by Erin Hayes
Then I realize it’s not worth it. I have to go into work, after all. My patients need me. And my exorbitantly high rent needs the money.
My hand snakes its way to the nightstand to find my phone, but it’s not in its usual place. I scrabble around the top, trying to find it, but it’s not there.
Confusion furrows my brow. I sit up to frown at the nightstand, seeing that the phone’s not there. In fact, it seems like it’s out in the living room. By the…
By the door.
Because I didn’t just spend the night by myself. I spent it with Ned. At the fancy grilled cheese restaurant. In the car ride home. In my bed. Having great sex over and over again.
I smile at the memory, how I made the decision after all my wayward thoughts throughout yesterday, it all boiled down to this. I want to be with Ned. He makes me feel beautiful. And I can tell he cares about me.
“Do you trust me?” he had asked, like he wanted to take it further. And I did. Especially after that.
“Please don’t regret it in the morning.”
Such a weird thing to say. I frown at that. Cryptic, isn’t it?
“Hey, Ned?” I ask softly, turning my head towards him. “What did you mean by—”
I don’t finish my question, because I scream at the male form lying next to me, peacefully asleep. At least until my screech shattered the illusion and he jolts awake.
Because it’s not Ned who’s in my bed.
It’s Teddy.
I grab the sheets and pull them up to my naked body, stammering nonsensically as he blinks blearily at me. At least until he realizes what’s happening.
“What the—?” he shouts, grabbing for purchase at the sheets. “What am I doing here?”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Teddy?” I scream, refusing to give him any of the sheets. He’s naked like me, and through all his struggles, I can see that he has a sizable manhood himself.
Wait, what the hell am I thinking and doing? There’s no logical explanation for Teddy being in my bed this morning. I had gone home with Ned, right? It wasn’t just some weird dream?
No. No, I didn’t have a lot of wine last night. No, I didn’t have a dream and invite Teddy into my bed. While I did have a little wine, it wasn’t enough to make me do something rash.
At least, I think that’s what happened. But I cast my gaze around my room, looking for Ned. But there’s no sign of him. His discarded clothes are still piled on the ground, and it’s almost like I can sense him around me.
But he’s not here. Instead, Teddy is.
“L—listen, Grace,” Teddy stammers, “I can explain.”
Rage fills me, at the fact that Ned had left me like this and that I am in such a compromising position with my neighbor.
I scream again and get to my feet, fully pulling the sheet off Teddy. He balks and covers up his private area, but not before I get a good look at everything. No, that is definitely not the cock that gave me multiple orgasms last night.
I should know. I got pretty up close and personal last night.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” I say through gritted teeth, “and I don’t know where Ned went. But you had better get the fuck out of my apartment before I call the cops.”
So many horrible thoughts pass through my mind about what could have happened, because Teddy is very, painfully, obviously here. I didn’t sleep with him, did I?
“Grace…” Teddy starts, his cheeks flushed.
A scent hits me then, too strong to be the remnants of Ned last night. Leather and peppermint. I blink a few times, because it momentarily disorients me. Teddy smells exactly like Ned.
That shouldn’t be possible.
“Out,” I cry, pointing to the door. “OUT!”
Teddy opens his mouth to say more, but I scream again, and he gets to his feet, naked as the day he was born. I try to not pay attention to how built his body is or that V where his hip bones point to his crotch.
He gives me a reproachful expression before he says softly, “I am so, so sorry, Grace.”
And before I can scream at him again, he rushes out of my room. If not for the fact that he had mysteriously appeared in my room overnight, I would have thought he was as embarrassed as me.
But the fact remains the same.
I woke up with a different person than I went to sleep with. And Ned is nowhere to be found.
I snarl as I rush over to my purse near the door, digging through it to fetch my phone. There are no messages on it, no hints of what happened after I fell asleep. Just my alarm that has been going off this entire time.
I almost throw the phone against the wall in anger, but then again, that won’t do anything. I have to figure out what happened. Did Ned know Teddy, and—I don’t know—trade me out in the middle of the night? For fun?
Who the fuck even does that?
I force the thought from my mind that I had been drugged. That’s the worst possible thought. Maybe…
Fuck, I don’t know. Other than a nice soreness from what I remember last night, I don’t feel like there’s anything different or wrong with my body.
I take a steadying breath, debating on if I should call the cops or not. To go to the hospital and see what happened to me. But something holds me back.
“Don’t regret it in the morning.”
“Is this what you meant, you bastard?” I growl through gritted teeth as I dial Dawn’s number. “That you’d just play games with me?”
Dawn’s phone goes straight to voicemail, which is a painful reminder that she’s probably not up yet.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
“Hey, Dawn?” I say frantically. “Call me back, I… I need to talk to you. ASAP. Please,” I add for good measure.
I hang up and run my fingers through my hair, trying to think. So many thoughts running through my head. So many and I don’t have any perspective on them.
“Coffee,” I whisper. Everything is better with coffee, after all. “First, I get coffee. Then…”
My voice trails off. Maybe there’s something in my medical textbooks that I have in my office. Surely something like this has happened before to someone. Where I can get some sort of perspective on my psyche at the moment. At least before I Google it. Because I know that looking on the internet will only freak me out.
I don’t bother showering. I just throw on some workout clothes—something comfortable, at least—and I take the stairs two at a time to leave my building. Thankfully, Teddy doesn’t try to stop me or say anything. I don’t even see him, which I’m thankful for.
Just as well, though. I’m liable to sucker punch him at the very least.
Ned’s Tesla isn’t out front where it was last night, which only confirms that he left me alone.
And somehow traded places with Teddy.
I’m not thinking straight. Surely there has to be a logical explanation for this. Surely…
I hurriedly walk to the local coffee shop around the corner, getting a double shot to help me sort through all the events. But my coffee doesn’t help, and it only makes my nerves more jittery as I rush to my office. I don’t meet anyone’s eyes, afraid to show them that I went crazy.
Or something to that effect.
I’m about a half-hour early, so there shouldn’t be any patients in the waiting room. That will at least give me a little bit of time to look through my resources. And decide if I do call the cops on Teddy or hear him out.
Who knew that I’d been living next to a creep for a neighbor? Ugh, I’m so confused and angry, and even though I deal with complex feelings from my patients, I hate having them myself. I always like being able to put my feelings into distinct boxes. That makes things neat. That makes things easy.
This is not neat and easy.
“Oh! Dr. Jekyll,” my medical assistant Sharon says as I hurry through the doors of my practice.
So much for ignoring her.
“What, Sharon?” I say, trying my damnedest not to snarl at her. I don’
t do a very good job, and she blinks, taken aback.
“You have a patient waiting for you in your office.”
I look at her incredulously. “What?”
She flinches at my tone, but continues. “Mr. Edward Hyde came in unexpectedly.”
Fuck. I really don’t want to deal with one third of the men who are giving me trouble lately. I really, really don’t want to see Edward, not after what happened.
I swallow thickly. “His appointment isn’t until next week.”
“He says it’s very important.”
Again, fuck. As a doctor, I really should be caring about my patients, but I’m in such inner turmoil right now.
“Do you want me to ask him to leave?” Sharon asks, her tone telling me that she doesn’t want to be the one to do that.
I rake my bottom lip with my teeth. “No,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll just ask him to wait outside for a moment. I’m all…out of sorts this morning.”
Sharon looks at me dubiously. “Are you okay, Dr. Jekyll? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Might have.
“Just a long night,” I tell her finally, as I push my office door open and see Edward sitting on the chair. My insides twist as I stop inside the doorway, as he turns my way.
“Grace,” he says, and I dimly realize that he doesn’t call me by my professional name. Just Grace. Like we’re on friendly terms outside of my practice.
I force a grin. “Good morning, Mr. Hyde. I need you to—”
“We have to talk,” he says with finality, and I stop, giving him an incredulous look. He sounds so serious, like there’s something very, very important on his mind.
“What?” I ask, tiredly, throwing up my hands, unsure if I can handle another straw on my back.
Edward looks at me with a reserved expression before sighing. “You know how you went home with Ned last night and woke up with Teddy?”
I stare at him, shocked. “How did you know that?”
Edward tilts his head for a moment with a distant look in his eyes, as if listening to something far away, before blinking and focusing again on me. “Well, there’s something we have to show you.”
“We?”
“Promise you won’t freak out, all right?” Edward says, and I’m unable to answer him. “Do you trust me?”
Shit, that sounds exactly like what Ned had asked last night, and look how that turned out.
“No,” I say honestly. “No, I don’t trust you, Mr. Hyde.” I make a point to use his last name, to put up that barrier again. After last night, I need barriers. Barriers are safe. And I’m sorely missing them.
Edward visibly hesitates at my answer, and he closes his eyes. Then…something strange happens, and I don’t even believe it.
Because it’s impossible. It’s impossible.
Edward’s face shifts. Elongates and gets defined cheekbones. His hair changes color, from dark to blond. I recognize that hair color, had run my fingers through it as he was making love to me last night.
When Edward opens his eyes again, he’s not the one who’s looking at me.
It’s Ned.
I scream again in absolute terror.
“Shh,” he hushes, gesturing with his hands to tone it down. “You’re going to make your assistant call the cops.”
“I should call the cops!” I yell at him. And before I can help myself, I slap him, the crack resounding in my office. He blinks a few times as his cheek reddens from the contact.
“I guess I deserve that,” he says rubbing his cheek. “I’m sorry I—”
“Sorry you what?” I cut in angrily. “Sorry that you lied to me? Sorry that you left me? Sorry that you somehow traded places with my neighbor? Who I should call the cops on as well?”
Ned lets out a low breath as he watches me. “I am sorry for all of that. And that I didn’t explain it all to you.”
“Explain what?” I poke him in the chest. “How you can change from Edward into you?”
“And I can turn into Teddy,” he adds embarrassedly.
Before I can ask him what he means, he morphs into my neighbor, the same man who I woke up with in my bed this morning, and I scream again before slapping him, too. This time on the opposite cheek.
“I guess I deserve that,” he repeats—or says for the first time, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. “Maybe Edward is the best person to talk to Grace.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “He hasn’t pissed her off. Yet.”
“Yet?” I ask as Teddy transforms into Edward again, who lets out a low, shuddering breath as he looks back at me.
“Now you know,” he says softly.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know anything. What the hell is going on?”
A lopsided smile tugs at his mouth. “I tried telling you yesterday. That I sometimes go away and there are two other versions of me.”
“You mean the dissociative identity disorder?”
“The dissociative existence disorder,” he corrects. “If you can even call them that.”
I still stare at him. “What?”
Edward lets out a low breath, putting his hands in his pockets. “Let me tell you the story of three guys. These guys had been friends for as long as they could remember. They grew up together. They went to school together. They went to each other’s houses after school. They even had similar names.”
“Let me guess,” I say flatly, “Edward, Ned, and Teddy.”
Not that it makes any sense, but I’ll play along for right now, at least.
He smirks and nods. “We wanted to travel the world together, so after college, we went traveling. And, well, ran into some trouble. We, ah, all fell in love with this girl. And she was…gorgeous.”
I cross my arms, skeptical. “The same girl?”
“Yep,” he says, punctuating the word with distaste. “We all thought she was the one. She was beautiful and smart and funny and…” He gives a self-deprecating snicker and shakes his head. “Well, you get the picture. And the three of us ended up getting into a fight over her.” He rubs his jaw. “Teddy cracked one of my teeth with a good punch.”
He glances back at me and grimly smiles. “This girl saw us fighting, how our jealousy made us lash out against each other. And…she cursed us.”
“Cursed you,” I repeat in disbelief. I’m not sure how much I believe, but then again, I just saw one man transform into three different personalities. Anything could happen, I guess.
Edward nods. “Cursed us to share one body. Because we couldn’t share one woman who we all thought we loved.”
I narrow my eyes. “So then what happened?”
He chuckles dryly. “Well, you can imagine that those first couple of years were…awkward to say the least. At first, we all tried living our separate lives. But whenever one of us would find another girl, it just wouldn’t work out. She’d find out in the worst way possible.”
“Like waking up to find a different man in her bed?” I ask skeptically.
Edward nods. “Yep. Always a super awkward thing. After the first couple of girls, we decided that we couldn’t risk it again. Not without telling her what happened to us. We decided that we could live our own separate lives so long as we didn’t have relationships—because our…condition always complicated things.”
I clench my hands at my side. “So what happened with me?”
Edward glances up at me. “Well,” he says, “we met you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You met me?”
“Teddy first when he moved into your apartment building with Pugsly,” Edward says quickly. “He saw you in the hallways and really liked you. Then I started see you as my therapist. It was entirely coincidental, I promise you.”
He sounds so sincere, I’m apt to believe him. “But what about Ned?” I ask, confused. “I thought you guys swore off love.” And I had met Ned on a dating app. You don’t go on a dating app unless you’re looking for a relationship.
Also, note to future self—neve
r use a dating app again. You meet weird guys on it.
“Ned was the last one,” Edward says with a nod, “and since Teddy and I already started liking you, we had to see if there was any chemistry with our third man. So…he joined the app, where he met you. And you two met and hit it off too. We thought…” He licks his lips nervously. “Well, we thought…”
“What?”
“That maybe you were the woman for all three of us. That’s what we were making sure of yesterday. That you were open to the possibility of something…well, different.”
“Do you think that this makes me damaged?”
“That the three versions of me are unlovable?”
“A date? Is it serious?”
“Just happy to have found someone who’s willing to try new experiences.”
“Do you trust me?”
So those were their hints. They could have really been a bit more open about that.
“This isn’t different,” I say, twirling my finger to indicate everything. “This is fucked up beyond all compare. I mean…you are three guys living in one body. And you’re…”
Edward nods. “We know.”
“What, you can talk to each other?”
“Yes.” He taps his temple. “Kind of like thinking, but different personalities. We can talk to each other at any given time.”
“What are Ned and Teddy saying right now?”
He laughs. “They’re both terrified of you.”
Good. But that still doesn’t excuse what happened last night and this morning. I don’t know what would have happened had they told me, but surely there had been a better way.
Edward clears his throat. “Ned wants to say he’s sorry for not warning you.”
“Doesn’t sound sincere coming from you,” I say, shaking my head, but I instantly regret it, because Edward transforms into Ned, who’s looking at me like a hurt little puppy.
“I am so sorry, Grace,” he says. “But you invited me up, and you looked so beautiful last night and—”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “So let me get this straight,” I say. “Now that you’ve bedded me and got me to have feelings for all three of you—what, you’re cured?”
