Six Earlier Days

by David Levithan

  Day 5624

  Some habits are so ingrained in the lives of the people I inhabit (for just one day) that they manage to hold on even when I am present.

  When Holly wakes up, she doesn’t negotiate with the alarm clock or stumble straight to the shower. No, when she wakes up, she pulls over her phone. I don’t know how I know this. The information’s just there when I find out her name, find out where I am, find out that it’s a new morning.

  I wake the phone with the touch of a finger. There’s a chat window waiting for me.

  N: Good morning.

  It’s dated a few hours ago. It doesn’t take much accessing to know that the message is from Natasha, who’s in France, and is also the girl Holly loves.

  I type back.

  H: Good morning.

  And get an instant reply.

  N: I am in the library, picking letters from the spines to spell out your name.

  I imagine Holly would know the right response for this. But those aren’t the kind of instincts that are left for me when I stay in a body for a day. I must respond as her, but I only have my own words to work with, and my own way of putting them together.

  H: It’s early. I don’t even know who I am at this point.

  N: I know who you are.

  H: I believe you.

  In the shower, I trace back their story. Natasha moved to town about a year ago. There were immediate sparks between her and Holly, especially since they were both so open about who they were. Within weeks, they were inseparable. It was awesome. But then, only six months later, the thing that had brought Natasha to town in the first place—her mother’s job—took her back away again, to a suburb of Paris. Now they are struggling to find that balance—separated but still inseparable, apart but still a part.

  I am not surprised to return and find another message.

  N: It’s time for lunch. And it’s time for you to get to school. Text me en route.

  I wait until I’m on the bus. People say hi to me, but I don’t feel the connection to them that I feel to Natasha. I look at the names scratched in the vinyl on the back of the seat in front of me.

  H: I am carving your name in the seat in front of me.

  N: What are you using to carve it?

  H: My heart, of course.

  I don’t know Natasha—or Holly—but I know I am going to spend the whole day like this. The running commentary, the loving support, the jokes and the observations and the random thoughts that are made a little less random when they’re shared. The desire to be heard is as deeply seeded as the desire to be loved. So much of the technology we spend our time on is geared toward this. For some people, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other end. For Holly, it matters. And that makes it matter, for a short time, to me.

  N: Sometimes I imagine you just over the horizon, and when clouds come into view, they’re carrying messages to me.

  H: I want a banana milkshake. Isn’t it strange how I can be sitting here in math class, and for some reason my mind can drift to banana milkshakes? Why is that?

  N: I would kill for a bag of peanut M&M’s. Do you know how hard it is to get peanut M&M’s here?

  H: A despicable omission.

  N: Get me out of here.

  H: I am getting in my helicopter.

  N: I await your rope ladder.

  It’s the secret smile you get from knowing that, somewhere, there is someone who is yours. Not in the sense that you own her, or control her. She is yours because you can say anything to her, whenever you need to. And she can do the same, whenever she needs to. Most of the time this isn’t necessary. But the secret smile comes from knowing it’s available, even when she’s half a world away.

  I will not lie: There are times I’ve thought of doing this for myself—meeting someone online, taking a virtual opportunity and making it as real as it can ever be. But it wouldn’t be the same. The architecture of all of these words is based on a foundation: the promise that Holly and Natasha will someday see each other again. And that is a promise I will never be able to make someone else. Or I can only make it as a lie. And the simple lie would complicate everything else.

  N: It’s time to go home now. I don’t know why I bother. Neither of them will be there.

  H: No other place for you to go?

  N: I’ve learned my lesson. I’m only passing through. I’m tired of the hello-goodbye.

  I’m between classes now, on my way to English. There is no way Holly can understand Natasha’s words as much as I can.

  H: Your life is your life. You can’t live it in compartments. Each place you’re in has a door open at either end.

  N: But I’m here for such a short time.

  H: If a day can be long, six months can’t be short.

  I want to convince her even if I’m not entirely convinced myself.

  N: Is that the truth?

  H: I’m sending it to you in the clouds.

  Some days I’m only passing through. Some days are all hello; some days are all goodbye. Some days I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing, and other days it’s abundantly clear, as if the person I am for a day has left me a note, left me instructions. Today I am meant to maintain the golden tether between two people. It doesn’t take much strength to hold on to my end. It’s good to hold on to something, to feel the pull of another person on the other end, to feel the attachment before I must let go and pass the golden tether back into the person who should really be here instead of me.

  Day 5909

  Hamilton Keyes wakes up at 4:44 in the morning. At first I don’t believe it when I see the clock—the alarm is definitely going off, which means he must have set it this way. The question I have is why.

  As soon as I get a feel for the body I’m in, I have my answer.

  Hamilton Keyes wakes up at 4:44 every morning in order to work out before school. This is his routine.

  A strong body is unlike a regular body. Your movements become more precise, and your mind is more attuned to the body. The mind lets you know the force with which the body makes its way through the world. And the mind will also let you know when you are letting the body down.

  I don’t feel I have a choice. Even though part of the body desperately wants more sleep, another part is awake, ready to go. It wants to be worked.

  There’s a weight room in the basement. I quietly make my way down, accessing to discover the particulars of Hamilton’s routine. I’ve learned the hard way that just because a body is strong, it doesn’t mean that it can do anything. I warm up, stretch out, feel the muscles waken.

  The worst thing for me about exercise is the boredom. I need to concentrate on what I’m doing, make sure I don’t slip up and catch the body off guard. Were Hamilton here, there would be a satisfaction alongside his exertion, a progression that he could chart and take meaning from. But for me it’s like driving a car and trying to get something other than a secondhand satisfaction from the speed.

  I lift weights. I run in place. I sweat and towel myself off. Upstairs, I can hear footsteps, voices. But everyone leaves Hamilton alone here. This is his domain. These are his body’s hours.

  I am tired for the rest of the day. My movements may be forceful and precise, but they’re blunted by the cloudy nature of my mind. My blood cries for caffeine, and I supply it. But this only gives me little flashes of wakefulness, short moments of being present in my life.

  Were I a different person, I’d be able to fuel myself on admiration as much as caffeine. I’d like it when the girls call me Abercrombie. Or even the way the guys look at me; if this body is a car I’m driving, it’s a model that they want. Even some of the teachers give him admiration. Others write him off, or resent him. I read it all on their faces.

  I am defensive on his behalf. I want to answer every teacher’s question, just to show them that they should not judge a person based on a body. But if I do that now, Hamilton will only have to uphold it in some way tomorrow. It may feel, in the moment, like I am doing him a favor, b
ut really I’ll just be chaining him to an aberration.

  So I sleepwalk through the day. To some, it must look like a sexy languor.

  But really, I’m just tired.

  At lunch, I try to eat reasonably, but the body wants more.

  I feed it.

  Gym class is a release. I make volleyball a contact sport. Not with the other players—I don’t start body-slamming my teammates. But I feel like I am in contact with my body again, with what it can do. I’m wasted in the classroom, the body seems to be telling me. I wasn’t made to be sitting down.

  Then I return to the classroom—two more periods until the end of school. I fall asleep briefly, both times.

  After school I commune with my like-bodied, like-minded friends. It’s off-season, so the only sport we can play is preparation. I feel more at home here than I did alone in the basement this morning. Here the routine expands. It feels like teamwork. And teamwork can’t help but engage the mind as well as the body.

  I have been in the bodies of people who I suspect would give almost anything to have this body, to be this person. I’d be more hesitant, if I had a choice. Because over the years I have become wary of tinkering with nature in this way. A body like this is rarely natural. A body like this must be created and maintained. And when you give so much energy to the body, there ends up being very little energy for much else, at least when you are sixteen and just starting to form it. Perhaps if I could feel the satisfaction and admiration as my own, I would feel differently. Or if I needed this strength for anything other than its own display.

  At dinner, Hamilton’s mother feeds him enough for the whole family. His father, whose body looks like Hamilton’s, only with a layer of time on top, talks nonstop about the game he was watching on TV last night. Hamilton’s little sister looks bored, and Hamilton’s little brother looks eager. When dinner is over, I understand why: He asks Hamilton if he can lift some weights tonight, too. Hamilton’s mother shakes her head, but his father says it’s no big deal.

  “A five-pound weight never hurt anyone,” he says.

  “Unless you smash someone in the skull with it,” Hamilton’s little sister chimes in.

  “I don’t know, Charlie,” I say. “I really don’t know.”

  “C’monnnnn,” he pleads. He can’t be older than ten.

  I relent. We head to the basement and I give him the lightest weight to curl, telling him to be careful. He sticks his tongue out in concentration as he lifts it up and down, making his little biceps burp up rather than bulge.

  “Your turn! Your turn!” he calls out after ten repetitions.

  I’m sure this is part of what they do, and I respect the glee that Charlie feels being in his brother’s domain. I know I should do what Hamilton would do. But I’m just so tired.

  “Not tonight,” I tell him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “it’s okay to take a break. You can’t push yourself too hard.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you could push yourself to a place you can’t get back from.”

  Charlie looks at me quizzically. “I don’t understand.”

  I mess up his hair a little, playfully. “You don’t need to. All you need to know is there are all kinds of strong.”

  I know he still doesn’t get it, but that’s okay. Maybe he’ll remember these words later on, and maybe he won’t.

  I decide to speak his language a little better.

  “Ice cream,” I say. “We definitely need ice cream.”

  The body thinks it’s a waste to be lying on the couch, watching Nickelodeon. But the body is also a little relieved. And the mind? Well, the mind is happy with this kind of teamwork: two brothers with matching ice-cream bowls and matching ice-cream scoops, laughing at a talking sponge.

  The heaviest thing I’ll lift for the rest of the evening is Charlie, when it’s time to go to bed.

  But I still make sure the alarm is set for 4:44 the next morning. Because that shouldn’t really be my choice.

  Day 5915

  I try not to alter the lives I borrow for a day. But sometimes it can’t be helped.

  Paul Deringer should not present much of a challenge. His morning doesn’t hold any surprises—his room is straightforward, his family is straightforward, and his schedule, when I access it, is straightforward. When I get to school, his friends are friendly. This in itself seems straightforward, but with some people there are subterranean currents beneath every interaction; they treat their friendships as politics and their lives as performance. Luckily Paul is not like that, and neither are his friends.

  One friend is clearly his closest—checking his memories, I know that Nicole is the one he looks for first in the crowd, the one he will always sneak away at lunch to be with. They are not dating—the memories are clear in showing that. But they use the fact that neither of them is dating as a way to spend all the time together that would ordinarily be spent with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Timewise, it’s almost the same as dating. Heartwise, too. There just isn’t any kissing. Or at least none that I can find.

  There’s a zero-tolerance policy about phones in this school, so the only way to communicate in class is to pass notes. Nicole and Paul always sit next to each other, to make this easier. I’ll admit: I find passing notes with Nicole to be more interesting than class. She’s clever, and I have to challenge myself to be clever, too. Or at least until we get to what Nicole calls “surrealist knock-knock jokes.” Then we’re just silly.

  Knock, knock.

  Who’s there?

  Lemon.

  Lemon who?

  Lemon walrus teacup.

  Knock, knock.

  Who’s there?

  Ginger.

  Ginger who?

  Ginger ninja cereal bowler.

  Is that bowler as in hat, or bowler as in one who bowls?

  It’s an owler who married a b, and the b took her last name.

  It doesn’t surprise me at the end of the day when Nicole tells me we have plans. Instead of heading to my bus, I’m commandeered into walking beside her, back to her house. When we get there, she aims straight for the kitchen, saying, “Help yourself to anything.” Quickly I access the geography of her house, which Paul is more than familiar with. Then I access the things he usually eats when he’s there. One has to be very careful around best friends, because a wrong move can be read as momentous. I’ve been in situations where I’ve reached for a soda and as a result have been lectured about how I will do anything to be popular, even drink what the popular kids drink.

  I go for some pretzels, and Nicole’s lack of commentary means I’m safe. I figure we’ll set up in the den or the kitchen, since I’m a boy today and she’s a girl, and most parents have the mistaken notion that if a boy and a girl are alone in a room with a bed, pregnancy will ensue. But Nicole’s parents must not fear that from me, because she picks up her book bag and leads me onward. When we get to her room, she stretches out on the floor, unpacking her books and pulling out a pen. I take my space beside her, my body eventually semiicircling around my homework. From above we must look like a pair of parentheses, with open pages between us.

  Human beings act very much like storms when there’s something to say. Very rarely in nature does a deluge catch you by complete surprise. There are the signs before—the sky darkening, the wind picking up, the air smelling like rain even before a drop has hit. With Nicole, the sky darkens when I look up to find her watching me do my homework. The wind picks up when she quickly looks away. The air smells like rain when she second-guesses, and looks at me again.

  Paul might ask, “What is it?” Or he’d already know what it is. But for me, the storm remains nameless. I try to dodge it. I go back to my homework. I read the science textbook like my life depends on it.

  This only angers her more.

  She’s abandoned any pretense of studying. She is watching me, sending the first wave of rain over to me, the dare so cle
ar. I am supposed to look up at her. I am supposed to meet her eye. Time will not let me go forward until I do.

  I try to keep reading, even though the words dodge my focus. I turn the page when enough time has gone by for me to be due to turn the page.

  “Paul.”

  She’s moved her foot over to mine, and it stays there. Presses.

  I look up. “What?”

  “What?” she mimics.

  I know she thinks my incomprehension is fake, but it’s real.

  She sighs. Then says, “Knock, knock.”

  I respond with the unavoidable, “Who’s there?”

  “Water.”

  “Water who?”

  “Water we doing?”

  I try to keep my voice light. “Homework?”

  “No. I mean, what are we doing?”

  The storm now shows, and it’s inside of her. It’s been inside of her all along. I don’t know if Paul would recognize it, but I do. His memories might show that they’re better off friends, that they were never meant to date—but that’s not her version.

  And today, of all days, is when she’s going to call him on it.

  Once the storm comes out, the landscape changes. What you had before is altered in some way. And you have a choice: build something new and better from what’s left, or abandon it.

  It is lonely in the eye. As we sit there in the pause, as she stares at me, awaiting a response, as I see the things I could say and wonder which one to grasp for, I feel profoundly alone in myself. Reading people is a talent that I have developed, but in the end, that’s all it is—reading. Reading is not life. Reading is creating life in your head. And that can only help you so much in a storm.

  I try not to alter the lives I borrow for a day, but sometimes I have no choice. Or, more accurately, I am given a choice, and I have to make it. One way or the other.