“I’m sorry—that seat’s taken,” she says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Nathan sent me.”
“He sent you? Where is he?” Rhiannon is looking around the room, as if he’s hiding somewhere behind a bookshelf.
I look around, too. There are other people near us, but none of them seem to be within earshot. I know I should ask Rhiannon to take a walk with me, that there shouldn’t be any people around when I tell her. But I don’t know why she’d go with me, and it would probably scare her if I asked. I will have to tell her here.
“Rhiannon,” I say. I look in her eyes, and I feel it again. That connection. That feeling of so much beyond us. That recognition.
I don’t know if she feels it, too, not for sure, but she stays where she is. She returns my gaze. She holds the connection.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“I need to tell you something. It’s going to sound very, very strange. What I need is for you to listen to the whole story. You will probably want to leave. You might want to laugh. But I need you to take this seriously. I know it will sound unbelievable, but it’s the truth. Do you understand?”
There is fear in her eyes now. I want to reach out my hand and hold hers, but I know I can’t. Not yet.
I keep my voice calm. True.
“Every morning, I wake up in a different body. It’s been happening since I was born. This morning, I woke up as Megan Powell, who you see right in front of you. Three days ago, last Saturday, it was Nathan Daldry. Two days before that, it was Amy Tran, who visited your school and spent the day with you. And last Monday, it was Justin, your boyfriend. You thought you went to the ocean with him, but it was really me. That was the first time we ever met, and I haven’t been able to forget you since.”
I pause.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Rhiannon says. “You have to be kidding.”
I press on. “When we were on the beach, you told me about the mother-daughter fashion show that you and your mother were in, and how it was probably the last time you ever saw her in makeup. When Amy asked you to tell her about something you’d never told anyone else, you told her about trying to pierce your own ear when you were ten, and she told you about reading Judy Blume’s Forever. Nathan came over to you as you were sorting through CDs, and he sang a song that you and Justin sang during the car ride to the ocean. He told you he was Steve’s cousin, but he was really there to see you. He talked to you about being in a relationship for over a year, and you told him that deep down Justin cares a lot about you, and he said that deep down isn’t good enough. What I’m saying is that … all of these people were me. For a day. And now I’m Megan Powell, and I want to tell you the truth before I switch again. Because I think you’re remarkable. Because I don’t want to keep meeting you as different people. I want to meet you as myself.”
I look at the disbelief on her face, searching for one small possibility of belief. I can’t find it.
“Did Justin put you up to this?” she says, disgust in her voice. “Do you really think this is funny?”
“No, it’s not funny,” I say. “It’s true. I don’t expect you to understand right away. I know how crazy it sounds. But it’s true. I swear, it’s true.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. I don’t even know you!”
“Listen to me. Please. You know it wasn’t Justin with you that day. In your heart, you know. He didn’t act like Justin. He didn’t do things Justin does. That’s because it was me. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. But it happened. And I can’t erase it. I can’t ignore it. I have lived my whole life like this, and you’re the thing that has made me wish it could stop.”
The fear is still there in her face, in her body. “But why me? That makes no sense.”
“Because you’re amazing. Because you’re kind to a random girl who just shows up at your school. Because you also want to be on the other side of the window, living life instead of just thinking about it. Because you’re beautiful. Because when I was dancing with you in Steve’s basement on Saturday night, it felt like fireworks. And when I was lying on the beach next to you, it felt like perfect calm. I know you think that Justin loves you deep down, but I love you through and through.”
“Enough!” Rhiannon’s voice breaks a little as she raises it. “It’s just—enough, okay? I think I understand what you’re saying to me, even though it makes no sense whatsoever.”
“You know it wasn’t him that day, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything!” This is loud enough that a few people look our way. Rhiannon notices, and lowers her voice again. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
She’s near tears. I reach out and take her hand. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I know it’s a lot,” I tell her. “Believe me, I know.”
“It’s not possible,” she whispers.
“It is. I’m the proof.”
When I pictured this conversation in my head, I could imagine it going in two ways: revelation or revulsion. But now we’re stuck somewhere in between. She doesn’t think I’m telling the truth—not to the point that she can believe it. And at the same time, she hasn’t stormed out, she hasn’t maintained that it’s just a sick joke someone is playing on her.
I realize: I am not going to convince her. Not like this. Not here.