In My Shoes

by Stephens, Adrian

  “Come on. I know you are. Why don’t you ever tell me about this kind of stuff?”

  “Mike, you are a good friend in a lot of ways. But…you always mess with me. Why would I want to share that stuff with you when it just gives you ammunition to use later?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. When he did break the silence, Mike was somber.

  “Dude, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I had gotten lost in thought about Nicole and forgot what we were just talking about.

  “I always thought we were best friends.”

  “We are,” I replied.

  “No, I mean yes, but…I just mess with you to be funny and, well…I guess I don’t really know why. I’ve never really thought it was that big a deal.”

  “It’s not some of the time. Just, sometimes you take things too far.”

  “I guess. Between you and Nicole this week, I…well I guess I’m realizing I’m not as funny as I thought I was. And maybe not as good of a friend.”

  “Mike, that’s not true. Just…sometimes you take things too far. But sometimes you are really funny,” I quickly added. “Just…don’t try so hard.”

  He didn’t say anything for another while, but I didn’t get lost in thought this time. I realized that Mike was taking this very seriously. I’ve never seen him reflected in thought like this.

  “I…I do like her,” I finally said. “A lot.”

  He looked at me and smiled softly, like he understood that I was taking a chance by letting him in.

  “I thought so. Are you going to do something about it?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. We’re just becoming friends. I don’t want to mess that up by doing something stupid.”

  “No, but you know things about each other that most people don’t know.”

  “That’s not necessarily a good thing though, Mike.”

  “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. It’s not like she went running away scared.”

  I laughed. “How exactly was she going to run away scared…in my body?”

  “Okay, yeah…that’s a good point, but I still think she likes you.”

  “What if she’s just been civil because she had to?”

  “She didn’t have to. She could have been mean to you. And…she wasn’t really just civil. She seemed to me like she was pretty nice to you.”

  True. She was nice to me. Even today when we were changed back.

  “Still,” I countered, “if I say something now, I could mess everything up that’s happened in the last week.”

  “There’s always a risk, Jake.”

  “Yeah, but I took that risk a week ago, and this happened.”

  “True, but would you have preferred it never happened?”

  That was a good question, and I wasn’t really sure of the answer. There were plenty of times over the past week where I wished it would never have happened, and that I would change back. I don’t know now though if I would still prefer it had never happened. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be friends with Nicole right now.

  Before I knew it, we were parked in front of my house. Mike left the engine on, so I knew he wasn’t planning on coming in.

  “Have fun tonight with Jessica,” I said.

  “Thanks. She seems cool, so it oughta be fun. Good luck with Nicole.”

  “Thanks,” I said, getting out of the car.

  I wasn’t home long enough to get comfortable. Nicole knocked on my door just minutes after I got inside.

  “Hi,” I said, motioning for her to come inside.

  “How are you?”

  At the moment, my stomach was turned in knots. “I’m good. How are you?”

  “Fine thanks.”

  I closed the door and led Nicole into the family room.

  “I guess I’m not the only one having trouble,” she said.

  “With what?” I asked.

  “Deciding how to walk now. I feel as awkward as you look,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to spend some time today working that out. Do you want something to drink?”

  “Water, please.”

  I got her a bottled water and we both sat down on the couch.

  “So, did your mom tell you about the car?” she asked. She seemed, like me, to be trying to find a way to relax. We were both sitting pretty rigidly on the couch.

  “Oh, yeah. She gave me all of the details this morning. I get to have a summer job, too.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I actually asked her if I could get a job when I was sixteen, but she was against it.”

  “Yeah, my parents are kind of the same way.”

  There was silence again as we searched for what to say next.

  “So,” I finally continued, “was it weird waking up this morning at Jessica’s house? I would think that would have been a little disorienting.”

  “It was, a little. I kind of freaked them out when I realized I was back. I tried to keep it in, but I let out a little yelp or something, and woke them up.”

  “Then what did you do?” I asked.

  “I just told them I had a bad dream and apologized.”

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  More silence.

  “Is it just me,” Nicole finally offered, “or does this feel awkward?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “We’re okay, though, right? I mean, we are friends now…aren’t we?”

  “I hope so,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Good. So let’s just move on then, shall we?”

  “Sounds good to me.” I was hoping to take that conversation a little bit further, but she kind of closed the door on that.

  We both decided to start going through the process of unlearning what we had learned. Since it seemed to be so evident, I suggested we start with fixing our walks. It didn’t really take that long once we spent a little bit of time thinking about it.

  We decided that we could work out our handwriting on our own. It’s a little bit easier to fix something you can see yourself doing rather than walking, which you really can’t see as easily.

  Next up was our homework. We didn’t really have unlearning to do with homework, but we did spend some time discussing where we were at in each of our classes. At least the ones we didn’t have together. Since we already had it out, we decided to actually work on our homework for a while.

  An hour or so later, we had our homework done, and our handwriting sorted back out. The little things that people take for granted.

  Now that our homework was done, we decided we should review our weeks with as much detail as possible, hoping we could prevent any awkward surprises later.

  “Well,” Nicole said after we had scrutinized everything, “I should get going. I’ve got two hours before my flight.”

  “Right.”

  She packed up her things and I got up to walk her to the door. I could feel my heart beating hard against my chest. I wasn’t really sure why, but I guessed it was because I was afraid if I let her walk out the door now, we would stay friends forever. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, but…

  “So,” I said, nervously, “why do you think this all happened, anyway?”

  “I’ve thought a lot about that. I don’t really know. I have a hard time believing it was some freak cosmic thing. I would be more inclined to think that we were supposed to learn a lesson. What do you think?”

  “Me? Uhh…well, I think that if we hadn’t switched bodies, we wouldn’t have gotten to know each other like we do. Maybe this happened so we would not miss the opportunity to…get to know each other.”

  “That’s as good of a guess as any. It’s strange,” she said standing at the door, “we’ve gotten to know each other well over the last week, but I’m not used to looking at you through my eyes. I feel like we are friends, but still strangers. Like we’ve skipped forward from then until now.”

&nbs
p; “We could start over.”

  “That would be…good,” she said, staring at me. She looked rigid once again. Nervous maybe.

  “Hi, I’m Jake,” I said, holding out my hand and smiling. “I’m in your physics class.”

  “Yes, I know who you are,” she said, breaking a smile. “You’re also in my English class.”

  “Right. So, I was wondering if maybe you might want to study together sometime?”

  “Are you asking me out on a date, Jake?”

  I wasn’t really expecting that response. Hoping, maybe. Definitely not expecting it. “Uhh…yes I am.”

  “You know, I don’t date class clowns.”

  And then she kissed me.

  DAY 2812

  I’m cooking Jake’s favorite tonight. Not that he deserves it. I get home about an hour before him most nights, so I usually cook dinner for the both of us. His favorite meal is beef tri-tip, and I make it the way my dad always made it for me growing up. It usually takes about an hour and a half to prepare, so we don’t have it very often.

  The problem with making something that takes that long to make is that, if for instance, Jake doesn’t come home on time, I won’t know in enough time to delay it or cook something else. Once it’s in the oven, it’s too late to go back.

  Tonight just happened to be one of those nights. Jake called, a half of an hour before he was supposed to be home, to say that he was going to be late.

  “That’s just great, Jake, except that I put the tri-tip in the oven forty-five minutes ago! We’re going to be eating cold dinner now!” My voice was…somewhat elevated.

  “Please don’t yell, Honey. I’m sorry. I’ll get home as soon as possible, but don’t wait for me. There’s no reason we should both have cold dinner.”

  “That doesn’t make it better, Jake. Why can’t you give me more notice when you are going to be late? Is that too much to ask?”

  “No, and if I had known sooner, I would have called sooner. I just found out five minutes ago.”

  “Fine. Hurry home. I’m going to wait.”

  “Don’t be irrational, Nicole. Just eat.” I could hear the irritation starting in his voice. That didn’t matter to me, though, because he just called me irrational.

  “Irrational? Irrational? I could show you irrational if you’d like.”

  “Nicole, the baby. Please calm down.”

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to tell him so, but he was right. I was thirty-six weeks pregnant with our first child, and I felt like I was going to pop at any moment.

  “Just get home. I’ll eat when it’s ready.” I said it as calmly as I could.

  “Thank you. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “You do know I love you, right?”

  “Yeah. I love you, too.”

  “You just don’t like me a lot right now.”

  “Not at the moment,” I said with a subtle laugh.

  “I’ll make it up to you later.”

  “You’d better.”

  “Foot massage?”

  “That could help your situation a little.”

  “Deal. I’ll see you soon.”

  It’s hard to stay mad at him. Lately, it seems like he’s been on my nerves a lot, but it’s not like he’s trying to be. Most of the time, it’s little stuff that he does unintentionally. Like tonight.

  Jake likes to tell me that it’s my hormones. I hate it when he says that. It’s like he takes all of my emotions and everything I feel about the things he does, and he just balls them up and dismisses them all under the umbrella of hormones. Sometimes he’s right, not that I’m going to tell him that. But, sometimes he’s not. Lately, I’ve felt a lot more emotional about things than I normally would. That said, it didn’t make my frustrations any less valid.

  Jake wasn’t going to be home for an hour and a half, and that’s if everything went well. So, I decided to watch a movie. I hadn’t seen Moulin Rouge in a while. I’ve loved that movie since I first saw it as a teenager. Jake didn’t really like it, so I don’t put him through it.

  Actually, I almost turned it off after the first fifteen minutes the first time I watched it. I’m glad I didn’t, though. After that, the music was amazing and the story actually started making sense. It’s funny how a movie I almost turned off became one of my favorite musicals ever. Now that I know the whole story, the first fifteen minutes aren’t even so bad.

  The nice thing about watching Moulin Rouge alone is that I can sing all of the songs without bothering anyone. Well, except maybe the baby. Although, I couldn’t help but think the baby liked it. When he doesn’t like something, I can feel a nice swift kick that feels like he’s bouncing on my kidneys. This was more of a slow rolling kick, which I usually felt when he seemed to be happy. Interestingly enough, it usually coincided with when I was happy.

  My frustration with Jake seemed to subside as I had dinner and watched the movie. This wasn’t so bad, though it’s not really about whether I can find a way to entertain myself or not.

  It’s more about knowing my husband will be there when I need him. He is, though. Jake really is great. He’s been to every doctor’s appointment so far for the baby. That’s probably why he’s late tonight. I just wish he would have thought about it earlier and let me know sooner. Oh well, nobody’s perfect, right?

  Jake came in toward the end of the movie.

  “Ahh…Moulin Rouge, huh?” he asked as he kissed me on my forehead.

  “Yeah, although I should have made you suffer through it for being late,” I said, playfully.

  “I’ll allow my ears to bleed for you anytime,” he played back. He doesn’t like musicals.

  “Ha…ha…ha.”

  “So, how’s my favorite child?”

  “You’d better be talking about the baby.”

  “I am,” he said rolling his eyes. “Am I still in trouble?”

  “Not at the moment, but you’ve still got time.”

  “You only get the foot massage if it gets me out of trouble.”

  “When I get the foot massage, you’ll officially be out of trouble.”

  “Hmm…let me get a bite to eat and I’ll get started.”

  “I made you a plate. It’s in the fridge.”

  “Thank you, Love.”

  He heated up his food and brought his plate and a glass of milk over to the couch where I was sitting.

  “The baby’s fine, by the way.”

  “Good,” he said, rubbing my belly. I love it when he does that. Not anybody else, but I love it when he does it.

  “We’re getting pretty close,” I said. “We probably should decide on a name.”

  “I still like Evan Keith.”

  “Evan Keith Matthews. It’s good, but you don’t think it’s weird having his first name so close to my maiden name?”

  “No, my opinion hasn’t changed since the last time you asked me,” he said smiling. I gave him a playful shove, and he started coughing. “Hey, I’m eating here,” he said, feigning irritation.

  “Sorry,” I said, smiling.

  “I think it’s a good name, and it has family ties with it. We still have a few weeks, so we don’t have to decide tonight. If I had to choose tonight, that would be my vote.”

  “Okay. Evan Keith. My dad will like it.”

  “I would imagine so.”

  He finished his food, washed the dishes and motioned for me to turn myself around as he sat back on the couch. “Oh, wait,” he said getting up and leaving the room.

  After a minute, he returned with lotion. He grabbed my left foot and started massaging it. He gives the best massages.

  “That feels really good,” I said.

  “Well, I would hope so.”

  “My feet are so swollen.”

  “It’s temporary. You’ll spring back after the baby is born.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Me, too,” he said smiling. I kicked him. Not hard enough to hurt. Just hard enough to playful
ly make my point.

  “Umph. Thanks for that.”

  “Anytime,” I said, smiling big.

  “Remind me never to meet you in a dark alley.”

  “Don’t you forget it. You should just be glad you don’t have to be carrying a bowling ball around in your stomach. You should be thankful you’ll never have to know what this feels like. Not to mention, the fact that I have to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes. And sometimes…I feel like a pinball machine.”

  “Well, it could be worse,” he said, finishing up my right foot, “you could have to deal with the woman who is carrying around a bowling ball in her stomach and has to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes.”

  He was joking, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that joke, and it’s still not funny. I pulled my foot away.

  “Oh, come on…I’m just joking around with you.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to say when you start talking about how I should be glad I’ll never have to go through all that stuff? I’m sorry you have to go through it all, but it’s not my fault.”

  “Last time I checked, you got me pregnant!”

  “Last time I checked, we made that decision together. This is how the process works, Nicole. I get you pregnant, you carry the baby, we both raise it.”

  “Yeah, not exactly a fair trade there.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s still not my fault. I don’t make the rules on pregnancy.”

  “And if you had, I’m sure you would have decided to make it so the man carries the baby, right?”

  “Well, it couldn’t be any worse than having to deal with this? What are we even arguing about?”

  “We’re arguing about the fact that you are insensitive.”

  “Nicole, I was just joking. What happened to your sense of humor?”

  “Nothing has happened to my sense of humor. I have no trouble laughing when I hear something that is funny.”

  “Honey,” he said, trying to bring his tone back down, “we need to stop this. It’s not good for you or the baby. I’m sorry if I offended you. I’m sorry you are uncomfortable. You don’t have much longer, and then the baby will be born, and you’ll start to feel better.”

  Once again, I took a deep breath. It hasn’t been like this the whole pregnancy, but I seem to be taking lots of deep breaths over the last week. I don’t know why I get so worked up over things. Insensitive or not, I usually handle things better than this. All of a sudden, a wave of emotion came over me and I started crying.