Where I End and You Begin

by Preston Norton

“Can I tell you what I think?”

  “Christ. Do I have a choice?”

  “I’m not saying that Carol isn’t rude. She obviously is. But I think you’re probably just as rude, right back at her.”

  “Duh,” said Wynezra. She leaned forward and flicked my right forearm—hard—where the word “karma” was embedded in my skin. “Karma, bitch. She gets what she deserves.”

  “Ow!” I said, cradling my arm to my chest. “That hurt!”

  Wynezra chuckled. “Sorry. I forgot you’re on your period.”

  I glanced at the word “dharma” on my left forearm. “What does this one mean?” I raised the tattooed arm in question.

  “Dharma?” said Wynezra. “That’s the name of the evil corporation on the TV show Lost.”

  I stared at Wynezra until her straight face splintered into a smirk.

  “It’s a principle in Buddhism,” she said. “And Hinduism. And a bunch of other Isms. It’s basically a way of living that keeps you in sync with the cosmic order of things. It’s perfect alignment.”

  “So, like, being a good person?”

  Wynezra rolled her eyes. “Sure. Being a good person. Let’s go with that. But I know where you’re going with this, and let me just stop you right there because who the hell is anyone to say what ‘being a good person’ even means?”

  “I’m not saying Carol deserves kindness. But that’s the point of kindness—giving it when it’s not deserved. You and Carol both lost someone you love, and even though it was seven years ago, I know it still hurts. I’m just saying. I think people are more than what they do and don’t deserve.”

  “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?” said Wynezra. Her eyes narrowed into dangerously thin lines. “Don’t you ever talk to me about my mom again.”

  Wynezra turned and stormed out the glass exit doors into the fluorescence-stained darkness.

  • •

  I found Wynezra sitting on the curb, hugging her knees—my knees—in a tight, furious ball. I sat down next to her.

  “Jayden told me to tell my sister to stop being a bitch,” I said. “He did it right in front of both of us. And he patted me on the shoulder when he said it. Like I was his buddy, and I was in on the joke. And I just let it happen.”

  Wynezra said nothing.

  “I don’t know how it is in real life,” I said, “but in the movies, big brothers always protect their little sisters. And I’m like the exact opposite of that. I just let things happen because I’m such a fucking coward. You can only claim to care for someone so much when your lack of doing anything about it speaks so much louder. I’m so desperate for Willow’s validation, but really, I don’t deserve it. I’ll be honest: I’m jealous of you when you’re in my body. You’re such a cooler version of me. Like, in theater, when Jayden was being an asshole to Willow, and you called him a…a fucktrumpet? And you made fun of his shirt and his ‘knobby little nipples’?” I air-quoted. “And the most painful part was how much Willow seemed to instantly respect you.”

  Wynezra was finally looking at me.

  “Truth is, I’m pathetic,” I said. “I’m pretty sure ‘being a good person’ is impossible when you’re as pathetic as I am. When you’re too much of a coward to stand up for the people you care about.”

  That was all I had to say. I stopped talking. I glanced down at a tiny—almost invisible—magenta spot that had managed to bleed through my dress. But no matter how small it was, now that I had noticed it, there was no un-noticing it.

  Wynezra cleared her throat.

  “Holden touching your leg like that wasn’t entirely his fault,” she said. “I kind of…gave him tips.”

  My head snapped up. “What?”

  “But they were tips meant for me, not you. It was in case we swapped back—which I was almost sure we would have by now—and I guess it was kind of a filter, too, in case we hadn’t swapped.”

  I was so confused, and my face probably said as much.

  “There were tiers,” said Wynezra. “Tier one: hold hands. I didn’t think you’d actually let him hold your hand, but I knew you were trying to get me a date to prom, too, so I had a second tier: kiss. Like, make out for a little bit. And I thought for sure he wouldn’t get that far with you, and that’s when I told him Wynonna would want him to start…you know…getting a little handsy on the inner thigh.”

  I stared at Wynezra.

  “Look, girls get horny, too!” she said defensively. “I watched Holden change into seven different outfits. I was in his bedroom, and he was changing right in front of me, and he wanted my opinion on how he looked, and I just really wanted him to touch me. So, sorry for getting a little preemptive.”

  I laughed.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said, not very nothing-ly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re just kind of adorable as me.”

  That actually made Wynezra smile. “You’re a pretty smokin’ Wynonna yourself.”

  Again, we sat, marinating in the silence and the brisk bite of evening in April. This tiny dress was rapidly becoming “not enough.” I pulled my legs up to my chest and squeezed them for warmth. I clenched my teeth, but even that couldn’t stop the inevitable rattling. A deep shiver dug its way into my core.

  I didn’t notice the blazer until Wynezra had already put it on my shoulders. I looked at her, just a little bit mind-blown.

  “Thanks,” I said, which barely scratched the surface of my gratitude.

  “Hey, I’m doing it for me, not you,” she said. “I know how cold I get. Don’t want myself to catch something. And it’s your coat.”

  I smiled. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  Wynezra didn’t respond for a long time. Meanwhile, I slipped my arms into the sleeves of the blazer and attempted to wrap them around my legs. Tucking Wynonna into the smallest ball imaginable, I was just barely successful.

  “Sorry about the Imogen thing,” said Wynezra. “I should have told you the truth.”

  She should have. But I kept that comment to myself.

  “To my credit, I’m almost positive she’s not one hundred percent into girls,” said Wynezra. “I mean, you wouldn’t believe the crush she has on Colin Firth. And Hugh Grant. And the immortal spirit of Alan Rickman. She has a real soft spot for British men over fifty. She just has a really big crush on me, too.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “Imogen said something about last summer?”

  “We were experimenting. For me, I think it was purely an outlet to release all the pent-up feelings I had for Holden. It was fun at first, but then things got a little intense between us, so I tried to back away, but Imogen didn’t want to back away, and…well…we kind of had a falling-out. It wasn’t until the end of the summer that we finally made up again. When school started, it was like nothing had changed. Except it was probably only like that for me. Because…well, you know.”

  Wynezra looked at me. The sort of look that was trying so hard to be meaningful, even though it was frail and breaking.

  “I really wanted her to like you,” she said. “The plan was real to me. I hope you know that.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. I was trying not to feel bad for myself, but it was hard to not be just a little bit jealous of her. Not only was Wynonna a better Ezra than me, but Imogen was in love with her, too.

  God, how could I be inside Wynonna’s body, and I was still jealous of everything she was, and everything I wasn’t?

  • •

  By the time Carol arrived, Wynezra and I still had not swapped. I politely introduced Carol to “Ezra Slevin” and Carol politely introduced herself. Carol and I made idle chitchat—about movies (mostly those starring Dame Judi Dench), about Twelfth Night, about—in a very abridged version of the truth—how tonight had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

  Wynezra observed our friendly banter from the back seat, openmouthed.

  When we reached my house, Wynezra and I still had not swapped, so
we dropped Wynezra off, and I drove home with Carol.

  By the time Wynonna’s wonderful brain had started releasing melatonin into my bloodstream, circulating to all parts of my body, I changed sleepily out of my bloody clothes and into shorts and a tank top, and crawled into bed.

  I fell asleep.

  Wynezra and I didn’t swap back.

  the next day either.

  Or the day after that.

  Or the day after that.

  first. I needed to learn Viola’s role, and Wynezra was very committed to her three lines as Servant, and being in a single body without having to worry about the late-afternoon swap made things significantly less stressful for both of us.

  But then we kept not swapping.

  It wasn’t the swap itself that was bad. It was not knowing if our lives had changed permanently—if we had each become a different person entirely—and the thing that every human being takes for granted, “being yourself,” was suddenly not an option for us anymore.

  It was the possibility of forever that scared us.

  Before this mess, I “never saw” my parents. But that was hyperbole because of course I saw them sometimes. They had to buy fucking groceries occasionally and stock the refrigerator and pantry to ward off Child Protective Services. But now it had been a month—one whole month—and I had not seen my parents, and it made me want to cry.

  The crying part was probably also due to the fact that I was on my period again. (It was that time of the month!) I was cramping like a motherfucker, my boobs were more sensitive than my feelings, and Jesus, my feelings were out of control.

  On the plus side, after last month, I liked to think I had become a minor-league expert at tampons. (No, Wynonna didn’t help me after the first time.) I resolved to figure this shit out on my own. I read dozens of online articles. I practiced. I even examined the Port of Entry with a handheld mirror.

  And I bought lots and lots and lots of tampons.

  I had them in my purse, in my locker, and the motherlode stashed in Wynonna’s bathroom at home. I bought some pads, too, but I quickly decided that I didn’t like those. Yeah, they were “noninvasive,” but they also made me feel like I was wearing a tiny diaper. And if you put the tampon in right—and, I had learned, the wrong size tampon gave plenty of opportunity to put it in not right—it hardly felt like it was there.

  Imogen still wasn’t talking to us.

  Holden still wasn’t talking to me.

  Holden and Wynezra, however, had made a truce. Holden obviously didn’t believe that we had swapped bodies, but he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge either, so they made up shortly after the double date.

  He didn’t ask who Wynezra thought she really was. And Wynezra never told him.

  Wynezra did ask, however, if I could sit with them at lunch. Holden said he wasn’t ready for that. So she asked if she could take turns every other day, sitting with him, then sitting with me. He said that was fine.

  Wynezra asked me if that seating arrangement was okay.

  It was the last day of my first period, so naturally, I was on the brink of tears.

  “W-w-w-why are you asking me?” I said. “Do what you w-w-w-want. I don’t care.”

  That was another thing: Wynezra had become surprisingly considerate of me. I’d say we became friends, but it honestly felt like something different.

  Something more.

  Nothing romantic, of course. Christ, no. I still tended to think she was loud, obnoxious, and stupid, and she thought I was an annoying little chickenshit. But we were intertwined in each other. It was almost as if we had been melted, molded together, and then separated and hardened into two entirely different beings.

  “How are you today?” Wynezra asked me at lunch.

  “Bleeding,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. Do you need some chocolate?”

  She wasn’t even being sarcastic. I could see in her eyes that she totally meant it. And that made me want to cry, so I thought of things that made me happy, that made me laugh, like cat videos, and cheesecake, and Chris Farley, but that only seemed to make it worse, and then I remembered that Chris Farley was dead, and I completely lost it.

  Wynezra pulled her wallet out of her back pocket, removed a dollar, and ventured off to the vending machines. A minute later, she came back and set an Almond Joy in front of me.

  I stared at it like a log of dog shit sealed in a candy wrapper, which it basically was.

  “Almond Joy?” I said. “Of all the amazing candy bars in the whole wide world, you get me a fucking Almond Joy?”

  “Almond Joys are great,” said Wynezra.

  “I hate coconut,” I said. “I hate almonds! They taste like actual balls.”

  “They have antioxidants.”

  “Then antioxidants taste like balls!”

  “Try it. Call it a social experiment.”

  “A social experiment?” I said. I was so mad, I could barely even decipher what she meant. So, out of pure rage, I ripped open the Almond Joy and took a big bite. I hoped it was so disgusting that it made me sick, and I puked all over Wynezra’s shirt, which had a picture of a velociraptor and said VELOCIRAPTOR = DISTANCERAPTOR/TIMERAPTOR, and it was my favorite shirt! That’s how mad I was.

  I chewed.

  I chewed some more.

  I swallowed.

  “This actually isn’t terrible,” I said, and I took another bite.

  “I tried an Almond Joy the other day,” said Wynezra. “I hated it.”

  “Whad? Sherioushly?”

  “You wanna hear something even crazier?”

  I swallowed, took another bite, and nodded. This candy bar was fucking delicious.

  “I don’t like pork rinds anymore,” said Wynezra.

  I choked on the candy bar in my mouth, gagged, and then spewed it across the table. Wynezra leaned left, just barely dodging the largest, saliva-lubed chunk.

  “Are you serious?” I said, totally moved on from my near-death experience.

  Wynezra nodded, gravely serious. “Would I joke about pork rinds?”

  She most definitely would not.

  “I’m willing to bet,” said Wynezra, “that you like pork rinds now.”

  There was a long silence as she allowed me to process this startling hypothesis. In order to cope with the implications, I inserted the last of the candy bar in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  “So, what you’re saying,” I said, “is that you didn’t buy me a candy bar because you care about my feelings.”

  Wynezra rolled her head back and slapped a hand flat across her face. “I’m saying that I think our tastes have completely swapped.”

  “Buy me a bag of pork rinds, and we can prove it,” I said.

  I wasn’t gonna lie, after that Almond Joy, I was totally craving something salty.

  “I can’t. That was my last dollar.”

  I scowled.

  “Can you buy it?” she said. “For science?”

  I grumbled as I pulled my purse onto my shoulder, hefted myself out of my seat like a sentient sack of potatoes, and dragged my feet every step of the way to the vending machine.

  It was then that I realized: I really wanted those pork rinds. And I hadn’t even tried them yet!

  I walked faster until I was standing directly in front of the vending machine. It towered over me—foreshadowingly—like a vision of my own future mausoleum. I inserted my dollar, pressed the necessary buttons, and the metal twirly-whirl rotated until the pork rinds were released and dropped into the bottom hatch dispenser. I grabbed the pork rinds, ripped them open, and shoved one in my mouth.

  Oh my god. I liked pork rinds.

  I had practically emptied the entire bag by the time I returned to the table with Wynezra—chewing with a look of dead-eyed panic. Wynezra seemed grim but hardly surprised. She already knew what the outcome would be.

  “Okay, confession time,” said Wynezra. “I didn’t come here to talk about food. I wanted to tell you about…something else.”


  I nodded as I therapeutically popped the last pork rind into my mouth.

  “I don’t think I’m sexually attracted to Holden anymore,” she said.

  I chewed that final pork rind intensely.

  “But I was looking at Imogen the other day and…well…it’s hard to say what I was feeling, but the boinger in your pants got particularly boingy.”

  I swallowed the pork rind like a metaphorical revelation of the devastating truth. It went down my digestive pipe like a rock.

  “Ezra,” she said, “I think we’re turning into each other.”

  • •

  I couldn’t process my conversation with Wynezra. I refused to. I mean, neither Holden nor Imogen wanted anything to do with me, so what difference did it make?

  I spent the rest of school compiling a list of the reasons why Wynezra was wrong—why we were still ourselves and not Animorph transformations into each other. It wasn’t a terribly long list, but it was something. I cornered Wynezra after school.

  “I’m way too emotional to be you,” I said, by way of greeting. “Like, I feel like I want to cry every day, and I usually succeed.”

  “Okay…” said Wynezra.

  I waited for her to tell me I was right, but she just stood there uncomfortably, saying nothing.

  “When you were Wynonna, I never saw you cry,” I said, as if my point wasn’t clear. “You were always too busy acting tough and being a badass.”

  “You never saw me cry,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t cry.”

  I stared at her in gaping astonishment. “Are you saying this”—I gestured to myself—“is normal?”

  “I mean, sure, you don’t act like I acted. But that’s all it was—an act. You act how I felt. Most days, I wanted to cry. Shit, most days I succeeded—but alone, in my bedroom, with no witnesses. The whole badass, tough-girl routine was usually a smoke screen to hide the fact that I was so fucking sad and miserable.”

  “Are you sad and miserable now?”

  “I’m human. What human isn’t sad and miserable?”

  A little Nietzschean, but okay. I moved on to my next point.

  “I miss my parents,” I said. “And I still care about Willow. If I was turning into you, my feelings for them should be disappearing, right? But if anything, being you—being away from my family—has just made those feelings more intense.”