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Day 5624
Some habits are so ingrained in the lives of the people I inhabit (for just one day) that they manage to hold on even when I am present.
When Holly wakes up, she doesn’t negotiate with the alarm clock or stumble straight to the shower. No, when she wakes up, she pulls over her phone. I don’t know how I know this. The information’s just there when I find out her name, find out where I am, find out that it’s a new morning.
I wake the phone with the touch of a finger. There’s a chat window waiting for me.
N: Good morning.
It’s dated a few hours ago. It doesn’t take much accessing to know that the message is from Natasha, who’s in France, and is also the girl Holly loves.
I type back.
H: Good morning.
And get an instant reply.
N: I am in the library, picking letters from the spines to spell out your name.
I imagine Holly would know the right response for this. But those aren’t the kind of instincts that are left for me when I stay in a body for a day. I must respond as her, but I only have my own words to work with, and my own way of putting them together.
H: It’s early. I don’t even know who I am at this point.
N: I know who you are.
H: I believe you.
In the shower, I trace back their story. Natasha moved to town about a year ago. There were immediate sparks between her and Holly, especially since they were both so open about who they were. Within weeks, they were inseparable. It was awesome. But then, only six months later, the thing that had brought Natasha to town in the first place—her mother’s job—took her back away again, to a suburb of Paris. Now they are struggling to find that balance—separated but still inseparable, apart but still a part.
I am not surprised to return and find another message.
N: It’s time for lunch. And it’s time for you to get to school. Text me en route.
I wait until I’m on the bus. People say hi to me, but I don’t feel the connection to them that I feel to Natasha. I look at the names scratched in the vinyl on the back of the seat in front of me.
H: I am carving your name in the seat in front of me.
N: What are you using to carve it?
H: My heart, of course.
I don’t know Natasha—or Holly—but I know I am going to spend the whole day like this. The running commentary, the loving support, the jokes and the observations and the random thoughts that are made a little less random when they’re shared. The desire to be heard is as deeply seeded as the desire to be loved. So much of the technology we spend our time on is geared toward this. For some people, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other end. For Holly, it matters. And that makes it matter, for a short time, to me.
N: Sometimes I imagine you just over the horizon, and when clouds come into view, they’re carrying messages to me.
H: I want a banana milkshake. Isn’t it strange how I can be sitting here in math class, and for some reason my mind can drift to banana milkshakes? Why is that?
N: I would kill for a bag of peanut M&M’s. Do you know how hard it is to get peanut M&M’s here?
H: A despicable omission.
N: Get me out of here.
H: I am getting in my helicopter.
N: I await your rope ladder.
It’s the secret smile you get from knowing that, somewhere, there is someone who is yours. Not in the sense that you own her, or control her. She is yours because you can say anything to her, whenever you need to. And she can do the same, whenever she needs to. Most of the time this isn’t necessary. But the secret smile comes from knowing it’s available, even when she’s half a world away.
