So, it was clear at that point: her 7-year-old self had jumped in the water so that she, at twenty-seven, could save her and, now that she was face to face with herself, she finally saw all the pain she’d put herself through and just how much she’d hurt herself over the past twenty years. A wave of repressed memories came flooding back to her mind from her childhood, but it felt like they weren’t hers anymore. It felt like looking at somebody else’s life, as though that little girl in front of her truly was a stranger and had just momentarily given her permission to peek at her life but the clock could run out and the memories be taken away at any point.


She saw herself at two years old, hitting her head against the corner of her grandparents’ marble kitchen counter—but she did not feel the pain. She saw herself at four years old dancing in the kitchen with her mum while she was holding her newborn brother in her arms—but she did not feel the joy. And she saw herself at seven, telling an undecided boy that the guy who would be her future boyfriend would know just how special she was and would not have any doubts—but she did not feel the pride…


“Can I sit next to you again?” she asked her younger self as if asking her to forgive all her mistakes all at once, and the little girl just shrugged her shoulders unimpressed.


She sat down, looked at the little girl’s overalls and noticed a little rip in the fabric over the right knee and said:


“Did this happen as you fell in the water?”


The little girl raised her eyes to look up at her ever-so-disappointing older self and said:


“You know, the only thing I envy you are your boobs, as for the rest I wish I never had to become you.”


At that point they both looked down at the water, resting their hands on the dirty pavement, arms held tight by their sides as if to protect themselves from something that was invisible to anyone else, slightly hunching their shoulders—looking so alike that, had it not been for the twenty years of separation, you’d have thought you were seeing double had you passed by them in that instant.