Borrowed Names

Borrowed Names

By Lola Dam

She hadn’t meant to take the wrong coffee.

The café was crowded, buzzing with soft chatter and clinking mugs. Nia stood by the counter, distracted by the rain streaking the glass. The barista called a name—“Elise”—and placed a tall cup on the counter.

Nia stepped forward automatically. Took it.

It wasn’t until she sat down near the window and peeled back the cup’s cardboard sleeve that she realised her mistake. She hadn’t ordered a vanilla oat milk latte. She drank hers black, no sugar.

She looked back at the counter. No one else seemed to be waiting. The barista had already moved on, calling new names. The woman behind her in line had taken her drink and left.

Nia took a sip. It was… gentle. Soft on the tongue. Not what she would’ve picked, but not unpleasant.

“Elise,” she said aloud, letting the name sit in her mouth like a lozenge. It had a lift to it, a brightness. She imagined Elise had delicate handwriting. Probably wore rings on every finger and remembered people’s birthdays.

She drank slowly, one small sip at a time, as the idea unfolded inside her like origami.

She had nowhere urgent to be. Just a Tuesday. Her office cubicle wouldn’t notice if she never arrived.

So she stayed.

For the rest of the day, she was Elise.

She walked into a bookshop and smiled at the man behind the counter like she was someone who often smiled at strangers. She picked up a poetry collection she would usually overlook and read the first few lines out loud, softly. She bought a journal with golden leaves on the cover.

“Elise,” she signed the receipt, and no one questioned it.

She had lunch alone—somewhere with soft bread and tomato soup. She ate slowly. Elise did not rush meals. Elise, she imagined, remembered to chew slowly, to breathe between bites. Elise left generous tips and took phone calls in the quiet voice of someone who didn’t mind being loved.

The city around her changed. Not physically, but in weight. Everything felt lighter. As if by borrowing the name, she’d borrowed a whole life just different enough from her own to make the air sweeter.

She took the long way home. She stopped at a park and watched children throw bread to pigeons. She bought a single daffodil from a street vendor and held it like a secret.

When the sky turned gold at the edges, she returned to her apartment. The mirror greeted her with the familiar face of Nia, but softer somehow.

She set down her keys, took off her shoes, and sat in silence.

She pulled out the golden journal. Opened it to the first page.

Nia writes in tidy lines, never too close to the edge.

Elise writes freely. She crosses things out and doodles in the margins.

That night, she wrote like Elise.

The next morning, she ordered her usual coffee—black, no sugar.

But when the barista asked for a name, she hesitated.

Then smiled.

“Elise.”

Just for today.