I’ll be there at 5. Can’t wait to see what you look like today.
(Still not believing this.)
Rhiannon
And then I am standing there, the girl in the stall with the phone out, staring at the screen that doesn’t even hold the message she typed, since it’s already flown away, into the hands of someone she doesn’t really know. There is nothing that can make you feel quite so dumb as wanting something good to be true. That’s the horrifying part—that I want this to be true. I want him—her? him?—to exist.
I promise myself I won’t think about it until five o’clock, and then I break that promise a thousand times.
Even Justin can tell I’m distracted. The moment when I least need him to pay attention, he finds me after school and is concerned.
“I missed you today,” he says. His hands move to my back and he starts to work the tension from the muscles there. It feels good. And he’s doing it in the middle of the hall, right by our lockers, which isn’t something he usually does.
“I missed you, too,” I say, even though it doesn’t feel entirely true.
“Let’s go find a Girl Scout and get some cookies,” he says.
I laugh, then realize he means it.
“And where will you find a Girl Scout?” I ask.
“Three doors down from me. I swear, she has a vault full of Thin Mints. Sometimes there are lines on her porch. She’s like a dealer.”
I have time for this. It’s not even three yet. If I get on the road by four, I should be fine to get to the Starbucks in Laurel by five.
“Does she have Samoas, too?”
“Are those the coconut ones or the peanut butter ones?”
“Coconut.”
“I’m sure she has them all. Seriously. She’s a cartel.”
I can tell he’s excited. Usually I can find complaints waiting in the corners of his words or gestures. But right now, they’re nowhere in sight.
He’s happy, and part of the reason he’s happy is because he’s happy to see me.
“Let’s go,” I say.
—
We park our cars in his driveway and then walk three doors down. He doesn’t hold my hand or anything, but it still feels like we’re together.
The girl who answers the door can’t be older than eleven, and she’s so small that I’m amazed her mom lets her answer the door at all.
“Have you placed a preorder?” she asks, pulling out an iPad.
This cracks Justin up. “No. This is more of a drive-by.”
“Then I can’t promise availability,” the girl states. “That’s why we encourage preorders.” She reaches for a table next to the door and hands us a cookie listing, as well as a business card with a website address on it. “But since you’re here, I am happy to see what I can do. Just note that the prerefrigerated Thin Mints are preorder only.”
Justin doesn’t even look at the paper. “We’d like a box of Samosas,” he says. “The coconut ones.”
“I believe you mean Samoas,” the girl corrects. “I am going to have to close and lock the door while I check inventory. Are you sure you only want one box? A lot of people say they only want one, and then they’re back the next day for more.”
“Mia, you know I live down the street. Just get us the box.”
Mia is clearly considering a harder sell, then thinks better of it. “One moment,” she says, then shuts the door in our faces.
“Her parents once got so desperate that they asked me to babysit,” Justin tells me. “And I was so desperate for cash that I said yes. She offered me cookies, then left a note for her mother to take the cost of the cookies out of my pay. I set the note on fire and dropped it in the sink. I don’t think she appreciated that.”
I can’t imagine asking Justin to babysit. And I can also imagine him being the most fun babysitter ever, if you didn’t try to bill him.
Mia returns with our box of Samoas. Justin takes the box from her hand and starts to walk away without paying, which makes Mia turn purple in outrage. Then Justin says, “Just kidding,” turns back, and gives her the cash in singles.
“Next time, preorder,” she tells both of us before slamming the door again.
“Not the sweetest girl,” Justin comments as we head back to his house. “But she gives good cookie.”
Instead of going inside, Justin leads me to the backyard. His mom has a small garden with a bench. He takes me there.
“Samoa for your thoughts,” he says, pulling open the box and the plastic.
“My only thought is: I want a Samoa,” I tell him.
“Here,” he says, putting one between his teeth. I lean in and snatch it up.
“Yum,” I say, mouth full.
He pops one into his own mouth. “Yeah, yum,” he agrees, some coconut falling into the air between us. After he swallows, he says, “I imagine we taste the same right now.”
I smile. “I imagine we’re both pretty coconutty. And chocolatey. And caramelly.”
“There’s only one way to know for sure.”
He goes in for the kiss and I let him take it. I tell myself this is what I want. Just like the ocean. Just like a couple.
He pulls away. “Yum.”
“Give me another.”
He presses in for another kiss. I push him away and say, “I meant another cookie.” He laughs. I appreciate the laugh.
Instead of insisting on the kiss, he passes me the box of cookies. I take two.
They’re really good, much better than I remembered them being. Sweet and rough.
“Don’t get too hooked,” Justin warns. “That’s how Mia gets you. Before you know it, you’re preordering by the dozens. And then, even worse, you’re insisting that they be refrigerated.”
“You speak like someone who knows. I’ll bet your fridge is full of Thin Mints.”
“Oh, no. It’s worse than that. I only eat the fat mints now.”
Why are you in such a good mood? I want to ask him. And then I want to ask myself, Why do you have to question this?
“Wanna see my stash?” he asks.
“I’ve already seen your stash.”
“And what do you think?”
“It’s huge.”
We’re being silly, but that’s nice. Even though we’ve been together for a while, it’s still nice to flirt, and to feel the lightness of flirting.
I don’t want to tell him I can’t stay long. I know that will make it less exciting than it was a minute ago.
So I don’t say anything. But I also don’t make a move to go inside. I kiss him here, on the bench. I kiss him here and feel awful because one of the reasons I am kissing him here is because I know it’ll be easier to leave if we’re already outside.
He doesn’t sense it, though. He is kissing me back. He is happy. He is sure to move the precious box of cookies out of our way as we crash into each other.
I begin to convince myself that this is what I want. This is where I am meant to be. I am only going to see A in order to get the explanation. But that is not my life. This is my life. Justin is my life.
—
I get there late. I’ve had an hour to straighten myself out, calm myself down, make myself appear to be a girl who has not just spent an hour making out with her boyfriend. I’ve also been thinking of questions to ask, ways to know whether what A is saying is true. I mean, it can’t be true. But I’m looking for ways to prove that.
When I get to the Starbucks, I’m expecting the girl from yesterday to be there. Or Nathan. Someone to tell me, ha ha, it was a joke. But neither of them is there. Instead, there’s this guy—a big football player of a guy. Not my type. Almost scary in his size. But he looks gentle when he waves to me.
Again, my perspective changes when I look into his eyes. All the assumptions fall away.
I take a deep breath. I know I need to settle this. I try to remember my plan.
“Okay,” I say as soon as I get to his table and sit down. “Before we say another word, I want to see your phone. I wa
nt to see every single call you’ve made in the past week, and every single call you received. If this isn’t some big joke, then you have nothing to hide.”
I can’t imagine that after being with me so sweetly, Justin would have set this up. But I want to make sure his number isn’t on the phone. I want to see if there are any texts or calls on there from yesterday.
I search around. I look at the contacts. I don’t find any phone calls from yesterday. The two texts are from friends of his. There’s nothing about me anywhere.
So there’s that.
I hand back the phone and tell him it’s time for me to quiz him. I start by asking what I was wearing that day on the beach.
Worry flashes in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he says after half a minute. “Do you remember what Justin was wearing?”
I try to remember. But what I remember instead is the feeling, the wonder of it all. Not the clothes.
“Good point,” I say. “Did we make out?”
He shakes his head. “We used the make-out blanket, but we didn’t make out. We kissed. And that was enough.”
I note his use of the phrase make-out blanket. And the fact that he doesn’t make too much of a deal of it.
“And what did I say to you before I left the car?” I ask.
“ ‘That’s the nice note.’ ”
“Correct. Quick, what’s Steve’s girlfriend’s name?”
“Stephanie.”
“And what time did the party end?”
“Eleven-fifteen.”
“And when you were in the body of that girl who I took to all of my classes, what did the note you passed me say?”
“Something like, The classes here are just as boring as in the school I’m going to now.”
“And what were the buttons on your backpack that day?”
“Anime kittens.”
I try to think of a way he could know all this, from all those different people. Short of him being able to read my mind, I can’t explain it.
“Well,” I say, “either you’re an excellent liar, or you switch bodies every day. I have no idea which one is true.”
“It’s the second one,” he assures me. Then he looks concerned again. “Let’s go outside,” he whispers. “I feel we may be getting an unintended audience.”
I can’t see the person he’s talking about, but I can see other people who could easily be listening to us. Still, his proposal is a little too step-into-my-van for my taste.
“Maybe if you were a petite cheerleader again,” I tell him. “But—I’m not sure if you fully realize this—you’re a big, threatening dude today. My mother’s voice is very loud and clear in my head: No dark corners.”
He points out the window, to a bench along the road. “Totally public, only without people listening in.”
“Fine,” I say.
I’m trying to think of new questions as we walk outside. I haven’t even gotten any coffee, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to stop for a latte.
He seems nervous. And if I’m honest, I know it’s not a serial-killer nervousness. It feels like the only thing that could be killed here are his hopes. I have never seen a boy hope so visibly. I wonder if he knows he’s doing it.
Distance. I let him sit down first so I can keep a little distance. So I can look into those eyes without falling into them. So I can keep some judgment.
I want to know more, so I need to ask more. If he’s going to convince me, he’s going to have to tell me much more.
“So,” I resume, “you say you’ve been like this since the day you were born?”
He hesitates for a brief moment. I get a sense that he doesn’t have conversations like this very often.
Well, I don’t, either.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I can’t remember it being any different.”
“So how did that work? Weren’t you confused?”
Again, he thinks about it for a second, then answers. “I guess I got used to it. I’m sure that, at first, I figured it was just how everybody’s lives worked. I mean, when you’re a baby, you don’t really care much about who’s taking care of you, as long as someone’s taking care of you. And as a little kid, I thought it was some kind of a game, and my mind learned how to access—you know, look at the body’s memories—naturally. So I always knew what my name was, and where I was. It wasn’t until I was six or seven that I started to realize I was different, and it wasn’t until I was nine or ten that I really wanted it to stop.”
“You did?” I ask. The idea of leaving your body sounds almost fun to me. A relief.
“Of course,” he says. “Imagine being homesick, but without having a home. That’s what it was like. I wanted friends, a mom, a dad, a dog—but I couldn’t hold on to any of them more than a single day. It was brutal. There are nights I remember screaming and crying, begging my parents not to make me go to bed. They could never figure out what I was afraid of. They thought it was a monster under the bed, or a ploy to get a few more bedtime stories. I could never really explain, not in a way that made sense to them. I’d tell them I didn’t want to say goodbye, and they’d assure me it wasn’t goodbye. It was just good night. I’d tell them it was the same thing, but they thought I was being silly.”
Now it doesn’t sound fun at all. It sounds lonely.
He goes on. “Eventually I came to peace with it. I had to. I realized that this was my life, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t fight the tide, so I decided to float along.”
I can’t get my mind around it. No friends. No people in your life from day to day.
So lonely.
“How many times have you told this story?” I ask him.
“None. I swear. You’re the first.”
There’s only you. Why am I thinking of Justin right now? Why am I thinking of the time, drunk on wine in the passenger seat of my car, he said those words to me? I wasn’t even mad. I didn’t mind driving. Instead of Thank you, that’s what he said. And he was so grateful when he said it. So damn grateful.
But I can’t think about that. Instead, I go back to A’s story. “You have to have parents, don’t you?” I say. “I mean, we all have parents.”
He shrugs. “I have no idea. I would think so. But it’s not like there’s anyone I can ask. I’ve never met anyone else like me. Not that I would necessarily know.”
I don’t always get along with my parents, but I am still glad they’re around.
I think he’s going to tell me more about not having parents, about not having roots. But he surprises me.
“I’ve glimpsed things,” he says.
I expect him to say more. To tell me what this means, what he’s seen. But I have to remember: He’s new at this. He’s still very unsure.
“Go on,” I prompt.
Permission. He smiles, happy for it. I want to hug him, if only for that smile. “It’s just—I know it sounds like an awful way to live, but I’ve seen so many things. It’s so hard when you’re in one body to get a sense of what life is really like. You’re so grounded in who you are. But when who you are changes every day—you get to touch the universal more. Even the most mundane details. You see how cherries taste different to different people. Blue looks different. You see all the strange rituals boys have to show affection without admitting it. You learn that if a parent reads to you at the end of the day, it’s a good sign that it’s a good parent, because you’ve seen so many other parents who don’t make the time. You learn how much a day is truly worth, because they’re all so different. If you ask most people what the difference was between Monday and Tuesday, they might tell you what they had for dinner each night. Not me. By seeing the world from so many angles, I get more of a sense of its dimensionality.”
“But you never get to see things over time, do you?” I ask. “I don’t mean to cancel out what you just said. I think I understand that. But you’ve never had a friend that you’ve known day in and day out for ten years. You’ve never wat
ched a pet grow older. You’ve never seen how messed up a parent’s love can be over time. And you’ve never been in a relationship for more than a day, not to mention for more than a year.”
“But I’ve seen things,” he says. “I’ve observed. I know how it works.”
“From the outside?” I’m really trying to get my mind around this, but it’s hard. Blue looks different. “I don’t think you can know from the outside.”
“I think you underestimate how predictable some things can be in a relationship.”
I should’ve known we’d get here. I should’ve known this would come up. He met me as Justin, after all. He knows the deal. Or thinks he does.
I need to make it clear. “I love him,” I say. “I know you don’t understand, but I do.”
“You shouldn’t. I’ve seen him from the inside. I know.”
“For a day,” I point out. “You saw him for a day.”
“And for a day, you saw who he could be. You fell more in love with him when he was me.”
This is very hard to hear. I don’t know if it’s true or not. If you’d asked me yesterday, maybe yes. If you ask me now, after Girl Scout cookies, maybe no.
He goes for my hand. But I can’t do it. It’s committing too much. “No,” I say. “Don’t.”
He doesn’t.
“I have a boyfriend,” I go on. “I know you don’t like him, and I’m sure there are moments when I don’t like him, either. But that’s the reality. Now, I’ll admit, you have me actually thinking that you are, in fact, the same person who I’ve now met in five different bodies. All this means is that I’m probably as insane as you are. I know you say you love me, but you don’t really know me. You’ve known me a week. And I need a little more than that.”
“But didn’t you feel it that day? On the beach? Didn’t everything seem right?”
Yes. Everything within me jumps to that one word: yes. It did seem right. But that was feeling. All feeling. I still cannot speak to any fact.
But I cannot withhold my answer, either. So I tell him, “Yes. But I don’t know who I was feeling that for. Even if I believe it was you, you have to understand that my history with Justin plays into it. I wouldn’t have felt that way with a stranger. It wouldn’t have been so perfect.”
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