The first rule of body-borrowing?
Don't fall in love while you're in it. Especially not with someone who thinks you're someone else.
But, here's the thing, love doesn't follow contracts or rules, or ethics, or even the blinking red timer in your peripheral vision counting down your remaining hours in a stranger's bones.
His name was Rowan, and I was only meant to meet him once. Just once.
See, I wasn't using the Varia transfer for closure. I wasn't mourning a relationship or any of the other dramatics, I was mourning myself.
The original me was a quiet, shy and chronically underestimated girl. I walked like I was afraid to be seen, spoke like I'd stolen the right to breathe. Or that everyone but me deserved everything good in life.
But today, I was Kara Lang.
Bold and flushed cheeks with a body that felt like it belonged on magazine covers and protest stages. This was a rented body with shoulder, back and chin lifted, with eyes like they'd seen the world and dared it to try her.
Kara was the kind of person people listened to. I'd borrowed her to practice speaking like I mattered. I wasn't supposed to actually talk to anyone though.
Especially not him. Then again, the heart will always want what it wants.
It started at the rooftop bookstore café. The kind with fairy lights strung over mismatched cushions and jazz music humming from somewhere invisible. The type I'd usually not go as the real me.
I sat reading a book I didn't like, drinking a tea I couldn't pronounce, and pretending I knew what the hell I was doing with my life.
That's when he sat next to me.
Rowan.
Dashing hairstyle, carved jawline and a soothing laughter that reached the depth of my soul. He donned a black turtleneck with brown trousers. He looked like a vintage painting and smelled like sandalwood and trouble.
"That book's overrated," he said without preamble, gesturing at the novel in my lap.
I blinked. "Excuse me?" Don't mind my shock. I usually don't get hot guys taking the initiative to speak to me and this moment was just mind-blowingly amazing.
"The characters are shallow. The plot thinks it's deep but it's just emotionally manipulative."
I stared at him and he grinned. "Sorry. I have a chronic honesty problem."
I should've said something polite and walked away.
But instead I smirked and replied, "Good. I have a chronic people-pleasing problem. Maybe we'll balance each other out."
He tilted his head. "I like you."
God help me, I liked him too. The kind of electrifying likeness I've never got to feel.
"I'm Rowan" He said maintaining eye contact with me.
"I'm Arden" I responded, mistakenly giving away my real name. If only he knew how overwhelming his gaze was.
We spent the next four hours on that rooftop.
He told me about his dog, Moose, who hated squirrels but loved bananas. I told him I was… between things, between jobs, between selves and everything else. I wasn't lying.
Just… filtering.
He made me laugh like we've been best friends or soulmates forever.
He made me feel seen. Not Kara-seen but Me-seen. The girl underneath the borrowed skin.
And when he brushed a hand through his hair and asked if I wanted to come to an art exhibit that night, I said yes before I remembered I wasn't supposed to.
That night, the gallery was dimly lit and alive with sound.
I walked beside him like I'd always belonged to his world, this confident, chaotic, heart-forward world. We stood in front of a canvas splattered with indigo and rage, and he leaned in close and whispered, "This is how my anxiety feels."
I turned to look at him and he was already looking at me. Not just looking... Seeing.
Then I did something stupid... Or not
I kissed him.
Just a brush of lips, a maybe, a if-only
He didn't pull away. He deepened the kiss.
He whispered, "You feel beautiful."
And I said nothing.
Because how do I explain that the lips on his aren't the ones that would kiss him tomorrow or another day?
That the body isn't mine?
That the heartbeat is, but it'll be locked back into a shell too afraid to reach out?
By the time the Varia countdown ticked under 10 minutes, I was outside his building, wrapped in his borrowed hoodie, trying to breathe.
He was still talking about something, his favorite poem, I think. But I wasn't hearing it. I was memorizing him.
The curve of his mouth.
The way he talked with his eyes.
The tiny freckle on his left cheek that looked like a comma, as if the universe had paused mid-sentence when it made him.
And then he asked... "Will I see you again?"
I should've lied. Said I was traveling. Said anything.
But what I said was: "Would you like to see me again?"
He held my shoulder, smiling with his eyes "what do you think?"
"I'm not who you think I am." I blurred out in a moment of confusion.
He blinked. Confused. "Huh?"
"I borrowed this body for a day," I continued, breath shaky. "The person you met, the smile, the confidence and this beauty, that's not really me. The real me is quieter and afraid. The real me doesn't get kissed in art galleries or talk back on rooftops."
He looked stunned.
But then he stepped forward and took my hand.
"Then let her come find me."
The next day, in my own body again, I stood in front of my mirror and repeated the words he'd said.
Then I brushed my hair. Put on lipstick for the first time in months.
And I went back.
There he was,
Holding a coffee. Wearing a blue jeans and a white polo top this time.
Then I saw him look in my direction, he saw me... I hesitated. "What if he doesn't see me at all?"
Then he smiled, walked towards me. My heart was thundering in my chest. He remained thesame guy I saw yesterday. Yet I was different. My heart leapt when the words came rolling out his lips.
"You came."
I nodded. I was terrified. "I did."
"You don't look like her," he said softly.
"No," I whispered. "But I feel like her. With you." He smiled.
"How did you recognise me?" I asked, but received no response.
He smiled and reached for my hand. "I didn't need to recognize your face, your soul looked familiar."
And just like that, I wasn't afraid anymore.
Final Thought
We spend so much time believing we need to be someone else to be loved.
That we need to be louder, smoother, braver and anything but who we are.
But love? Real love?
It doesn't ask for a borrowed body or a better version.
It asks for you.
Messy, imperfect, soft-spoken you.
So stop waiting to be someone else before you show up.
You're already enough to be chosen.
Exactly as you are.