sound of her phone.
I keep my eyes closed. Hear her groan. Hear her tell her mother she’ll be home soon.
The water has gone deep black and the sky has gone ink blue. The chill in the air presses harder against us as we pick up the blanket, provide a new set of footprints.
She navigates, I drive. She talks, I listen. We sing some more. Then she leans into my shoulder and I let her stay there and sleep for a little longer, dream for a little longer.
I am trying not to think of what will happen next.
I am trying not to think of endings.
I never get to see people while they’re asleep. Not like this. She is the opposite of when I first met her. Her vulnerability is open, but she’s safe within it. I watch the rise and fall of her, the stir and rest of her. I only wake her when I need her to tell me where to go.
The last ten minutes, she talks about what we’re going to do tomorrow. I find it hard to respond.
“Even if we can’t do this, I’ll see you at lunch?” she asks.
I nod.
“And maybe we can do something after school?”
“I think so. I mean, I’m not sure what else is going on. My mind isn’t really there right now.”
This makes sense to her. “Fair enough. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Let’s end today on a nice note.”
Once we get to town, I can access the directions to her house without having to ask her. But I want to get lost, anyway. To prolong this. To escape this.
“Here we are,” Rhiannon says as we approach her driveway.
I pull the car over. I unlock the doors.
She leans over and kisses me. My senses are alive with the taste of her, the smell of her, the feel of her, the sound of her breathing, the sight of her as she pulls her body away from mine.
“That’s the nice note,” she says. And before I can say anything else, she’s out the door and gone.
I don’t get a chance to say goodbye.
I guess, correctly, that Justin’s parents are used to him being out of touch and missing dinner. They try to yell at him, but you can tell that everyone’s going through the motions, and when Justin storms off to his room, it’s just the latest rerun of an old show.
I should be doing Justin’s homework – I’m always pretty conscientious about that kind of thing, if I’m able to do it – but my mind keeps drifting to Rhiannon. Imagining her at home. Imagining her floating from the grace of the day. Imagining her believing that things are different, that Justin has somehow changed.
I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have done it. Even if it felt like the universe was telling me to do it.
I agonize over it for hours. I can’t take it back. I can’t make it go away.
I fell in love once, or at least until today I thought I had. His name was Brennan, and it felt so real, even if it was mostly words. Intense, heartfelt words. I stupidly let myself think of a possible future with him. But there was no future. I tried to navigate it, but I couldn’t.
That was easy compared to this. It’s one thing to fall in love. It’s another to feel someone else falling in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.
There is no way for me to stay in this body. If I don’t go to sleep, the shift will happen anyway. I used to think that if I stayed up all night, I’d get to remain where I was. But instead I was ripped from the body I was in. And the ripping felt exactly what you would imagine being ripped from a body would feel like, with every single nerve experiencing the pain of the break, and then the pain of being fused into someone new. From then on, I went to sleep every night. There was no use fighting it.
I realize I have to call her. Her number’s right there in his phone. I can’t let her think tomorrow is going to be like today.
“Hey!” she answers.
“Hey,” I say.
“Thank you again for today.”
“Yeah.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to ruin it. But I have to, don’t I?
I continue, “But about today?”
“Yeah? Are you going to tell me that we can’t cut class every day? That’s not like you.”
Not like me.
“Yeah,” I say, “but, you know, I don’t want you to think every day is going to be like today. Because they’re not going to be, all right? They can’t be.”
There’s a silence. She knows something’s wrong.
“I know that,” she says carefully. “But maybe things can still be better. I know they can be.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “That’s all I wanted to say. I don’t know. Today was something, but it’s not, like, everything.”
“I know that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I sigh.
There’s always a chance that, in some way, I will have brushed off on Justin. There’s always a chance that his life will in fact change – that he will change. But I have no way of knowing. It’s rare that I get to see a body after I’ve left it. And even then, it’s usually months or years later. If I recognize it at all.
I want Justin to be better to her. But I can’t have her expecting it.
“That’s all,” I say. It feels like a Justin thing to say.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you will.”
“Thanks again for today. No matter what trouble we get into tomorrow for it, it was worth it.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you,” she says.
And I want to say it. I want to say I love you too. Right now, right at this moment, every part of me would mean it. But that will only last for a couple more hours.
“Sleep well,” I tell her. Then I hang up.
There’s a notebook on his desk.
Remember that you love Rhiannon, I write in his handwriting.
I doubt he’ll remember writing it.
I go on to his computer. I open up my own email account, then type out her name, her phone number, her email address, as well as Justin’s email and password. I write about the day. And I send it to
