by Sean Platt
**
I arrive at the office with coffee, and Allie, in hand.
“Hey, Allie, how’s it going?” Yvonne says, directing her to one of the design room’s three empty chairs.
The two girls talk with immediate comfort, suggesting that Allie accompanying Lara to the job isn’t uncommon. Yvonne is either an understanding boss, or the paper offers a lax work environment.
The paper is small with only six non-advertising staffers and a core group of only four: the editor, Yvonne, Lara, and two reporters, Katelynn and Tommy — neither are at the office today. The paper also has stringers and interns who do a bulk of the weekday reporting. But today is Saturday, and the paper’s only residents are Yvonne and Lara, working to finish the Sunday edition.
Yvonne updates me on what needs to be finished: mostly last-minute changes to client ads and tweaking a few story images, while she finishes editing copy.
Allie spends much of the morning surfing the web on one of the computers next to me, and chatting with Yvonne, who is very talkative. I’m thankful for Allie. If she weren’t here, I’d get nothing done, or Yvonne might notice me stumbling through some basic Photoshop work.
At one, Yvonne asks us to join her for lunch at the corner diner.
**
We’re squeezed into a cozy booth in the back, waiting for our food. “So, tonight’s the big night, eh?” Yvonne says.
I play dumb, not sure if Lara had told Yvonne about the date or if she’s talking about something else. I don’t want to accidentally reveal something Lara wouldn’t want known.
Yvonne looks at me grinning. “Oh, come on, don’t act like you’re not excited.”
“Oh, you’re finally meeting Gavin?” Allie asks with a wide smile that seems older than her age. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I dunno,” I say. Is this the sort of stuff that Lara would share with Allie? It must be, since she knew his name.
“How long have you been talking to him?” Yvonne asks.
“Six months,” I say like it’s no big deal.
“Show me the pic again.”
I draw a blank.
She grabs my phone from the table and starts thumbing through the screen. I guess Yvonne and Lara have that kind of relationship where such intrusions are normal. Allie, sitting beside me, is cracking up.
I let Yvonne thumb through the photos on Lara’s phone. She finds one of a young blond-haired man in a tight white T-shirt, lean muscles rippling under the surface. The photo looks like it’s ripped from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
Yvonne says, “I am soooo jealous.”
“Jealous? You’ve got Tony,” I say, suddenly remembering her boyfriend’s name.
“Yeah, but Tony doesn’t look like this! I’m telling you, this shit’s not fair. You haven’t put in enough time on the dating circuit to get a guy like this. How many boyfriends have you had?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“Three in your whole life. At least that’s what you told me. You know how many men I had to date before I found Tony?”
Allie’s laughing hard. “You’ve only had three boyfriends?”
“Three isn’t bad,” I say, suddenly feeling like a prude. “And besides, the last one was awful. It was like having four boyfriends, all of them jerks.”
“But you’re so old,” Allie says, “I thought you would’ve had more by now.”
“Old? I’m twenty-four!”
Yvonne looks at Allie with a faux glare. “Watch it now, girl. ’Cuz Lara’s the young one at the paper.”
“I’m sorry.” Allie covers her laugh. “I’m just saying that most people have had more than three boyfriends, or more, by the time they’re out of high school.”
“How many have you had?” I ask, a bit too defensively.
Allie looks like I hurt her feelings for a moment but quickly recovers. “You know my mom won’t let me date. Plus, the last thing in the world I wanna do is get knocked up in school and have a child I hate like she does.”
That chills the mood.
Thankfully, the food comes a minute later to occupy our mouths.
After a bit, Yvonne says, “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll have boys beating down your door once you get to college.”
“You think?” Allie asks.
“Oh, I know. You’re way too pretty. But don’t go falling for the first smile you see. Hold out, and maybe you’ll land yourself a Gavin.”
We all laugh, the mood lightened.
Yvonne says, “Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always ask Tommy out.”
Tommy is a reporter at the paper. I’m not sure of the history between Lara and Tommy, so I let the comment go, and change the subject. “Nope, if this doesn’t work, I’m giving up on guys. I’ll just settle down with a house full of cats or something.”
“No,” Yvonne laughs, sliding the phone back to me. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
I try to cover my anxiety, but Yvonne sees through it.
“It’s gonna be okay, girl.”
“Yeah,” Allie says from behind a mouthful of fries.
“I dunno. A part of me wants to call the whole thing off, stay home, pig out on ice cream while binging on Netflix.”
The words come from my mouth faster than intended. And this is when things can get dangerous. The longer I’m in someone, the more comfortable I feel, and the more attuned to their speech patterns I feel. So I sometimes talk too fast, before the memories have had a chance to fill themselves in, which has hurled me into some sticky conversations. For instance, Lara might not have Netflix, and Yvonne and Allie might know this. Hell, maybe Lara is an outspoken opponent of online streaming services; I don’t know. But nobody seems to take exception, so the conversation rolls forward with the girls reassuring me that it’s okay to be nervous, and things will be just fine.
I don’t argue much.
I only know that the longer I wait to call this guy, the worse it’s going to be for Lara once I leave.
I have to figure out what I’m going to do.
It feels good having friends like this. At least for today. I feel a pang of loneliness that I’ll never see either of them again.
That’s one of the worst things about being a Jumper — my only word for what’s happening to me. I can never connect with anyone. Make my own friends. Find my own love.
I suppose some people would think I’m lucky, particularly the people I’ve been in who literally have no one in their lives to care about them. They would see me having thousands of friends, and hundreds of loves. But none of it means anything when it’s all so ephemeral. When every new body is a fresh reminder of my eternal loneliness.
Suddenly, the phone rings.
I look at the screen.
GAVIN.
My eyes must widen because Yvonne and Allie are both giving me the same expectant look.
“Get it!” Allie says, laughing.
I pick up.
“Hello?” I say, no clue how Lara typically answers his calls. I know they’ve talked on the phone a lot, so I’m hoping he can’t sense anything off about Lara today.
“Lara?”
Does he already sense something’s off?
“Yes,” I say. “Gavin?”
“Yeah, how’s it going?”
And just like that, my heart’s racing faster. Not out of love, lust, or any of the usual suspects. No. My heart is racing because Gavin’s voice sounds familiar. Not just familiar — but stop-your-heart-you-just-heard-a-ghost kind of familiar — the kind of voice you never forget.
Yet I can’t remember where I’ve heard it. I want to think it’s from another of the many bodies before Lara, but what if that’s not it? What if he’s from my actual life? What if he knows the real me?
“It’s going okay,” I say, still trying to figure out where I’ve heard his voice. “Just having lunch with Yvonne.”
“Ah, okay. Don’t wanna keep ya. Just making sure we’re still on for to
night. Old House at eight?”
Lara’s mind tells me that Old House is a nice restaurant downtown. She’s been there once before, with Yvonne and Kenny, for Kenny’s twenty-ninth birthday dinner.
“Yes, Old House at eight.” My hands are clammy. I can feel sweat between my breasts, down my back. I feel like I’m choking on words.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just excited to finally meet!” I say, trying my best to sound sincere.
And I am being sincere. Because while I don’t know much, I do know this is the first voice I’ve heard in a long time that holds a promise to unlocking my past.
“See you tonight,” I say, scared and excited all at once.
**
It’s been ten minutes, and my date still hasn’t shown up.
The waiter walks by a few times over the next ten minutes, with this look on his face — a cross between pity and embarrassment as it becomes increasingly obvious that I’m being stood up.
I call Gavin, but it goes straight to voice mail. Not even a personalized message, but the robotic female voice telling me that the caller is unavailable, and to please leave a message.
I do, trying not to sound desperate, or anxious.
I run my finger along my glass, ice melting while I wonder what to do next. I told myself that I’d leave once my water was gone, but now I’m finishing my fourth glass.
I feel the restaurant’s eyes upon me, as if all the happy couples are looking at me in judgment. I tell myself that no one is looking. I’ve been body jumping long enough to know that most people are so absorbed in their own lives, wondering if people are looking at them, that they rarely pay attention to strangers, much less show much concern for whether someone in a restaurant has been stood up.
Yet I can’t shake the feeling of being watched.
I look around, surreptitiously, not seeing anyone overtly looking my way. Yet the feeling is impossible to shed.
I wonder if Gavin is somewhere in the room, watching, laughing as he torments his date, maybe discreetly recording the event to post online and shame Lara. The depths to which people will go to hurt someone are endless, and expanding technology multiplies the available means.
I find my anger outpacing my curiosity. I want to meet Gavin but am reluctant to go, even forty minutes later. If I leave, then I may never find my answers. And tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll open my eyes inside another body further removed from my previous life.
Now people are looking at me. Not just the staff, who want to clear the table for the next guests, but other diners as well. A few women give me a compassionate look that clearly says, I’ve been there. A few guys glance in my direction before quickly looking away. I’m not sure if they’re feeling guilty because they’re on a date and checking me out, or if they’re thinking about dates they’ve stood up in the past.
Or maybe nobody’s thinking anything, and I’m getting worked up over nothing. I’m usually good at reading people, at taking a room’s pulse, but tonight I’m off my game — anxious over feeling so close yet so far from a clue.
I finish my water, push back my chair, leave a twenty dollar bill on the table for taking up space, then leave.
On the drive back to my apartment, I glare out the window, wondering what happened to my date.
Had he come and left? Maybe something held him up and kept him from meeting me. I begin arguing with myself.
He could’ve called.
Yeah, but maybe his phone was dead.
Still, he could’ve used someone else’s phone, right? Or does he work alone in an underground silo?
I search Lara’s memories, what she shows me, anyway, and realize that she has no idea what this guy does for a living.
Who agrees to meet a guy when she clearly knows so little about him? Have some standards, girl.
I swing by a drive-through burger joint on the way home, then make my way to Lara’s. I open the door, eager to eat my burger and leave the night behind me.
I turn on the lights, then close and lock the door. I set my sack of food on the kitchen counter and look at the answering machine to see if maybe Gavin left a message.
A red number one flashes.
I head to the machine when I suddenly realize I’m not alone.
I turn around and see a man standing right behind me.
I jump back, startled, putting distance between us.
The man simply stands there staring at me.
One of the problems that comes with jumping is that I’m often surprised by people in my host’s home. Sometimes, it’ll be a relative; other times a good friend or a lover. It always takes a moment to realize who the person is in relation to my host. I have to drown the temporary shock of seeing a stranger, chalking it up to being temporarily startled, and do my best to not overreact until my host fills me in on the person’s details.
I smile awkwardly waiting for Lara to fill me in and let me know who this person is.
He is in his early thirties, tall, lanky, wearing baggy black pants and a black tee beneath a larger red shirt. He has his hands in his pants pockets, completely casual. His face is gaunt, dark circles under his eyes, scraggily curly brown hair hanging in his eyes. He’s looking at me with the oddest expression, like a child fascinated by seeing a deer frolic into his yard.
I’m waiting for Lara to fill me in.
But nothing comes.
Who the hell is this guy, and how did he get in here?
“Hello?” I ask, trying not to sound too confused in case I should know him.
“Hello, Lara.” The voice is instantly recognizable — Gavin.
I step back. Fear and confusion bubble through my system. This isn’t the guy in the photo on my phone. But there’s something else, too — that sensation that I know this man. Not Lara, but I — or one of the people I have been — knows him.
“Gavin? How did you get in here?”
He smiles, then pulls gloved hands from his pockets.
Oh, God.
He’s on me before my body can react, hands around my throat, choking me, shoving me back against the refrigerator.
I try to scream, but nothing much comes out.
I kick, scratch, and claw, but his grip only grows stronger, tightening like a vise. His brown eyes bore into mine. And inside them I see something … familiar.
And then it hits me — I’ve seen these eyes before. In this exact same context.
Gavin has attacked one of my hosts before. I can’t remember which one, but I feel it with an unshakeable certainty. And if I don’t stop him, he’s going to kill Lara.
That realization sparks a fiery adrenaline through my body. Thrashing, my heel manages to kick him hard in his kneecap.
He screams, releasing my throat as he clutches at the pain.
I fall to the ground and scramble desperately toward my bedroom. I can’t make it to the front door because he’s standing between me and it. The bedroom is a terrible option, but also my only one.
Somehow I make it.
I turn to close and lock the door. I’m not sure how many seconds it will buy me or how I’ll escape, but it doesn’t matter.
He’s there.
Holding a knife.
Before I can react, the blade is inside me, plunging into my gut.
Pain and confusion battle as I feel something I’ve never felt before — my host returning to her body.
She’s crying out, “Why?” over and over as we stumble back and fall onto the bed.
My control over Lara is gone.
I can’t tell if she is asking me why or Gavin. I can’t tell how much she’s aware of, or whether she even senses me inside her.
I feel a wave of guilt imagining how this must feel, suddenly waking to this stranger stabbing her. Does she know this is Gavin?
She’s looking up at him, gasping for air.
The taste of copper floods her throat, spilling out of her lips as she chokes. I can feel it, along with her fear, pain, and confusion, but the
sensations seem muted. It’s as if Lara being back in her body has dampened my ability to feel, like a splitter cable weakening a signal’s overall strength.
I try willing her to get up. To fight back. To do something!
I’m powerless.
All she can do is stare up at Gavin.
Come on, Lara! Get up. We’re not dead yet!
The monster glares down, watching the life bleed from her body.
Suddenly, movement behind him, at the bedroom door.
Allie!
Allie races toward him with a knife in her hand, screaming.
We’re saved!
He dodges out of the way.
Allie stumbles toward us, falling to the bed beside us, knife tumbling from her fingers toward the pillows.
She looks up, eyes wide, realizing that she dropped the knife.
She reaches for it.
Then she’s yanked hard, by her hair, off of the bed.
Gavin spins her around, punches her in the side of the head.
She collapses to the ground.
He kicks, though I can’t see where — she’s now out of view.
The viciousness on his face feels like another knife in my gut. I have to stop him. He’ll kill us all!
I scream, but Lara’s mouth offers no breath.
Lara’s no longer in her body. She’s dying.
While I vaguely remember having been this man’s victim before, I can’t recall what happened next. Did he kill my host? Or did she black out and I woke in someone else?
If I’m in a body when it dies, what happens to me?
I don’t know, and am terrified to find out.
Panic swells like raging fire. I’m helpless to do anything but watch from behind Lara’s vacant eyes.
Gavin turns his attention back to us.
He sits beside us on the bed, staring into our eyes.