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?
“What are you thinking about?”
Justin’s caught me at my locker, in a daze.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him. “Just daydreaming.”
He lets it go.
“Look,” he says. “What’re you doing now?”
It’s the end of the day. I have no idea what I’m doing. I could’ve driven back to the Starbucks and met the twin of the guy from yesterday. Although how would I have known it was really a twin? What if it was the same guy again? It’s not like I could really tell.
Suddenly I’m suspicious.
Really suspicious.
I wonder if tomorrow he’ll say he’s a triplet.
Or that he’s stayed in the same body after all.
Alarm. I’m starting to get pissed off. Irrationally pissed off. Or maybe rationally pissed off.
“Are you even listening to me?”
I am not listening to him. I need to listen to him. Because he is my boyfriend, and he has no idea what’s going on inside my head.
“No plans,” I say.
We both know what’s next. But he’s not going to say it. He wants me to say it.
So I do.
“Wanna hang out?”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”
We go to his house. He wants to watch an old episode of Game of Thrones.
“Is this the one where someone dies?” I ask as it starts. I’m joking. They’re all the one where someone dies.
“Smart-ass,” he says.
I check my email. Nothing new from A.
Like my silence might push him into confessing.
“Put that away,” Justin says. “It’s distracting.”
I put it away. I sit there. Someone’s head gets smashed in.
We do not make out.
It’s only when three episodes are over and I’m getting ready to leave that he tells me something is on his mind.
“I fucking hate doctors,” he says. I’m a little confused. There hasn’t been a doctor in sight on Game of Thrones—it would have been much better if there had been.
“Is there any particular reason you hate doctors right now?” I ask.
“Yeah, because they’re going to let my grandma die. They’re going to put her through hell, and make all of us pay for it, and at the very end, she’s going to die anyway. That’s always what they do. Hospitals wouldn’t make money without sick people, right? They just love this shit.”
“Your grandmother’s sick?” I ask.
“Yeah. Grandpa called us last night. Says it’s serious cancer.”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you mean, am I okay? I’m not the one with cancer.”
I want to ask, Do you want to talk about it? But the answer is pretty obvious. He doesn’t want my sympathy. He doesn’t want to tell me he’s sad. He just wants me to be there as he vents his rage. So I do that. I let him yell about doctors, and about how his grandfather is the one who smokes, but look at which one of them ended up with cancer. I let him criticize his parents’ reaction. He’s mad at them for not dropping everything to go see her, when what he really means is that he wants to drop everything to go see her. But he won’t say that. Not to me. Not to himself.