As soon as I got home, my neighbor suddenly told me

My heart was pounding so hard I thought the mattress would give me away. I held my breath, pressing my face into the dusty carpet, trying to make myself as small as possible.

The man sighed heavily and paced around the room. He opened drawers. Closed them. Muted curses slipped from his mouth, sharp and impatient. He sounded tired. Angry. Like someone who had done this a thousand times before.

I watched through the narrow gap under the bed as his feet stopped right in front of me.

He stood there for a long moment.

Then he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I swear,” he muttered, rubbing his temples, “if you don’t get it together, we’re done.”

We.

My stomach twisted.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it every day of my life. In the mirror. In recordings. In my own head.

It was mine.

The man stood up and walked toward the bathroom. I crawled out slowly, my hands shaking so badly I could barely push myself up. My reflection in the closet mirror stared back at me — pale, wide-eyed, drenched in sweat.

Then the bathroom door opened.

And I saw him.

Same height. Same shoulders. Same scar on the left eyebrow from when I was twelve and fell off my bike on Maple Street in Cleveland. He wore my jacket. My shoes. He even had the same tired slump I’d seen in myself after long days at work.

We stared at each other.

Neither of us screamed.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” he said quietly.

My voice came out hoarse. “Who are you?”

He laughed — bitter, humorless. “You know exactly who I am.”

My legs felt weak, but I stayed standing. “That’s not possible.”

“It wasn’t,” he said. “Until you broke.”

He walked past me into the kitchen like he owned the place. Poured himself a glass of water. Drank it slowly. Like this was normal.

“You don’t remember the accident,” he said. “The one three years ago. The one that left you in the hospital with a $40,000 bill and no answers.”

My chest tightened. I remembered the hospital lights. The headaches. The blank weeks everyone said were ‘stress.’

“I took over,” he continued. “Someone had to keep things running. Pay the rent. Go to work. Smile at the neighbors. You couldn’t handle it anymore.”

“You were screaming,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Yeah. Because you keep fighting me. You leave things unfinished. You forget. You panic.”

I sank into a chair. Everything made sense in the worst possible way. The missing hours. The notes in my phone I didn’t remember writing. The exhaustion that never went away.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long time. Then he smiled — calm, steady, confident.

“Now,” he said, “we stop pretending there’s only one of us.”

The next weeks were strange, but quieter. The neighbors stopped complaining. The house felt still again. The headaches faded. I went back to work, paid my bills, cooked dinner, slept through the night.

I still hear him sometimes. In my thoughts. In my tone. In the choices I make without thinking.

But now I understand something important.

I was never alone in that house.

And I never really was.