“My favorite?”
“Your favorite body. Your favorite life.”
“I was once in the body of a blind girl,” I tell her. “When I was eleven. Maybe twelve. I don’t know if she was my favorite, but I learned more from being her for a day than I’d learn from most people over a year. It showed me how arbitrary and individual it is, the way we experience the world. Not just that the other senses were sharper. But that we find ways to navigate the world as it is presented to us. For me, it was this huge challenge. But for her, it was just life.”
“Close your eyes,” Rhiannon whispers.
I close my eyes, and she does the same.
We experience each other’s bodies in a different way.
The alarm goes off. I don’t want to be reminded of time.
We have not turned on the lights, so as the sky turns to dusk, the cabin turns to dusk as well. Haze of darkness, remnant of light.
“I’m going to stay here,” she says.
“I’m going to come back tomorrow,” I promise.
“I would end it,” I tell her. “I would end all the changing if I could. Just to stay here with you.”
“But you can’t end it,” she says. “I know that.”
Time itself becomes the alarm. I can’t look at the clock without knowing it’s past the hour for me to go. Play rehearsal is over. Even if Xavier goes out with friends after, he’s going to have to be home soon. And definitely by midnight.
“I’ll wait for you,” she tells me.
I leave her in the bed. I put on my clothes, pick up my keys, and close the door behind me. I turn back. I keep turning back to see her. Even when there are walls between us. Even when there are miles between us. I keep turning back. I keep turning in her direction.
Day 6021
I wake up, and for at least a minute, I can’t figure out who I am. All I can find is the body, and the body is pounding with pain. There’s a hazy blur to my thoughts, a vise compressing my head. I open my eyes and the light nearly kills me.
“Dana,” a voice outside of me says. “It’s noon.”
I don’t care that it’s noon. I don’t care about anything at all. I just want the pounding to go away.
Or not. Because when the pounding briefly stops, the rest of my body chimes in with nausea.
“Dana, I’m not going to let you sleep all day. Being grounded does not mean you get to sleep all day.”
It takes three more attempts, but I manage to open my eyes and keep them open, even if the bedroom light feels like it has the same wattage as the sun.
Dana’s mother stares down at me with as much sorrow as anger.
“Dr. P is coming in a half hour,” she tells me. “I think you need to see him.”
I am accessing like crazy, but it’s as if my synapses have been dipped in tar.
“After all we’ve been through, the fact that you would pull such a stunt last night … it’s beyond words. We have done nothing but care about you. And this is what you do? Your father and I have had enough. No more.”
What did I do last night? I can remember being with Rhiannon. I can remember going home as Xavier. Talking to his friends on the phone. Hearing about play practice. But I can’t reach Dana’s memories. She is too hungover for them to be there.
Is this what it’s like for Xavier this morning? A complete blank?
I hope not, because this is awful.
“You have half an hour to shower and get dressed. Don’t expect any help from me.”
Dana’s mother slams the door shut, and the echo of the slam spreads through my whole body. As I start to move, it feels like I am trapped twenty miles underwater. And when I start to rise, I get a bad case of the bends. I actually have to steady myself against my bedpost, and nearly miss it when I reach out.
I don’t really care about Dr. P or Dana’s parents. As far as I’m concerned, Dana must have done this to herself, and she deserves the grief she gets. It must have taken a lot of drinking to get in this state. She is not the reason I get up. I get up because somewhere near here, Rhiannon is alone in a hunting cabin, waiting for me. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of here, but I have to.
I trudge through the hallway to the shower. I turn it on, then stand there for at least a minute, forgetting entirely why I’m standing there. The water is just background music to the horror of my body. Then I remember, and I step in. The water wakes me up a little more, but I stagger through the waking. I could easily collapse into the tub, and fall asleep with the water running over me, my foot over the drain.
When I get back to Dana’s room, I let the towel drop and leave it there, then put on whatever clothes are nearest. There’s no computer in the room, no phone. No way to get in touch with Rhiannon. I know I should search the house, but just the thought of it takes too much energy. I need to sit down. Lie down. Close my eyes.
“Wake up!”
The command is as abrupt as the earlier door slam, and twice as close. I open my eyes and find Dana’s very angry father.
“Dr. P is here,” Dana’s mother chimes in from behind him, with a slightly more conciliatory tone. Maybe she’s feeling bad for me. Or maybe she just doesn’t want her husband to kill me in front of a witness.
I wonder if what I’m feeling isn’t entirely a hangover if a doctor is making a house call. But when Dr. P sits down next to me, there’s not a medical bag in sight. Just a notebook.
“Dana,” she says gently.