She sighed. “I just keep thinking: we came so close! When everyone thought Christina was me, if you hadn’t realized, she’d still be being me now, she’d be living this life with you, and I’d be—”
I put my hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “I did realize,” I told her.
“But what if you hadn’t?”
“There is no chance that I wouldn’t have. I knew as soon as I kissed her. Just as I knew something was different the very first time I kissed you.”
“But how? I mean, was she harder or softer or more tongue, or—”
I took her cheeks between my hands and kissed her. Slow and deep and with every bit of love in my soul. I felt the tension flood out of her. And when the kiss ended, I told her, “That’s how. It didn’t matter that she had your face, or your clothes. I wasn’t in love with her. I was in love with you.”
THE END