But I tell her no. I tell her we shouldn’t. Not yet. Not right now.
Even though it was a genuine question, she’s surprised by the answer. She pulls away to look at me.
“Are you sure? I want to. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I want to. I … prepared.”
“I don’t think we should.”
“Okay,” she says, pulling farther away.
“It’s not you,” I tell her. “And it’s not that I don’t want to.”
“So what is it?” she asks.
“It feels wrong.”
She looks hurt by this answer.
“Let me worry about Justin,” she says. “This is you and me. It’s different.”
“But it’s not just you and me,” I tell her. “It’s also Xavier.”
“Xavier?”
I gesture to my body. “Xavier.”
“Oh.”
“He’s never done it before,” I tell her. “And it just feels wrong … for him to do it for the first time, and not know it. I feel like I’m taking something from him if I do that. It doesn’t seem right.”
I have no idea if this is true or not, and I’m not going to access to find out. Because it is an acceptable reason to stop—acceptable because it shouldn’t hurt her pride.
“Oh,” Rhiannon says again. Then she moves back closer and nestles in next to me. “Do you think he would mind this?”
The body relaxes. Enjoys itself in a different way.
“I set an alarm,” Rhiannon says. “So we can sleep.”
We drift together, naked in the bed. My heart is still racing, but as it slows, it slows in pace with hers. We have entered the safest cocoon our affections can make, and we lie there, and we luxuriate in the wealth of the moment, and gently fall into each other, fall into sleep.
It is not the alarm that wakes us. It is the sound of a flock of birds outside the window. It is the sound of the wind hitting the eaves.
I have to remind myself that normal people feel this way, too: The desire to take a moment and make it last forever. The desire to stay like this for much longer than it will really last.
“I know we don’t talk about it,” I say. “But why are you with him?”
“I don’t know,” she tells me. “I used to think I did. But I don’t know anymore.”
“Who was your favorite?” she asks.
“My favorite?”
“Your favorite body. Your favorite life.”
“I was once in the body of a blind girl,” I tell her. “When I was eleven. Maybe twelve. I don’t know if she was my favorite, but I learned more from being her for a day than I’d learn from most people over a year. It showed me how arbitrary and individual it is, the way we experience the world. Not just that the other senses were sharper. But that we find ways to navigate the world as it is presented to us. For me, it was this huge challenge. But for her, it was just life.”
“Close your eyes,” Rhiannon whispers.
I close my eyes, and she does the same.
We experience each other’s bodies in a different way.
The alarm goes off. I don’t want to be reminded of time.
We have not turned on the lights, so as the sky turns to dusk, the cabin turns to dusk as well. Haze of darkness, remnant of light.
“I’m going to stay here,” she says.
“I’m going to come back tomorrow,” I promise.
“I would end it,” I tell her. “I would end all the changing if I could. Just to stay here with you.”
“But you can’t end it,” she says. “I know that.”
Time itself becomes the alarm. I can’t look at the clock without knowing it’s past the hour for me to go. Play rehearsal is over. Even if Xavier goes out with friends after, he’s going to have to be home soon. And definitely by midnight.
“I’ll wait for you,” she tells me.
I leave her in the bed. I put on my clothes, pick up my keys, and close the door behind me. I turn back. I keep turning back to see her. Even when there are walls between us. Even when there are miles between us. I keep turning back. I keep turning in her direction.
Day 6021
I wake up, and for at least a minute, I can’t figure out who I am. All I can find is the body, and the body is pounding with pain. There’s a hazy blur to my thoughts, a vise compressing my head. I open my eyes and the light nearly kills me.
“Dana,” a voice outside of me says. “It’s noon.”
I don’t care that it’s noon. I don’t care about anything at all. I just want the pounding to go away.
Or not. Because when the pounding briefly stops, the rest of my body chimes in with nausea.
“Dana, I’m not going to let you sleep all day. Being grounded does not mean you get to sleep all day.”
It takes three more attempts, but I manage to open my eyes and keep them open, even if the bedroom light feels like it has the same wattage as the sun.
Dana’s mother stares down at me with as much sorrow as anger.
“Dr. P is coming in a half hour,” she tells me. “I think you need to see him.”
I am accessing like crazy, but it’s as if my synapses have been dipped in tar.
“After all we’ve been through, the fact that you would pull such a stunt last night … it’s beyond words. We have done nothing but care about you. And this is what you do? Your father and I have had enough. No more.”
What did I do last night? I can remember being with Rhiannon. I can remember going home as Xavier. Talking to his friends on the phone. Hearing about play practice. But I can’t reach Dana’s memories. She is too hungover for them to be there.
Is this what it’s like for Xavier this morning? A complete blank?
I hope not, because this is awful.
“You have half an hour to shower and get dressed. Don’t expect any help from me.”
Dana’s mother slams the door shut, and the echo of the slam spreads through my whole body. As I start to move, it feels like I am trapped twenty miles underwater. And when I start to rise, I get a bad case of the bends. I actually have to steady myself against my bedpost, and nearly miss it when I reach out.
I don’t really care about Dr. P or Dana’s parents. As far as I’m concerned, Dana must have done this to herself, and she deserves the grief she gets. It must have taken a lot of drinking to get in this state. She is not the reason I get up. I get up because somewhere near here, Rhiannon is alone in a hunting cabin, waiting for me. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of here, but I have to.
I trudge through the hallway to the shower. I turn it on, then stand there for at least a minute, forgetting entirely why I’m standing there. The water is just background music to the horror of my body. Then I remember, and I step in. The water wakes me up a little more, but I stagger through the waking. I could easily collapse into the tub, and fall asleep with the water running over me, my foot over the drain.
When I get back to Dana’s room, I let the towel drop and leave it there, then put on whatever clothes are nearest. There’s no computer in the room, no phone. No way to get in touch with Rhiannon. I know I should search the house, but just the thought of it takes too much energy. I need to sit down. Lie down. Close my eyes.
“Wake up!”
The command is as abrupt as the earlier door slam, and twice as close. I open my eyes and find Dana’s very angry father.
“Dr. P is here,” Dana’s mother chimes in from behind him, with a slightly more conciliatory tone. Maybe she’s feeling bad for me. Or maybe she just doesn’t want her husband to kill me in front of a witness.
I wonder if what I’m feeling isn’t entirely a hangover if a doctor is making a house call. But when Dr. P sits down next to me, there’s not a medical bag in sight. Just a notebook.
“Dana,” she says gently.
I look at her. Sit up, even as my head howls.
She turns to my parents.
“It’s okay. Why don’t you leave us now?”
They don’t need to be told twice.
Accessing is still hard. I know the facts are there, but they’re behind a murky wall.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Dr. P asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t remember.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Yeah. It’s that bad.”
She asks me if my parents have given me any Tylenol, and I tell her no, not since I woke up. She leaves for a second and comes back with two Tylenol and a glass of water.
I don’t get the Tylenol down on the first try, and I’m embarrassed by the chalky gag that results. The second time is better, and I gulp down the rest of the water. Dr. P goes out and refills the glass, giving me time to think. But the thoughts in my head are still clumsy, dull.
When she returns, she begins with, “You can understand why your parents are upset, can’t you?”
I feel so stupid, but I can’t pretend.
“I really don’t know what happened,” I say. “I’m not lying. I wish I did.”
“You were at Cameron’s party.” She looks at me, seeing if this registers. When it doesn’t, she continues. “You snuck out to go there. And when you got there, you started drinking. A lot. Your friends were concerned, for obvious reasons. But they didn’t stop you. They only tried to stop you when you went to drive home.”
I’m still underwater, and my memory of this is on the surface. I know it’s there. I know she’s telling me the truth. But I can’t see it.
“I drove?”
“Yes. Even though you weren’t supposed to. You stole your father’s keys.”
“I stole my father’s keys.” I say it out loud, hoping it will spark an image.
“When you went to drive home, some of your friends tried to stop you. But you insisted. They tried to stop you. You lashed out at them. Called them awful things. And when Cameron tried to take your keys away …”
“What did I do?”
“You bit him on the wrist. And you ran.”
This must have been how Nathan felt. The morning after.
Dr. P continues. “Your friend Lisa called your parents. They rushed over. When your father got to you, you were already in the car. He went to stop you and you nearly ran him over.”
I nearly ran him over?
“You didn’t get far. You were too drunk to back out of the driveway. You ended up in the neighbor’s yard. You crashed into a telephone pole. Luckily, no one was hurt.”
I exhale. I am pushing inside Dana’s mind, trying to find any of this.
“What we want to know, Dana, is why you would do such a thing. After what happened with Anthony, why would you do this?”
Anthony. That name is the fact that is too bright to hide. My body convulses in pain. Pain is all I can feel.
Anthony. My brother.
My dead brother.
My brother who died next to me.
My brother who died next to me, in the passenger seat.
Because I crashed.
Because I was drunk.
Because of me.
“Oh my God,” I cry out. “Oh my God.”
I am seeing him now. His bloody body. I am screaming.
“It’s okay,” Dr. P says. “It’s okay now.”
But it’s not.
It’s not.
Dr. P gives me something stronger than Tylenol. I try to resist, but it’s no use.
“I have to tell Rhiannon,” I say. I don’t mean to say it. It just comes out.
“Who’s Rhiannon?” Dr. P asks.
My eyelids close. I give in before she can get an answer.
It starts to come back to me while I’m asleep, and when I wake again, I remember more of it. Not the end—I genuinely can’t remember getting in the car, almost running over my father, hitting the telephone pole. I must have checked out by then. But before that, I can remember being at the party. Drinking anything anyone offered. Feeling better because of it. Feeling lighter. Flirting with Cameron. Drinking some more. Not thinking. After so much thinking, blocking it all out.