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There are so many lives to choose from, although I don’t remember most of them.
I also don’t remember whether Amy Tran has pierced ears or not, so it won’t be an ear-piercing memory.
“I stole Judy Blume’s Forever from my sister when I was eight,” I say. “I figured if it was by the author of Superfudge, it had to be good. Well, I soon realized why she kept it under her bed. I’m not sure I understood it all, but I thought it was unfair that the boy would name his, um, organ, and the girl wouldn’t name hers. So I decided to give mine a name.”
Rhiannon is laughing. “What was its name?”
“Helena. I introduced everyone to her at dinner that night. It went over really well.”
We’re at my car. Rhiannon doesn’t know it’s my car, but it’s the farthest car, so it’s not like we can keep walking.
“It was great to meet you,” she says. “Hopefully, I’ll see you around next year.”
“Yeah,” I say, “it was great to meet you, too.”
I thank her about five different ways. Then Justin drives over and honks.
Our time is up.
Amy Tran’s parents haven’t called the police. They haven’t even gotten home yet. I check the house phone’s voicemail, but the school hasn’t called.
It’s the one lucky thing that’s happened all day.
Day 5998
Something is wrong the minute I wake up the next morning. Something chemical.
It’s barely even morning. This body has slept until noon. Because this body was up late, getting high. And now it wants to be high again. Right away.
I’ve been in the body of a pothead before. I’ve woken up still drunk from the night before. But this is worse. Much worse.
There will be no school for me today. There will be no parents waking me up. I am on my own, in a dirty room, sprawled on a dirty mattress with a blanket that looks like it was stolen from a child. I can hear other people yelling in other rooms of the house.
There comes a time when the body takes over the life. There comes a time when the body’s urges, the body’s needs, dictate the life. You have no idea you are giving the body the key. But you hand it over. And then it’s in control. You mess with the wiring and the wiring takes charge.
I have only had glimpses of this before. Now I really feel it. I can feel my mind immediately combating the body. But it’s not easy. I cannot sense pleasure. I have to cling to the memory of it. I have to cling to the knowledge that I am only here for one day, and I have to make it through.
I try to go back to sleep, but the body won’t let me. The body is awake now, and it knows what it wants.
I know what I have to do, even though I don’t really know what’s going on. Even though I have not been in this situation before, I have been in situations before where it’s been me against the body. I have been ill, seriously ill, and the only thing to do is to power through the day. At first I thought there was something I could do within a single day that could make everything better. But very soon I learned my own limitations. Bodies cannot be changed in a day, especially not when the real mind isn’t in charge.
I don’t want to leave the room. If I leave the room, anything and anyone can happen. Desperately, I look around for something to help me through. There is a decrepit bookshelf, and on it is a selection of old paperbacks. These will save me, I decide. I open up an old thriller and focus on the first line. Darkness had descended on Manassas, Virginia.
…
The body does not want to read. The body is alive with electric barbed wire. The body is telling me there is only one way to fix this, only one way to end the pain, only one way to feel better. The body will kill me if I don’t listen to it. The body is screaming. The body demands its own form of logic.
I read the next sentence.
I lock the door.
I read the third sentence.
The body fights back. My hand shakes. My vision blurs.
I am not sure I have the strength to resist this.
I have to convince myself that Rhiannon is on the other side. I have to convince myself that this isn’t a pointless life, even though the body is telling me it is.
