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.”
“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?