Stop. I know I have to stop. Listen to myself. Wonder: Was it really A I loved, or was it the intensity, the feeling that our orbit had grown so tight that it could fit into an atom—and would cause an explosion if we were to separate? How can Alexander compete with that? Why am I even thinking of it as a competition?
Alexander is here. He wins.
But I’m not sure that Alexander feels like he’s winning. Or that I’m much of a prize.
It’s Saturday and we’re on our way to Will’s house for a picnic in his backyard. I should probably think of it as Will and Preston’s house, because ever since they started dating, Preston has been spending most of his time there. Alexander and I are bringing a fruit salad, which meant we had to go to the grocery store (“our first-date grocery store”) and buy about twenty-five dollars’ worth of fruit to chop up and put in a bowl.
I’m driving and Alexander is looking at his phone, scrolling down his Facebook. I don’t even notice until he says, “Hey, why’d you put this song up?” He holds out his phone so I can see the link.
“It’s just a song I like,” I tell him. “It was stuck in my head, so I decided to inflict it on other people.”
“Oh? Cool.”
He goes back to scrolling, not even checking the comments section to find the second song. And the stupid thing is that I am suddenly mad at him for not reading more into it…which is extra stupid because getting mad is exactly what Justin would have done. Justin would have taken it as an attack, even if he didn’t know what it meant. He would have attacked back.
Maybe we inherit bad traits from our exes, just like we inherit bad traits from our parents, because out of the blue I find myself picking a fight with Alexander, saying, “Oh, cool—what does that even mean?”
He doesn’t look up from his phone. “It means that I didn’t know you liked that song, but I’m perfectly happy that you do.”
“I didn’t put it up there for your approval.”
“I never said that you did.”
I know I’m being the unreasonable one, and Alexander’s tone makes it clear that he knows it, too.
I should say I’m sorry. A would say sorry. Justin would not say sorry. Alexander would say sorry. But I’m still angry. Not at Alexander. At the universe. Alexander just happens to be here to bear the brunt of it. Which might be my passive-aggressive way of getting him to hate the unfair universe, too. Which is pretty messed up.
“Have you heard from Steve or Stephanie?” Alexander asks. Safer ground.
“Yes. The war continues. Nobody wants to pick a side, so we didn’t invite either of them. It’s weird, but Rebecca says that’s the only way to do it, when we’re all together.”
“Makes sense,” Alexander says, even though he’s only met Steve and Stephanie once, and they spent most of the time pulling each other aside to fight.
“Couples are weird,” I say.
He smiles at that. “Yeah, they are. Single people, too.”
I can’t be mad at him for long. But I don’t think that’s enough to call it love.
* * *
—
Will has built a fire to make his backyard warm enough for a picnic. We sit on a blanket covered with too much food. Will says, “Peel me a grape!” to Preston, and as Will, Rebecca, Ben, and Alexander laugh, Preston does exactly that. Then he holds the sad grape skin in one hand and the gelatinous pulp in the other hand and asks which part, exactly, Will was wanting. Will says, “Really, it’s just that I’ve always wanted a boy who’d peel a grape for me. Thank you.”
“Peel me a blueberry!” Rebecca commands Ben.
“No,” he says. “That’s messy.”
Rebecca is leaning on Ben. Will plays a little with Preston’s hair. Alexander offers me more tea from the thermos, and I shake my head. I am surrounded by my best friends. I am sitting next to a boyfriend who treats me well. We are gathered around an afternoon campfire, its warmth creating a comfortable space in the wide air. I should be happy. But instead I feel like I am standing outside my own happiness. When I was with A, I was inside it. I could touch it freely, could recognize it. But now I have no idea how to get to it. I have no idea what it really is.
I don’t understand how it’s possible to know you have a good life, but still be missing out on it. I don’t understand why I won’t let myself give in to what I have. It’s good. What I have is good.
“Anything you’d like peeled?” Alexander asks me.
I shiver.
He doesn’t say, “What?” But it’s there in the way he’s looking at me. The way Rebecca, who knows me even better, is looking at me.
“It’s nothing,” I tell Alexander, tell them all. “I just thought about how freaked out I would get when my dad would say keep your eyes peeled when I was a kid—I thought that meant there was a way your eyelids could be peeled like a banana.”
“That always freaked me out, too!” Preston says. “Or—oh God—when people say bless you when you sneeze? I know it’s polite. But when I was a kid, I was like, WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT A SNEEZE THAT YOU NEED TO BLESS ME?!? I mean, if you skin your knee and are bleeding all over, no one says bless you. If you puke up your guts, no one says bless you. So I couldn’t help but wonder how a sneeze was, like, worse.”
The rest of them start talking about other things that freaked them out as kids. I eat strawberries and leave the tops in a circle on my plate. I don’t think any of my friends notice that I’m not really there.
Not until we’re cleaning up. Not until Rebecca holds back and waits until everyone else is inside to ask me if something’s wrong.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”
She gives me a level glance. “Any time you have to say that twice, it’s at least half-untrue. Is there something wrong with you and Alexander?”
I shake my head. “Nothing wrong. It’s just that…isn’t it okay if there are some days that aren’t wrong but aren’t really right, either? He hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who isn’t feeling right. Do you know what I mean?”
“All too well. There are days when I look at Ben and think, Why am I even bothering—we’re only going to break up when we go to college. I think my time could be better used elsewhere. Like, learning Russian. Or watching every BBC mystery that I can find on Netflix. But then he does something stupid and endearing like texting me to see how my day went, and I’m like, Oh yeah. That’s why I do this.” She hands me some plates to take back to the kitchen. “Look—with Justin, you were always so desperate for him to love you that you never really got to experience what it’s like when the two of you are balanced. It’s different when you’re balanced. Let yourself get used to it instead of assuming you know how it works.”
This is typical Rebecca: a little bit wise, a little bit condescending. What I want to ask her—what I can’t ask her—is if it always feels like you’re pretending, if part of being in a relationship is feeling like you are going through the motions of being in a relationship. Will and Preston have been together for about the same amount of time that Alexander and I have been together, and they seem to be genuinely happy and genuinely in love.
But I guess neither of them is wondering about someone else.
“Come on,” Rebecca says. “Let’s go inside. You don’t need to commit to forever, or even to tomorrow. But commit to right now. We all want you to be here.”
She’s right. When I get back into the kitchen, Preston gives me a hug and Will turns the music up a little louder and asks me to dance, even though his signature dance move is the pogo. Alexander pours me some pink lemonade. Ben asks Rebecca to dance and she swats him away. The night begins, and goes on. I manage to step into my happiness. But I am always looking back, checking where I came from.
Comment from M:
None of you understand.
Comment from PurpleCrayon12
:
Why do you say that? (I don’t ask this to dispute what you’re saying. I want to know why you feel we don’t understand.)
Comment from M:
I don’t belong in this body. I have nothing to do with this body. I am trapped in this body. I exist separate from this body. But I can’t die, because I am afraid I will take this body with me.
Comment from PurpleCrayon12:
There are times I wish I could separate from my body.
Comment from M:
The fact that you can say that shows how little you understand.
Comment from PurpleCrayon12:
You don’t know anything about me.
Comment from M:
This is pointless.
Comment from Someone:
I understand.
X
It is easy to find the boy, because he has not moved. His life does not change.
It is easy to follow him, because he has never seen this body before. He has no idea I am here. He has no idea I have returned.
I made a mistake. When I contacted Nathan, when I told him what he wanted to hear—that he had been possessed by the devil for a day, that his actions had not been his own—I felt I had power over him. I knew I could not take his body—for whatever reason, once a body has been occupied, it develops a resistance to being occupied again. But I thought his mind would be a minor challenge at most. A teenage boy discovered by the side of the road, having no idea how he’d gotten there or what he’d done—his uncertainty was my great weapon, and his desire for certainty was my great leverage. Then, when the other body traveler contacted the boy, I thought, At last, here is a line. It is worthless to have a hook if you don’t also have a line. So I manipulated the boy, set up the confrontation. The body traveler walked into this boy’s house, was right in front of me. I recognized her for what she was, and she recognized me for what I was. She was afraid, as I knew she should be. Man should tremble when faced with the manipulations of that which is greater than Man. I had the lure set, the hook within reach. But then she struggled, and the boy surprised me by interfering, giving the girl a chance to flee. I was angry. At the boy, certainly—but also at myself.
I wonder if Nathan knows that the reverend is dead.
Probably not. I doubt anyone noticed. And if nobody notices a death, it is very hard to find out about it.
This body is a different form of anonymity. When I am in a new body, I have the power of unknowability. To those I am watching, I am a complete stranger. I am scenery. And the whole time, I am taking in their moves, their fears, their faults. It is nearly impossible to run from me.
I could be the man next to you in the grocery store.
I could be the man handing you your change.
I could be the man in the window across the street.
I could be the man who gets on the bus two people after you.
I could be the man hitting on you.
The man bumping your shoulder.
The man in your blind spot.
The man right in front of you.
If that doesn’t confer power, I don’t know what does.
Nathan doesn’t see me in my car across the street as he heads to school. He does not understand that, after school, I am the man walking behind him, into a café. He doesn’t think it’s strange that I sit next to him. Because I have a book and am turning the pages at regular intervals, he doesn’t understand that he is my focus.
A girl comes in to meet him. They exchange pleasantries. He says she looks tired. She mentions a bad conversation she had with her boyfriend. I am about to start reading the pages in front of me, so fruitless is this exchange. But then he asks if there’s been any word from someone named A. I am paying attention now, even though the answer is no. They talk about tracking A down. They do not call A he or she. They do not understand that I am taking in every word.
I understand many things at once:
This girl met Nathan on the night he was possessed.
A was the person who possessed him.
A is now gone.
But she still cares about A. Deeply.
I picture A as the frightened, ignorant girl I met in Nathan’s house. It is stupid to leave a trail, and that is exactly what A has done. I don’t know whether it would be better to educate her or kill her. Her existence, like the existence of any other body traveler, threatens my own existence. To know the truth about one of us is to know at least a partial truth about all of us. If people begin to look, they will find us. They will fight. Thus, we must remain unknowable.
A clearly does not know this. And because of this, A has been a fool. She may have run away from me, and from these people. But if she can make a mistake once, she can make it again and again.
Nathan and the girl, whose name he does not say, keep talking about other things. Boring things. I leave, because it’s better to leave than to become familiar. I do not want them to remember me. My work here is not yet done, just as it is not yet defined.
Teach or kill?
Fix or destroy?
I am bothered by the whole A thing. I am hoping this means she did not trust other people with her name. I am hoping it was just a disguise for when she felt it convenient to “confide.”
I gave myself a name, chosen because the first letter does not do what you think it will do. I knew early on that I was male. Even when I was punished with a female body, I knew to act and think like a man. I would not get far otherwise.
This is what I would teach another body traveler: Look around you. See the person who is considered the strongest, then become that person. No matter what body you’re inside, be that person. And when you learn how to stay, when you get more choice—be that person even more. Society is biased and ugly. Use that bias and ugliness to your advantage. Most everyone else does, if they have any power at all.
Even the sad sack of skin and bones that I’m in now has more power than most. I can use that. Having money gives you an advantage, especially if you use it. And being white. And being a man.
Nobody is expecting this man to steal, because he doesn’t need to steal. So I take whatever I want.
I go to a restaurant, have an expensive dinner, then walk out before the check comes. I go to a drugstore and pocket some Advil. Then, just for fun, I find an item that will set off the alarm—an electric razor, on the pricier side for CVS—and I put it in a teenager’s backpack as he searches through deodorants. His fault for leaving his backpack around like that.
I know this is all child’s play, but isn’t child’s play how most of us fill the days? Isn’t it how our leaders have chosen to lead? I fit right in.
I am already getting tired of this body. I appreciate the lack of resistance it offers, but I miss being desirable. I had a long enough time in Poole’s body; I would like to go back to being the object of some carnal attention.
Before I leave this man’s body, I must drain his bank account. This is remarkably easy to do. All I have to do is visit his bank, speak in an even, calm manner about needing funds for a new business venture, then transfer the majority of the money to the accounts I set up for myself years ago. His children will be left with practically nothing, but if they deserved more than nothing, I imagine they would have called or written at some point. If they’re relying on getting their daddy’s money when he’s gone—well, it’s mine now.
I will have to wait a few days for the transfer to go through. It will be worth my while to do so.
In the meantime, there’s more damage to be done.
There’s always more damage to be done.
A
Day 6088
I check her Facebook all the time, waiting for something to happen. Some other message. I check every hour. Every ten minutes. Five minutes. I worry that there’s something I’m not seeing because we’re not friends.
>
When I wake up, I check the phone first. I see she was out with her boyfriend. I take a shower and think about her picture, about whether she looked happy or was just pretending to look happy. I feel ashamed that I want her to be pretending, then tell myself I don’t really want that. I check for another update after I get dressed, mindlessly pulling things from the drawers. Not thinking about the day at all. Just thinking about her.
Then it hits me: I have been awake for almost an hour and I haven’t even thought about who I am today, haven’t even learned this person’s name. With a few touches on the phone, I am looking at Moses Cheng’s Facebook profile. He only has forty friends. His sister tags him in family photos, but he doesn’t post anything himself. I’m not sure if this means he doesn’t have many friends or if it just means he doesn’t like Facebook. Then I search around a little in his mind and realize the answer’s both.
Moses’s sister is waiting for him in the kitchen. “Here,” she says, throwing him a granola bar. “No time to waste. We’ve got to go.”
“I need my bag,” I tell her. She groans and tells me to go get it.
I’m hoping that Moses doesn’t need anything in his backpack today that he didn’t have there yesterday. I hope he put his homework in, because I don’t have time to look for it. His sister is already calling up for him to hurry. I don’t think she’s being impatient—I think I’m late. Because I got lost thinking of Rhiannon.
In the car, Moses’s sister reminds him she can’t drive him home—she has band practice.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asks him.
I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way. I tell her I’ll be fine. And then I resist checking Rhiannon’s page on Moses’s phone, because his sister is keeping an eye out. Because of the time difference, Rhiannon’s been up for hours now. I don’t understand why she hasn’t posted anything.
Someday Page 6
