Gently, he asks, “Do you feel me there? In your memories.”
I shake my head. “Not in the way you’d think. I don’t feel you in control of things, or in my body, or anything. I feel like you were with me. Like, I can feel your presence there, but it’s outside of me.”
Listen to me. If I turned the TV on at one in the morning and heard a girl saying the things I’m saying, I would think she was a total nutjob. “It’s insane that we’re having this conversation,” I point out.
But of course that’s not how A is going to see it or feel it. This is normal to him, I remind myself.
“I wanted you to remember everything,” he says. “And it sounds like your mind went along with that. Or maybe it wanted you to remember everything, too.”
“I don’t know. I’m just glad I do.”
“And do you remember feelings? Or is it just the scene you see?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, if I asked what was going through your mind when you had lunch with Justin, could you?”
I close my eyes and try to go back there. I see him eating pizza. I don’t really remember what he said, only that he’s talking a lot. But I can’t remember being happy or annoyed or angry or anything. I just remember that I was there.
“Nothing,” I say, my eyes still closed. “You know when you’re really pissed at someone and then, a few days later, you remember that you were pissed but can’t remember what it was about? Well, this is the opposite of that.”
I open my eyes and see him taking in what I’m saying. I think I’m confirming something he’s always suspected.
“You really don’t know what it’s like for us, do you?” I say.
“No,” he answers quietly. “I don’t.”
He asks me about a few of the other things that happened yesterday—talking to Rebecca, the climbing, the dinner conversation with my parents. I tell him the only one that’s vivid to me is the climbing. I do feel something when I think of that—that sense of breathing in, of freedom. Is this emotion or is this actual physical sensation that I’m remembering? We can’t decide.
“It’s interesting,” I admit. “Really twisted and weird and crazy—but also interesting.”
“You are extraordinary for understanding, and for being willing to be with me even after I…was where I was.”
“It’s not your fault. I know.”
“Thank you.”
It’s hard to believe that I thought I could stay away from him. It’s hard to believe I thought I could run away from this. Because it feels so comfortable right now.
“Thank you for not messing up my life,” I say. “And for keeping my clothes on. Unless, of course, you don’t want me to remember that you sneaked a peek.”
“No peeks were sneaked.”
“I believe you. Amazingly, I believe you about everything.”
And because I believe him, I also want him to tell me more about what it was like for him—what he saw when he was me. But it also feels like a raging-ego thing to ask. What kind of girl asks for a second opinion about her own life?
A senses me holding back. Of course.
“What?” he asks.
I decide to go for it.
“It’s just—do you feel you know me more now? Because the weird thing is…I feel I know you more. Because of what you did, and what you didn’t do. Isn’t that strange? I would have thought that you would’ve found out more about me…but I’m not sure that’s true.”
“I got to meet your parents,” he says.
Oh boy. “And what was your impression?”
“I think they both care about you, in their own way.”
I laugh. “Well said.”
“Well, it was nice to meet them.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that when you really meet them. ‘Mom and Dad, this is A. You think you’re meeting him for the first time, but actually, you’ve met him before, when he was in my body.’ ”
“I’m sure that’ll go over well.”
And the stupid thing is: I’m sure they would love him. If only I could freeze him as he is, and take him home to Mom and Dad, they’d be thrilled.
But I can’t tell him that. It would be unfair of me to tell him that. So I ask him something else. Just to be sure.
“It can never happen again, right?” I say. “You’re never the same person twice.”
He nods. “Correct. It will never happen again.”
“No offense, but I’m relieved I don’t have to go to sleep wondering if I’m going to wake up with you in control. Once, I guess I can deal with. But don’t make a habit of it.”
“I promise—I want to make a habit of being with you, but not that way.”
He says it so casually, like it’s no big deal. Like I might not even hear it.
But I hear it.
“You’ve seen my life,” I say. “Tell me a way you think this can work.”
“We’ll find a way.”
“That’s not an answer,” I point out. “It’s a hope.”
“Hope’s gotten us this far. Not answers.”
“Good point.” I sip my coffee. “I know this is weird, but…I keep wondering. Are you really not a boy or a girl? I mean, when you were in my body, did you feel more…at home than you would in the body of a boy?”
“I’m just me,” he (she?) says. “I always feel at home and I never feel at home. That’s just the way it is.”
I don’t know why this isn’t enough for me—but it’s not. “And when you’re kissing someone?” I press.
“Same thing.”
“And during sex?”
“Is Dylan blushing? Right now, is he blushing?”
Bright red. “Yeah.”
“Good. Because I know I am.”
I don’t know why the word sex would make him blush so much. But then I realize why, and I blurt out, “You’ve never had—?”
He sputters. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to—”
“Never!”
He’s as red as a strawberry now. “I am so glad you find this funny,” he says.
“Sorry.”
“There was this one girl.”
Aha! “Really?”
“Yeah. Yesterday. When I was in your body. Don’t you remember? I think you might have gotten her pregnant.”
“That’s not funny!”
“I only have eyes for you,” he says. And the way he says it isn’t funny at all. Or teasing. Or careless.
Sincerity. I think that’s the word for this. For meaning something so much that it can’t be anything other than what it is.
I’m not used to it.
“A—” I start. I have to tell him. I have to keep us in the world of reality. And in the world of reality, we cannot be together.
“Not now,” he interrupts. “Let’s stay on the nice note.”
The nice note. That rings its own note within me. And that note is, momentarily, louder than reality.
“Okay,” I say. “I can do that.”
So instead of talking about tomorrow, we talk more about yesterday. I ask him what else he noticed, and he brings up all of these things that I would never, ever notice. Physical details like a small red birthmark at the base of my left thumb, and memories like this time Rebecca got gum caught in her hair. He’s also pretty committed to convincing me that my parents care about me. I tell him he must’ve gotten them on a good day. He doesn’t argue—but I can also see he doesn’t completely know what I mean. Because he’s never with someone through bad days and good days. He doesn’t know life like that. Which again reminds me how he’d never be equipped to deal with someone as bad-good as me.
A glances at the time on his phone, and I realize I should be keeping track of time as well. Home for dinner. Home for homework. Home for bed. Home for my life.
“It’s getting late,” I say.
“I know.”
“So we should probably…”
“But only if you promise we’ll see each other again.
Soon. Like, tomorrow if we can. And if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. Two-morrow. Let’s call that two-morrow.”
It’s starting again, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Because I don’t want to stop it. Because as long as it stays like this—two people talking over coffee—there aren’t any decisions that have to be made.
“How can I say no?” I say. “I’m dying to see who you’ll be next.”
The sincerity returns as he tells me, “I’ll always be A.”
I stand up and kiss him on the forehead.
“I know,” I say. “That’s why I want to see you.”
I imagine people looking at us as we stand up from the table, as we throw out our coffee cups and say goodbye. That went well, they’d think. Just two teenagers on a date. Not a first date—no, too familiar for that. And not nearly a last date. Because it went well. Because this geeky boy and this quiet girl clearly like each other. You don’t have to be inside our bodies to realize that.
Chapter Twenty
The next day, A is four hours away from me, in the body of some girl. It might as well be forty hours or forty days.
I tell A there’s always tomorrow. And as I type it, I want to believe it.
But I don’t really believe it.
With a whole day ahead of me, I decide to do an experiment. I am going to pretend I am a stranger in my own body.
I stare in the mirror, right after my shower. How many times have I done this before? Stared at myself as the steam cleared. Tried and failed to make it seem better. Countless. But how many of these times have I actually seen myself? I will look at what’s wrong. I will fixate on the blemishes, the bad hair, the fuzz, how uneven I am, how tired I look, how fat I’m getting, how loose. But I don’t take an overall picture. I don’t step back and look at the whole thing and think, This is me. And I certainly don’t step back and look at the whole thing and ask, Is this really me?
I’m doing that now. How much of my body is really me? My face is me, for sure. Anyone who looked at my face would know it was me. Even with my hair wet and drawn back, it’s me. But after that? If I showed myself a picture of myself from the shoulders down, would I be sure it was me? Could I identify myself that way?
I close my eyes and ask myself what my feet look like. I only kind of know. Same with my hands. I have no idea what my back looks like.
I let it define me, but I can’t even define it.
If I were a stranger in my body, what would I think of it? I open my eyes and I’m not sure. A stranger wouldn’t know any of the stories behind any of the small scars—the tricycle fall, the lightbulb smash. A stranger might not care if my boobs aren’t identical, or if the mole on my arm has more hair than the rest of my arm. Why bother judging if you’re a stranger in a body? It’s almost like driving a car. Yes, you don’t want the car to be a shitheap, but pretty much a car is a car. It doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it gets you where you need to go.
I know I am not a car. But as I walk through school, I imagine this smaller Rhiannon driving my body. She is my real self. The body is just a car. And I wonder. When Preston talks to me, it feels like he’s talking to the driver. But when a guy I don’t know looks at me in the hall, he’s staring at the car. When my teacher looks out at the class as he’s droning on about history, he’s not seeing the drivers, he’s seeing the parked cars. And when Justin kisses me—I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to kiss the driver. Other times, he’s just kissing the car.
I try to imagine myself in other bodies, steering them around, experiencing how they’re seen. The conclusion I reach: I don’t like my body very much, but I’m not sure I’d like anyone else’s body any better. They’re all strange when you look at them for too long.
—
I know A is not here, but I want A to be inside one of the bodies I’m staring at. I want a head to turn and for me to see A inside. Because only A could understand all of the crazy places my mind is going. Because A has taken my mind there. A has made me want to reach past all the cars, to get to all the drivers.
—
“Are you okay?” Preston asks at lunch. “You’re really out of it today.”
“No,” I tell him. “I’m really, really inside of it.”
He laughs. I think a laugh is like the driver honking the horn, advertising pleasure.
I think that if A were in Preston’s body, I’d kiss him hard.
I know this is a ridiculous thought. I have it anyway.
Preston, of course, has no idea what I’m thinking. He sees me, yes, but not in a way that would give away my thoughts.
The car can smile all it wants, but that doesn’t mean you can see the driver’s expression.
—
I receive emails from A.
He tells me:
The girl I am today is not nice. I can make her nice for a day, but what does that do?
He says:
I want us to be walking in the woods again.
He asks:
What are you doing?
And I don’t know what to say.
—
I don’t really talk to Justin until after school. He wants me to come over to his house and I can’t. I don’t have any excuse; I just know I can’t.
I have loved his body for so long. I have loved it with devotion, with intensity. If I close my eyes, I can see it better than I see my own, because I have studied it, traced it, detailed it with so much more attention than I have ever spent on myself. It still attracts me. I still feel attachment to it. But it’s also just a body. Only a body.
If I kiss him now, I will be thinking this. If we have sex now, I will be thinking of this.
So I can’t.
Of course he asks me why not. Of course he asks me what else I have to do.
“I just need to go home,” I say.
It’s not enough. He’s pissed. It’s one thing for me to say I’m going shopping with Preston, or have made plans with Rebecca. It might even be bearable if I said I had homework or wanted to go home and be with my mom.
But I’m telling him I’d prefer nothing, and that makes him feel like less than nothing. I understand that, and feel bad about it.
But I can’t. I just can’t.
—
The next day, A is only forty-five minutes away from me. In the body of a boy.
I have a math quiz in the morning, so I can’t cut out until lunch. It’s not even that I care so much about math. But I realize this could be what my life is becoming, trying to go to as little school as possible to get to wherever A is. And if this is going to be my life, I am going to have to be careful about it. I am not about to flunk out because of a crush, or whatever it is. But I’m also not going to stay away any longer than I have to.
Since A is being homeschooled today, he has to come up with a plan to escape. I wait for his message, and then get it around noon—he’s made a dash for the public library, and I should get there as soon as I can.
I don’t waste any time. As I drive over, I picture him there—which is strange, because I don’t know what he looks like today. Mostly, I’m imagining Nathan from the party. I don’t even know why.
The library is very, very quiet when I arrive. The librarian asks, “Can I help you?” when I come in, and I tell her that I’m looking for someone. Before she can ask me why I’m not in school, I walk swiftly away from the desk and start to scan the aisles for A. There’s a ninety-year-old man checking out the psychology section, and a woman who very well might be his wife taking a nap in a comfy chair by an old card catalog. In the kids’ section, there’s a mother nursing.
I’m about to give up when I see a row of desks by the window. There’s a redheaded boy sitting at one of them, reading a book. He’s completely lost in it, not noticing me until I’m right next to him. I notice that he’s cute in an adorable way, and at the same time I get angry at myself for noticing this. It shouldn’t matter. I need to think about A and not care about the
body he’s in.
“Ahem,” I say, to lead him back from the world of the book he’s reading. “I figured you were the only kid in the building, so it had to be you.”
I’m expecting a smile. A glint. A relief that I’m finally here.
But instead the boy says, “Excuse me?” He seems supremely annoyed that I’ve interrupted his reading.
It has to be him. I’ve looked everywhere else.
“It’s you, right?” I ask.
I am not ringing any bells in this boy. “Do I know you?” he asks back.
Okay. Maybe not. Maybe A’s in the men’s room. Maybe I’m at the wrong library. Maybe I need to stop walking up to strangers and assuming they’re not strangers.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I just, uh, am supposed to meet somebody.”
“What does he look like?”
Now I’m going to seem like an idiot. Because I should know the answer to that question, but I don’t.
“I don’t, um, know,” I tell the boy. “It’s, like, an online thing.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
There’s no way this boy is over eighteen, so I shoot back, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I can’t,” he says. “There’s this really amazing girl I’m supposed to meet.”
I’ve already told myself to start walking away, so it takes a second for me to get what he means.
I’ve been played. By the one person I didn’t think would play me.
“You jerk,” I say.
“Sorry, it was just—”
No. I will not let him apologize. “You jerky…jerk.”
I’m going to start walking away. I’m going to go. We’ve never had rules, but he’s broken one anyway.
A’s standing up now. “Rhiannon, I’m sorry.”
He’s reaching out, but I don’t want it.
“You can’t do that,” I tell him. “It’s not fair.”
He will always know what I look like. I will never know what he looks like.
“I will never do it again. I promise.”
It’s not enough. “I can’t believe you just did that,” I say. “Look me in the eyes and say it again. That you promise.”
He looks me in the eyes. We hold there for a second.