The pub was empty except for two men by the front entrance. A candle burned on every table. Neil Young played in the background and the scent of air freshener crept from the washrooms near my booth where Marie found me.

"Hello," Marie said cheerfully, and leaned over the short table to kiss me. "What are... we drinking?" Marie asked.

The server snuck up beside us. "What can I get you?"

"Two black coffee's please, with milk on the side," I said.

"Would that be all?"

"Yes, thanks".

She walked away as silently as she appeared.

"I'm so sleepy today," Marie rolled up her sleeves. I pretended to read the dessert menu, my mind still on Will.

"So, what's that thing?" Marie said.

"What?"

"That... that thing you had to tell me."

"Yea," I said. The server returned with a ceramic milk pourer. "This morning, the weirdest thing happened." My eyes squinted.

"What happened?" Marie said.

"Last night, I told Will he had to move out." I paused, unsure how to say the next part.

"Then?"

"He was drunk out of his mind. And got violent," I shook my head.

"What?" Marie said, shocked.

"I told him he had to move out, and then he got angry, and pushed me," I said.

"Oh my God," Marie's eyes widened.

I ripped my napkin into long strips. "He didn't hurt me -- I mean, he apologized like crazy. He was really drunk. But that's not the weirdest thing." I paused again.

Marie leaned in.

"This is going to sound unbelievable," I said with a serious look. Marie stared at me intently. "This morning, I looked into Will's room, and everything was gone."

"What do you mean?" Marie said.

"All his stuff -- clothes, stuff -- they were all gone," I said.

She furrowed her brows. "Everything?" she said.

"Yea," I shrugged.

"You didn't... hear him leave?"

"That's the thing. I didn't hear him."

"He's...I don't know. What are you going to do?" Marie said. The server returned and put our coffees in front of us. I looked down into my coffee as if an answer was there, floating.

"I don't know," I held the corner of a new napkin close to the flame of the candle at our table, teasing it. "He paid rent for four months and he only stayed about two. He wouldn't just leave without coming back for the rest of the money, would he? I don't know. I just want to forget about him, and let him disappear. But he still has the keys, and I don't want to keep thinking he's going to walk in anytime."

"Call him."

"I only have his email. I was planning on emailing him tonight if he doesn't get in touch with me first." I took a sip from my coffee and held my eyes on Marie from over the rim of the cup.

"So strange," she said.

I shook my head and held the napkin closer to the flame.

"My cousin disappeared back in high school," Marie said. "She was gone for like a whole summer, then one day she just came home. We were all pissed at her."

I noticed that Marie was speaking comfortably and keeping eye contact. She was changing from the timid girl I had met, both mentally and physically. Her face was glowing, and I felt good knowing it was because of me. She seemed happy and vibrant.

"So does this mean I get... get to move in early?" she joked.

"What?" her question surprised me, and I wondered for a second if she was serious. "Oh, yes -- no problem. But I'm a little worried, you know. What if he comes back?"

The corner of the napkin caught fire. As I tried to blow it out, the napkin unraveled from its folds and the flames spread rapidly.

"Oh my God!" Marie yelled.

I dropped the flaming napkin on the ground and it drifted against the wall. I jumped up and stomped out the flame -- little embers rose into the air. Marie glared at me. The server rushed in.

"Sorry, it was the candle," I said, guilty.

The server eyed the half burnt napkin, making sure all the embers were doused. "I'll clean that up," she gave me a dirty glance and walked away. The smell of burnt paper hung in the air.

I laid awake in my bed, the rhythm of passing cars on loop. I couldn't sleep without the pills. Marie was working night shift and I was alone. I flipped my pillow over to its cool side and tried to find that comfortable spot on my bed where sleep would take over, but the spot was nowhere to be found, so I threw the covers off myself and walked naked into the hallway.

My footsteps thudded on the floor and I stopped in front of Will's room. I pushed Will's door open abruptly, as if expecting to catch him there by surprise. But the room was empty. The street lights from outside traced the shape of the window frame on the opposite wall.

Disappointed, I sauntered into the living room and looked down at the laptop on the coffee table. I stationed myself on the sofa and flipped open the screen. Had Will emailed me? As the computer loaded, I ran my fingertips lightly over the keyboard. The Microsoft melody chimed and a web browser opened automatically. Checking my email, my heart sank – there was no message from him. So I opened up a new email message window and wrote:

Date: September 17, 2022 10:19:28 PM GMT-04:00

To: iamwillforever(at)gmail.com

Subject: (None)

Where are you?

Glancing at the Google search bar on the screen, I wished I could remember his last name, and wondered if he had ever told me it. I wondered if Will was even his real name? I searched his email address with no results.

And then I thought of Facebook.

I logged on using one of my many fake accounts, and quickly typed his email address in the Facebook search bar. I hesitated for a second then clicked enter.

My heart skipped a beat. There was one result – someone named: Real Will

The profile was open to the public, but there were no photos, no albums, and no friends on his list. The page was almost void of content except for his timeline filled with wordy status posts. I hastily scrolled down to the bottom of the page and watched while older posts loaded up. Further down, more posts loaded, dozens of them, but all from the same day, July 3, 2022. Dozens more were posted the day before, July 2, 2022. There must have been hundreds in total, I thought, maybe thousands even. On 'About', I saw that the page was created in 2015. Each post was about a hundred words long. Some were three hundred, like a short essay. On January 8, 2016, there were eight posts. March 18, 2017, had a single post. On some days, there were none. I imagined all the posts together, adding up to a body of writing as long as a novel.

I brought the cursor back to the scroll bar and dragged up, bringing me to the latest post at the top of the timeline. Something fluttered in my chest. In the darkness of my living room, with only the street lights from the window illuminating the space, I read the words of the latest post dated July 3, 2022. The words read:

Real Will

July 3 at 9:55pm via mobile

I'm sitting on a high stool in his kitchen, eating from a jar of pumpkin seeds. His eyes are as deep as I had imagined. I challenge him to remember the password 'IamwhatIam'. Let's see if he does.

My hands trembled, and a strange feeling struck me -- that I was reading the last line in a long story. I was compelled to start from the beginning – reading all his posts from earliest to latest, from beginning to end.

I scrolled to the bottom of his timeline to his very first post in 2015. It read:

Real Will

November 27 via mobile

When someone says that a story is true, it always isn't. But in this case, however, what I'm about to tell you is true.

The next post read:

Real Will

November 27 via mobile

I am backstage, looking at my reflection in the makeup mirror. Behind my eyes is something fleeting. A woman with a headset is talking to me, you're up in five, she says. I follow her to the side of the stage, and wait to fulfill my habit of simulating that I'm someone so no one would notice my condition of being no one. I stand in the shadow, eager to play someone else in front of an audience who play at taking me for someone else. I hear my cue, I step into the light, and I let myself be conquered by Iago.

The next post read:

Real Will

November 27 at 11:54pm via mobile

We gather on stage, taking our bows, and as the applause dies, the curtains don't close as they always do, but instead, the director walks out to face the audience. This ends another wonderful season, he says, I just want to thank you all for keeping the spirit of Shakespeare alive. The crowd applauds again. The curtains close, and we all flow to the left of the stage, through the props room and into the rehearsal space. I'm following Desdemona. Tables are set up with red wines, champagne, cheeses and prosciutto. We are still in costume, and Emilia hands me a glass of wine. Congratulations on a great season, she says.

On my forth glass, the room goes quiet and Othello speaks over everyone. He must be saying something funny because everyone is laughing. Someone calls him Jay, and I wonder why.

I bump into a table, and Emilia asks how many glasses I've had. I'm dizzy, and I don't understand what Brabanito is telling me. Call up her father, rouse him, make after him, poison his delight, proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen, I say.

Brabanito laughs and walks away, leaving me alone in the crowd, and I whisper Iago's words for the final time, I am not what I am.

My eyes stopped at the period at the end of the post. I felt weightless, as if my body would rise up from the sofa cushion. I glanced at the wall beside me and saw my shadow casting from the streetlight outside – my shadow, an outline of a person – a silhouette with no face.

A new email chimed – it was from Marie, and I ignored it. I needed to keep reading, I thought. I needed to calm the trembling in my hands. I scrolled up to read more posts, and became consumed with the joy of understanding.