I load up the new email account, with the intention of writing Rhiannon back. Much to my surprise, there’s already another email from her. Giddy, I open it.
Nathan,
Apparently, Steve doesn’t have a cousin Nathan, and none of his cousins were at his party. Care to explain?
Rhiannon
I don’t deliberate. I don’t weigh my options. I just type and hit send.
Rhiannon,
I can, indeed, explain. Can we meet up? It’s the kind of explanation that needs to be done in person.
Love,
Nathan
It’s not that I’m planning to tell the truth. I just want to give myself time to think of the best lie.
The last bell rings, and I know Sam will be looking for Margaret soon. When I find him at his locker, he acts as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks. When I kiss him, I pretend I am practicing for Rhiannon. When I kiss him, it feels almost disloyal to Rhiannon. When I kiss him, my mind is hours away, with her.
Day 6002
The universe, it seems, is on my side the next morning, because when I wake up in the body of Megan Powell, I also wake up a mere hour away from Rhiannon.
Then, when I check my email, there’s a message from her.
Nathan,
This better be a good explanation. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop at the Clover Bookstore at 5.
Rhiannon
To which I reply:
Rhiannon,
I’ll be there. Although not in a way you might expect.
Bear with me and hear me out.
A
Megan Powell is going to have to leave cheerleading practice a little early today. I go through her closet and pick the outfit that most looks like something Rhiannon would wear; I’ve found that people tend to trust other people who dress like them. And whatever I do, I am going to need all the trust I can get.
The whole day, I think about what I’m going to say to her, and what she’s going to say. It feels entirely dangerous to tell her the truth. I have never told anyone the truth. I have never come close.
But none of the lies fit well. And the more I stumble through possible lies, I realize I am heading in the direction of telling her everything. I am learning that a life isn’t real unless someone else knows its reality. And I want my life to be real.
If I’ve gotten used to my life, could somebody else?
If she believes in me, if she feels the enormity like I do, she will believe in this.
And if she doesn’t believe in me, if she doesn’t feel the enormity, then I will simply seem like one more crazy person let loose on the world.
There’s not much to lose in that.
But, of course, it will feel like losing everything.
I manufacture a doctor’s appointment for Megan, and at four o’clock, I’m on the road to Rhiannon’s town.
There’s some traffic, and I get a little lost, so I’m ten minutes late to the bookstore. I look in the café window and see her sitting there, flipping through a magazine, looking up at the door every now and then. I want to keep her like this, hold her in this moment. I know everything is about to change, and I fear that one day I will long for this minute before anything is said, that I will want to travel back in time and undo what’s coming next.
Megan is not, of course, who Rhiannon’s looking for. So she’s a little startled when I come over to her table and sit down.
“I’m sorry—that seat’s taken,” she says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Nathan sent me.”
“He sent you? Where is he?” Rhiannon is looking around the room, as if he’s hiding somewhere behind a bookshelf.
I look around, too. There are other people near us, but none of them seem to be within earshot. I know I should ask Rhiannon to take a walk with me, that there shouldn’t be any people around when I tell her. But I don’t know why she’d go with me, and it would probably scare her if I asked. I will have to tell her here.
“Rhiannon,” I say. I look in her eyes, and I feel it again. That connection. That feeling of so much beyond us. That recognition.
I don’t know if she feels it, too, not for sure, but she stays where she is. She returns my gaze. She holds the connection.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“I need to tell you something. It’s going to sound very, very strange. What I need is for you to listen to the whole story. You will probably want to leave. You might want to laugh. But I need you to take this seriously. I know it will sound unbelievable, but it’s the truth. Do you understand?”
There is fear in her eyes now. I want to reach out my hand and hold hers, but I know I can’t. Not yet.
I keep my voice calm. True.
“Every morning, I wake up in a different body. It’s been happening since I was born. This morning, I woke up as Megan Powell, who you see right in front of you. Three days ago, last Saturday, it was Nathan Daldry. Two days before that, it was Amy Tran, who visited your school and spent the day with you. And last Monday, it was Justin, your boyfriend. You thought you went to the ocean with him, but it was really me. That was the first time we ever met, and I haven’t been able to forget you since.”
I pause.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Rhiannon says. “You have to be kidding.”
I press on. “When we were on the beach, you told me about the mother-daughter fashion show that you and your mother were in, and how it was probably the last time you ever saw her in makeup. When Amy asked you to tell her about something you’d never told anyone else, you told her about trying to pierce your own ear when you were ten, and she told you about reading Judy Blume’s Forever. Nathan came over to you as you were sorting through CDs, and he sang a song that you and Justin sang during the car ride to the ocean. He told you he was Steve’s cousin, but he was really there to see you. He talked to you about being in a relationship for over a year, and you told him that deep down Justin cares a lot about you, and he said that deep down isn’t good enough. What I’m saying is that … all of these people were me. For a day. And now I’m Megan Powell, and I want to tell you the truth before I switch again. Because I think you’re remarkable. Because I don’t want to keep meeting you as different people. I want to meet you as myself.”
I look at the disbelief on her face, searching for one small possibility of belief. I can’t find it.
“Did Justin put you up to this?” she says, disgust in her voice. “Do you really think this is funny?”
“No, it’s not funny,” I say. “It’s true. I don’t expect you to understand right away. I know how crazy it sounds. But it’s true. I swear, it’s true.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. I don’t even know you!”
“Listen to me. Please. You know it wasn’t Justin with you that day. In your heart, you know. He didn’t act like Justin. He didn’t do things Justin does. That’s because it was me. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. But it happened. And I can’t erase it. I can’t ignore it. I have lived my whole life like this, and you’re the thing that has made me wish it could stop.”
The fear is still there in her face, in her body. “But why me? That makes no sense.”
“Because you’re amazing. Because you’re kind to a random girl who just shows up at your school. Because you also want to be on the other side of the window, living life instead of just thinking about it. Because you’re beautiful. Because when I was dancing with you in Steve’s basement on Saturday night, it felt like fireworks. And when I was lying on the beach next to you, it felt like perfect calm. I know you think that Justin loves you deep down, but I love you through and through.”
“Enough!” Rhiannon’s voice breaks a little as she raises it. “It’s just—enough, okay? I think I understand what you’re saying to me, even though it makes no sense whatsoever.”
“You know it wasn’t him that day, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything!” This is loud enough that a few people look our way. Rhiannon notices, and lowers her voice again. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
She’s near tears. I reach out and take her hand. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I know it’s a lot,” I tell her. “Believe me, I know.”
“It’s not possible,” she whispers.
“It is. I’m the proof.”
When I pictured this conversation in my head, I could imagine it going in two ways: revelation or revulsion. But now we’re stuck somewhere in between. She doesn’t think I’m telling the truth—not to the point that she can believe it. And at the same time, she hasn’t stormed out, she hasn’t maintained that it’s just a sick joke someone is playing on her.
I realize: I am not going to convince her. Not like this. Not here.
“Look,” I say, “what if we met here again tomorrow at the same time? I won’t be in the same body, but I’ll be the same person. Would that make it easier to understand?”
She’s skeptical. “But couldn’t you just tell someone else to come here?”
“Yes, but why would I? This isn’t a prank. This isn’t a joke. It’s my life.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re just saying that. You know I’m not. You can sense that much.”
Now it’s her turn to look me in the eye. Judge me. See what connection she can find.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Today I’m Megan Powell.”
“No. I mean your real name.”
My breath catches. Nobody has ever asked me this before. And I’ve certainly never offered it.
“A,” I say.
“Just A?”
“Just A. I came up with it when I was a little kid. It was a way of keeping myself whole, even as I went from body to body, life to life. I needed something pure. So I went with the letter A.”
“What do you think about my name?”
“I told you the other night. I think it’s beautiful, even if you once found it hard to spell.”
She stands up from her chair. I stand up, too.
She holds there. I can tell there are lots of thoughts she’s considering, but I have no idea what they are. Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel.
“Rhiannon,” I say.
She holds up her hand for me to stop.
“No more,” she tells me. “Not now. Tomorrow. I’ll give you tomorrow. Because that’s one way to know, isn’t it? If what you say is happening is really happening—I mean, I need more than a day.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“Don’t thank me until I show up,” she says. “This is all really confusing.”
“I know.”
She puts on her jacket and starts heading for the door. Then she turns around to me one last time.
“The thing is,” she says, “I didn’t really feel it was him that day. Not completely. And ever since then, it’s like he wasn’t there. He has no memory of it. There are a million possible explanations for that, but there it is.”
“There it is,” I agree.
She shakes her head.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
“Tomorrow,” she says, a little less than a promise, and a little more than a chance.
Day 6003
I am not alone when I wake up the next morning.
I am sharing the room with two other boys—my brothers, Paul and Tom. Paul is a year older than me. Tom is my twin. My name is James.
James is big—a football player. Tom is about the same size. Paul is even bigger.
The room is clean, but even before I know what town I’m in, I know we’re not in the nice part of it. This is a big family in a small house. There is not going to be a computer here. James is not going to have a car.