I don’t deliberate. I don’t weigh my options. I just type and hit send.
Rhiannon,
I can, indeed, explain. Can we meet up? It’s the kind of explanation that needs to be done in person.
Love,
Nathan
It’s not that I’m planning to tell the truth. I just want to give myself time to think of the best lie.
The last bell rings, and I know Sam will be looking for Margaret soon. When I find him at his locker, he acts as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks. When I kiss him, I pretend I am practicing for Rhiannon. When I kiss him, it feels almost disloyal to Rhiannon. When I kiss him, my mind is hours away, with her.
Day 6002
The universe, it seems, is on my side the next morning, because when I wake up in the body of Megan Powell, I also wake up a mere hour away from Rhiannon.
Then, when I check my email, there’s a message from her.
Nathan,
This better be a good explanation. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop at the Clover Bookstore at 5.
Rhiannon
To which I reply:
Rhiannon,
I’ll be there. Although not in a way you might expect.
Bear with me and hear me out.
A
Megan Powell is going to have to leave cheerleading practice a little early today. I go through her closet and pick the outfit that most looks like something Rhiannon would wear; I’ve found that people tend to trust other people who dress like them. And whatever I do, I am going to need all the trust I can get.
The whole day, I think about what I’m going to say to her, and what she’s going to say. It feels entirely dangerous to tell her the truth. I have never told anyone the truth. I have never come close.
But none of the lies fit well. And the more I stumble through possible lies, I realize I am heading in the direction of telling her everything. I am learning that a life isn’t real unless someone else knows its reality. And I want my life to be real.
If I’ve gotten used to my life, could somebody else?
If she believes in me, if she feels the enormity like I do, she will believe in this.
And if she doesn’t believe in me, if she doesn’t feel the enormity, then I will simply seem like one more crazy person let loose on the world.
There’s not much to lose in that.
But, of course, it will feel like losing everything.
I manufacture a doctor’s appointment for Megan, and at four o’clock, I’m on the road to Rhiannon’s town.
There’s some traffic, and I get a little lost, so I’m ten minutes late to the bookstore. I look in the café window and see her sitting there, flipping through a magazine, looking up at the door every now and then. I want to keep her like this, hold her in this moment. I know everything is about to change, and I fear that one day I will long for this minute before anything is said, that I will want to travel back in time and undo wh
at’s coming next.
Megan is not, of course, who Rhiannon’s looking for. So she’s a little startled when I come over to her table and sit down.