“How do you know?”
“That’s my point. I don’t.”
I shouldn’t have left Justin. I shouldn’t have made an excuse to go. This is too dangerous, because none of it can be fact.
I look down at my phone. I haven’t been here long, but it’s getting close to too long.
“I have to make it back for dinner,” I tell him. Technically correct. If I want to get back in time, I should be leaving now.
I’m thinking he’ll put up a fight. Justin would put up a fight. He’d make it clear he wanted me to stay.
But A lets me go.
“Thanks for driving all this way,” he says.
Should I tell him he’s welcome? What does that even mean? Welcome to what?
“Will I see you again?” he asks.
I don’t have the heart to say no. Because there’s a part of my heart that wants to stay, and will stay with him until I come to get it back.
I nod.
“I’m going to prove it to you,” he tells me. “I’m going to show you what it really means.”
“What?”
“Love.”
No. I am scared of that.
I am scared of all of this.
But I don’t tell him that. I tell him goodbye instead—the kind of goodbye that’s never, ever final.
Chapter Nine
I remember the way everyone reacted when I got together with Justin, when we became a thing. They didn’t think I was paying attention, but I was.
Rebecca told me I could do better. She told me Justin could never really care about anyone because he didn’t really care about himself. She said I deserved to be with someone who had his shit together. I told her I didn’t know anyone who had their shit together, including her. She told me she was going to pretend I hadn’t said that. She told me I was smarter than I thought I was, but I always liked to prove myself stupid by making bad decisions. I told her I loved him anyway, and my use of the word love surprised us both. I held up; she backed down.
Preston said he was happy for me, and when I asked him why, he told me it was because I had found something meaningful. He didn’t think Justin was unworthy of my love, because he believed everyone was worthy of love. “He needs you, and that’s not a bad thing,” he told me. “We all need somewhere to put our love.” I remember liking this thought—that I had this certain amount of love that I needed to store someplace, and I’d decided to keep some of it in Justin.
Steve said Justin was decent.
Stephanie said she wasn’t sure.
I don’t think any of them—even Preston—expected it to last longer than a month. Any love I stored in Justin would ultimately be given away, lost in a fire, left by the side of the road.
And if this was their reaction to Justin, I couldn’t imagine what they would say if I told them about A.
—
The thought will not leave my head:
If this is possible, what else is possible?
—
I get to school and walk to my locker, and it’s only when I’m at my locker that I realize I haven’t stopped to look for Justin.
And then, even stranger: I don’t go looking for him.
I wait to see how long it’ll take him to come looking for me.
—
Not between first and second periods.
—
Not before lunch.
—
Even at lunch, I sit between Preston and Rebecca, and instead of taking the spot across from me, he sits farther down.
It isn’t until the end of lunch that he says something to me.
And what he says is, “I’m so tired.”
I know I’m not the one who’s going to wake him up.
—
I find myself wondering who A is today. Where A is.
And at the same time, I wonder if all the A’s I’ve met are in a room together, laughing at me. Not believing how a girl could be so stupid. Looking at the video of my face over and over again. Daring each other to push it further.
That’s not it, I tell myself.
But what else is possible?
—
I check my email after lunch and find word from him (her?).
Rhiannon,
You’d actually recognize me today. I woke up as James’s twin. I thought this might help me figure things out, but so far, no luck.
I want to see you again.
A
I don’t know what to say to this.
Trick or truth?
Yes, I want to see A again.
Yes, I’m afraid.
No, it doesn’t make sense.
But what does? I’m asking myself this all afternoon. Does it makes sense that Preston is seen as The Gay One when none of the rest of us are seen as The Straight One? Does it make sense that Stephanie’s father freaked out when she (briefly) dated Aaron because Aaron is black? Does it make sense that Justin and I can get as close as two people can be, and still can’t figure out anything to say to each other when we’re separate and walking the halls of school? Does it make sense that I am sitting here learning about the gestation cycle of a frog when there is no way that this knowledge is going to matter to me as soon as the next test is over? Does it make sense that Mr. Myers is spending his life teaching the gestation cycle of a frog to kids who mostly don’t care?
Does it make sense that some people get everything they want because they’re pretty? Would it make all of us nicer—or at least a little more humble—if we had to switch every day?
“What are you thinking about?”
Justin’s caught me at my locker, in a daze.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him. “Just daydreaming.”
He lets it go.
“Look,” he says. “What’re you doing now?”
It’s the end of the day. I have no idea what I’m doing. I could’ve driven back to the Starbucks and met the twin of the guy from yesterday. Although how would I have known it was really a twin? What if it was the same guy again? It’s not like I could really tell.
Suddenly I’m suspicious.
Really suspicious.
I wonder if tomorrow he’ll say he’s a triplet.
Or that he’s stayed in the same body after all.
Alarm. I’m starting to get pissed off. Irrationally pissed off. Or maybe rationally pissed off.
“Are you even listening to me?”
I am not listening to him. I need to listen to him. Because he is my boyfriend, and he has no idea what’s going on inside my head.
“No plans,” I say.
We both know what’s next. But he’s not going to say it. He wants me to say it.
So I do.
“Wanna hang out?”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”
—
We go to his house. He wants to watch an old episode of Game of Thrones.
“Is this the one where someone dies?” I ask as it starts. I’m joking. They’re all the one where someone dies.
“Smart-ass,” he says.
I check my email. Nothing new from A.
Like my silence might push him into confessing.
“Put that away,” Justin says. “It’s distracting.”
I put it away. I sit there. Someone’s head gets smashed in.
We do not make out.
—
It’s only when three episodes are over and I’m getting ready to leave that he tells me something is on his mind.
“I fucking hate doctors,” he says. I’m a little confused. There hasn’t been a doctor in sight on Game of Thrones—it would have been much better if there had been.
“Is there any particular reason you hate doctors right now?” I ask.
“Yeah, because they’re going to let my grandma die. They’re going to put her through hell, and make all of us pay for it, and at the very end, she’s going to die anyway. That’s always what they do. Hospitals wouldn’t make money without sick people, right? They just love this shit.”
“Your grandmother’s sick?” I ask.
“Yeah. Grandpa called us last night. Says it’s serious cancer.”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you mean, am I okay? I’m not the one with cancer.”
I want to ask, Do you want to talk about it? But the answer is pretty obvious. He doesn’t want my sympathy. He doesn’t want to tell me he’s sad. He just wants me to be there as he vents his rage. So I do that. I let him yell about doctors, and about how his grandfather is the one who smokes, but look at which one of them ended up with cancer. I let him criticize his parents’ reaction. He’s mad at them for not dropping everything to go see her, when what he really means is that he wants to drop everything to go see her. But he won’t say that. Not to me. Not to himself.
I stay until he wears himself out. I stay until he changes the subject. I stay until he decides to watch a fourth episode.
I’ll be there when he wants to deal with it. He knows that, and right now that’s the best I can do.
—
When I get home, Mom is sitting in her usual spot, watching the news on her usual channel. If the story is really sad—a girl gone missing, a boy trapped in a well—she’ll talk back to the screen, little murmurs of sympathy, Oh, that’s too bad or Goodness, how awful.
I imagine the pretty newscaster looking into this room, looking at my mother sitting in that chair, and saying the same things. Because hasn’t she fallen down her own kind of well? Hasn’t she found her own way of being missing? Liza used to push her—telling her she needed to go out more, once even telling her she needed to get some friends. But now that it’s my turn, I find I’ve given up. It’s probably the only way I can make her happy, to leave her alone. That’s what my dad has done all these years, and it seems to have worked out fine for him.
I think about calling Liza, about telling her what’s going on.
You’re as crazy as she is. That’s probably what she’d say.
But Mom isn’t crazy. She just doesn’t care anymore.
She enjoys her shows, I think.
—
I want to see you again.
I don’t think Justin’s ever said that to me. But he hasn’t really needed to, has he? There’s never any doubt that he’ll see me again. Never any need to want it.
—
I start another email.
A,
I only want to see you again if this is real.
Rhiannon
But I don’t send it.
Chapter Ten
I wake up and write another email.
A,
So, who are you today?
What a strange question to ask. But I guess it makes sense. If any of this makes sense.
Yesterday was a hard day. Justin’s grandmother is sick, but instead of admitting he’s upset about it, he just lashes out at the world more. I’m trying to help him, but it’s hard.
I don’t know if you want to hear this or not. I know how you feel about Justin. If you want me to keep that part of my life hidden from you, I can. But I don’t think that’s what you want.
Tell me how your day is going.
Rhiannon
This one I do send. I try to act like it’s a normal email that I’d send to a normal friend. Then I try to have a normal day, partly to figure out what a normal day really is. At first it works. I go to school. I go to classes. I go to lunch and sit next to Justin. He won’t commit to any emotion.
When lunch is over, I check my email.
Rhiannon,
Today is a hard day for me, too. The girl whose body I’m in is in a bad place. Hates the world. Hates herself. Is up against a lot, mostly from the inside. That’s really hard.
When it comes to you and Justin, or anything, I want you to be honest with me. Even if it hurts. Although I would prefer for it not to hurt.
Love,
A
I try to return to normal. I try not to imagine where A is, what that body looks like. Justin has work, so I’m on my own after school. I check my email again and find a cry for help.
I really need to speak to you right now. The girl whose body I’m in wants to kill herself. This is not a joke.
There’s a phone number. I call it right away.
I know it’s not a joke. I’m sure there are people who could joke about a thing like this, but I know A isn’t one of them.
I just know.
The voice that answers is a girl’s. “Hello?” She sounds a little like me.
“Is that you?” I ask.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“I got your email. Wow.”
“Yeah, wow.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s all in her journal—all these ways to kill herself. It’s really…graphic. And methodical. I can’t even get into it—there are just so many ways to die, and it’s like she’s researched each and every one. And she’s set herself a deadline. In six days.”
I feel the dredging inside me. I feel the girl I once was reaching out to connect with that. I try to focus on the present.
“That poor girl,” I tell A. “What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.”
She sounds so lost. So overwhelmed.
“Don’t you have to tell someone?” I suggest.
“There was no training for this, Rhiannon. I really don’t know.”
I’ve been there, I want to tell her. But it’s too scary.
“Where are you?” I ask.
A tells me where she is, and it’s not that far. I tell her I can be there in a little while.
“Are you alone?” I ask.
“Yeah. Her father doesn’t get home until around seven.”
“Give me the address,” I say. After she does, I say, “I’ll be right there.”
—
I don’t know this girl. A hasn’t told me much. But maybe that’s why it’s easier to fill in the blanks with myself.
I shouldn’t think it, but I think it anyway: This is the girl I’d be if I hadn’t met Justin.
That’s how bad it was. Or maybe that’s just how bad it seemed. I don’t know now. I can’t tell the difference. All I know is I was convinced that nobody would care if I died. I had elaborate fantasies about my very simple funeral—no one but my relatives there. No boy in tears in the front row. No one who could get up and talk about me as if they really knew me.
I knew I wasn’t going to do it. But I also knew I could. I treasured that thought. That I could.
Most of the time when we think we’re looking for death, we’re really looking for love.
That was definitely the case with me. Because Justin came in and gave me the meaning I was looking for. Justin became the mourner I wanted, and that led to other friends, other mourners. I populated my funeral until I didn’t want one anymore.
But I realize that’s not always the case.
I realize there are girls who don’t have that.
I realize I am driving toward one of them right now. Not because of what A told me, but because of the sound of her voice. The fear.
I recognize that.
—
It’s a short drive, but I try to come up with a plan.
I’m not really thinking about A at all. I am not wondering why A, who’s lived in so many bodies, doesn’t know what to do. I am not amazed that I know more than A does.
I’m just driving and thinking as fast as I can.
—
I find the house. It’s a normal house. I ring the doorbell. It sounds like a normal doorbell.
She answers, and from the moment I see her, I know that she’s another disappearing girl, that she’s desperately trying to disappear. The signs of it tattoo her body—the wear and tear. It is hard for unhealthy people to masquerade as healthy ones, especially once they’ve stopped caring if other people notice.
The only difference is her eyes. Her eyes are still alive.
I know that’s not her.
I know for sure
now that this is actually happening. No trick. Just truth. Plenty of feeling, but at the center of it—fact.
“Thank you for coming,” A says.
She leads me up to the girl’s room. It’s a pit, like she lashed out against it and left herself the wreckage to live in. Her clothes are all over the place, and there’s no way of telling the difference between the clean and the dirty. She’s broken her mirror. Everything on the walls is on its way to being torn down. She might as well cut her wrist and rub FUCK YOU across the walls.
It’s not a mess. It’s anger.
There’s a notebook on the bed. I open it. I know what I’m going to find, but still it hits me in the gut.
This is how to stab yourself.
This is how to bleed.
This is how to choke.
This is how to fall.
This is how to burn.
This is how to poison.
This is how to die.
These aren’t hypotheticals. This isn’t her being dramatic. This is her finding the facts to match the feelings. To end the feelings.
It is all so wrong. I want to shake her. I want to tell her to step away from the funeral.
And there’s the deadline at the end. Practically tomorrow.
A’s been quiet as I’ve been reading. Now I look up at her.
“This is serious,” I say. “I’ve had…thoughts. But nothing like this.”
I’ve been standing this whole time, the notebook in my hand. Now I put it down. And then I put myself down, too. I need to sit down. I place myself on the edge of the bed. A sits down next to me.
“You have to stop her,” I say. I, who am certain of so few things, am certain of this.
“But how can I?” A asks. “And is that really my right? Shouldn’t she decide that for herself?”
This is not what I am expecting A to say. It’s so ridiculous. Offensive.
“So, what?” I say, not bothering to keep the anger out of my voice. “You just let her die? Because you didn’t want to get involved?”
She takes my hand. Tries to calm me down.
“We don’t know for sure that the deadline’s real. This could just be her way of getting rid of the thoughts. Putting them on paper so she doesn’t do them.”
No. That’s an excuse. This is not the time for excuses. I throw it back at her: “But you don’t believe that, do you? You wouldn’t have called me if you believed that.”