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So instead of talking about tomorrow, we talk more about yesterday. I ask him what else he noticed, and he brings up all of these things that I would never, ever notice. Physical details like a small red birthmark at the base of my left thumb, and memories like this time Rebecca got gum caught in her hair. He’s also pretty committed to convincing me that my parents care about me. I tell him he must’ve gotten them on a good day. He doesn’t argue—but I can also see he doesn’t completely know what I mean. Because he’s never with someone through bad days and good days. He doesn’t know life like that. Which again reminds me how he’d never be equipped to deal with someone as bad-good as me.
A glances at the time on his phone, and I realize I should be keeping track of time as well. Home for dinner. Home for homework. Home for bed. Home for my life.
“It’s getting late,” I say.
“I know.”
“So we should probably…”
“But only if you promise we’ll see each other again.
Soon. Like, tomorrow if we can. And if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. Two-morrow. Let’s call that two-morrow.”
It’s starting again, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Because I don’t want to stop it. Because as long as it stays like this—two people talking over coffee—there aren’t any decisions that have to be made.
“How can I say no?” I say. “I’m dying to see who you’ll be next.”
The sincerity returns as he tells me, “I’ll always be A.”
I stand up and kiss him on the forehead.
“I know,” I say. “That’s why I want to see you.”
I imagine people looking at us as we stand up from the table, as we throw out our coffee cups and say goodbye. That went well, they’d think. Just two teenagers on a date. Not a first date—no, too familiar for that. And not nearly a last date. Because it went well. Because this geeky boy and this quiet girl clearly like each other. You don’t have to be inside our bodies to realize that.
Chapter Twenty
The next day, A is four hours away from me, in the body of some girl. It might as well be forty hours or forty days.
I tell A there’s always tomorrow. And as I type it, I want to believe it.
But I don’t really believe it.
With a whole day ahead of me, I decide to do an experiment. I am going to pretend I am a stranger in my own body.
I stare in the mirror, right after my shower. How many times have I done this before? Stared at myself as the steam cleared. Tried and failed to make it seem better. Countless. But how many of these times have I actually seen myself? I will look at what’s wrong. I will fixate on the blemishes, the bad hair, the fuzz, how uneven I am, how tired I look, how fat I’m getting, how loose. But I don’t take an overall picture. I don’t step back and look at the whole thing and think, This is me. And I certainly don’t step back and look at the whole thing and ask, Is this really me?
I’m doing that now. How much of my body is really me? My face is me, for sure. Anyone who looked at my face would know it was me. Even with my hair wet and drawn back, it’s me. But after that? If I showed myself a picture of myself from the shoulders down, would I be sure it was me? Could I identify myself that way?
I close my eyes and ask myself what my feet look like. I only kind of know. Same with my hands. I have no idea what my back looks like.
I let it define me, but I can’t even define it.
If I were a stranger in my body, what would I think of it? I open my eyes and I’m not sure. A stranger wouldn’t know any of the stories behind any of the small scars—the tricycle fall, the lightbulb smash. A stranger might not care if my boobs aren’t identical, or if the mole on my arm has more hair than the rest of my arm. Why bother judging if you’re a stranger in a body? It’s almost like driving a car. Yes, you don’t want the car to be a shitheap, but pretty much a car is a car. It doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it gets you where you need to go.
I know I am not a car. But as I walk through school, I imagine this smaller Rhiannon driving my body. She is my real self. The body is just a car. And I wonder. When Preston talks to me, it feels like he’s talking to the driver. But when a guy I don’t know looks at me in the hall, he’s staring at the car. When my teacher looks out at the class as he’s droning on about history, he’s not seeing the drivers, he’s seeing the parked cars. And when Justin kisses me—I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to kiss the driver. Other times, he’s just kissing the car.
I try to imagine myself in other bodies, steering them around, experiencing how they’re seen. The conclusion I reach: I don’t like my body very much, but I’m not sure I’d like anyone else’s body any better. They’re all strange when you look at them for too long.
—
I know A is not here, but I want A to be inside one of the bodies I’m staring at. I want a head to turn and for me to see A inside. Because only A could understand all of the crazy places my mind is going. Because A has taken my mind there. A has made me want to reach past all the cars, to get to all the drivers.
—
“Are you okay?” Preston asks at lunch. “You’re really out of it today.”
“No,” I tell him. “I’m really, really inside of it.”
