves might have been considered plus size, but the waist to hip ratio this body had was outstanding. As Addy appeared to me she needed a spa day. She had dark circles under her eyes, her hair was typically limp and damp. And the clothes she tended to wear were frumpy at best.

I couldn’t keep giving Kristen my focus and attention when she got this way.

In a distracted and disconnected voice I began repeating what the doctors and therapists had told us. “I sustained brain damage when I drowned. I’m very fortunate that my body was able to recover full function considering how long I was under for. I have amnesia, and it’s a miracle that all I lost were my memories.”

Addy died, but I didn’t. I couldn’t exactly go around telling people this, especially since it was Addy’s body moving around, walking, talking, and Mancey Heartlove had died decades ago in a different century. There was no logic to how I had woken up in her body in a hospital in Honolulu, but I had. Right now my goals were to recover, and get my pasty white ass back to Hawaii.

“But you remember me and Dad,” Kristen said.

‘I remember you Mom,’ Addy said wistfully.

I stopped arguing with Kristen about who I did and didn’t remember. I didn’t remember her, or the man who was Addy’s father. I only knew who she was because she told me. What I remembered was my life in Hollywood, and I remembered my friend Emi in Hawaii. Emi who heard me, and somehow saw me after she had her own brush with death. Emi, who accepted me as her friend while I was nothing more than an organized collection of non-corporeal electrical pulses, a ghost.

And I remembered her brother, Collin. Hubba-hubba, Mr. Sex-appeal on legs. After knowing that men like him existed, why on earth would Addy be interested in returning to that weasel Tyler?

I rubbed the fabric between my fingers, it was all wrong. At first, I thought it felt silky, but now it felt too much like plastic. And while the color was fun, it wasn’t worth the effort to remake it into something I might wear. I hung it back with the rest of the clothes. So far, I hadn’t found a single thing worth keeping.

I took the photo album from Kristen, and flipped to a page. It was a photo of Christmas a long time ago. Her favorite picture to quiz me over. Her favorite memory of Addy’s life.

‘I remember that day.’ Addy began naming everyone off.

I pointed to the various aunts and grandparents and named them, repeating Addy’s words. We had done this many times. I could have named them without Addy’s help.

“You remember?” Kristen sounded so excited for a minute.

I shook my head. “No, I have no memory of them, or of this Christmas. I remember their names because you have been drilling them into my head. I understand this Christmas more like a history lesson. I wasn’t there, but I’ve been told about it so often, you really love that story. And to me, it’s just that, a story.”

“But Addy, it was so romantic. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“I was eighteen, I can’t believe you thought it was romantic. He was married.”

Apparently, Tyler had stormed into the family’s big Christmas dinner. And fitting what I learned of him, he was drunk. Kristen considered that a reflection of his deep emotions and not the huge red flag that it was. He grabbed Addy’s wrist and dragged her out onto the front lawn, and fell to his knees in the snow and professed his undying love for her. He was pushing thirty at the time and already married. And Kristen thought it was romantic.

‘I used to think it was romantic too. I guess I was dumb.’

‘Not dumb,’ I said in my head. ‘Manipulated.’

A shudder danced down my spine at the thought of it. Addy was a teenager and this older, married man… Well, whatever he thought was going to happen did. They were married as soon as his divorce went through.

A muffled alarm sounded from my phone. I dug through the small pile of clothes I had started on the bed before I realized everything was horrible, and I stopped making a pile. I found it and stopped the noise.

“What’s that for?” Kristen asked. Apparently, my newly found habit of setting alarms for appointments was a foreign concept to her.

“I forget things, remember?” The irony of me asking her to remember something was completely lost on her.

“Are you ready to go, Sonny?” Bob, Addy’s father, popped his head into the room and asked.

“Yep, let me grab my bag.”

“Go where? Why is he calling you Sonny?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Swimming lessons.”

“Addy, swimming? You drowned.”

And I hated that fact with a fiery passion. I, Mancey, had made my Hollywood debut as a synchronized swimmer in the aqua chorus of many MGM films before being discovered and launching skyward to becoming one of Hollywood’s sweethearts. “Yeah, and I never want that to happen again. Try calling me Sonny. I’m trying a different nickname, to see if it fits me better. I’m not Addy, and I’m not sure if I’m Addison.”

Kristen gasped. “Sonny? No, you’re my Addy. Next, you’ll want me to use pronouns.”

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath through my nose. I didn’t have time for a grammar lesson.

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©2026 Lulu M. Sylvian