“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 onto 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 myself.
As soon as I’m through, I clear Justin’s history.
This is hard for me.
I have gotten so used to what I am, and how my life works.
I never want to stay. I’m always ready to leave.
But not tonight.
Tonight I’m haunted by the fact that tomorrow he’ll be here and I won’t be.
I want to stay.
I pray to stay.
I close my eyes and wish to stay.
Day 5995
I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.
I am not there. I am not in Justin’s bed, not in Justin’s body.
Today I am Leslie Wong. I have slept through the alarm, and her mother is mad.
“Get up!” she yells, shaking my new body. “You have twenty minutes, and then Owen leaves!”
“Okay, Mom,” I groan.
“Mom! If your mother was here, I can’t imagine what she’d say!”
I quickly access Leslie’s mind. Grandmother, then. Mom’s already left for work.
As I stand in the shower, trying to remind
myself I have to make it a quick one, I lose myself for a minute in thoughts of Rhiannon. I’m sure I dreamt of her. I wonder: If I started dreaming when I was in Justin’s body, did he continue the dream? Will he wake up thinking sweetly of her?
Or is that just another kind of dream on my part?
“Leslie! Come on!”
I get out of the shower, dry off, and get dressed quickly. Leslie is not, I can tell, a particularly popular girl. The few photos of friends she has around seem halfhearted, and her clothing choices are more like a thirteen-year-old’s than a sixteen-year-old’s.
I head into the kitchen and the grandmother glares at me.