How was your day? What did you do?

R

Does she really want to know, or is she just being polite? I feel as if she could be talking to anybody. And while I once thought what I wanted from her was this normal, everyday tone, now that I have it, the normalcy disappoints.

I write her back and tell her about the last two days. Then I tell her I have to go—I can’t skip school today, because Sallie Swain has a big cross-country meet, and it wouldn’t be fair for her to miss it.

I run. I am made for running. Because when you run, you could be anyone. You hone yourself into a body, nothing more or less than a body. You respond as a body, to the body. If you are racing to win, you have no thoughts but the body’s thoughts, no goals but the body’s goals. You obliterate yourself in the name of speed. You negate yourself in order to make it past the finish line.

Day 6013

I am an hour and a half away from her, and I am part of a happy family.

The Stevens family does not let Saturdays go to waste. No, Mrs. Stevens wakes Daniel up at nine o’clock on the dot and tells him to get ready for a drive. By the time he’s out of the shower, Mr. Stevens has loaded the car, and Daniel’s two sisters are raring to go.

First stop in Baltimore is the art museum for a Winslow Homer exhibit. Then there’s lunch at Inner Harbor, followed by a long trip to the aquarium. Then an IMAX version of a Disney movie, for the girls, and dinner at a seafood restaurant that’s so famous they don’t feel the need to put the word famous in their name.

There are brief moments of tension—a sister who is bored by the dolphins, a spot where Dad gets frustrated about the lack of available parking spaces. But for the most part, everyone remains happy. They are so caught up in their happiness that they don’t realize I’m not really a part of it. I am wandering along the periphery. I am like the people in the Winslow Homer paintings, sharing the same room with them but not really there. I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.

It is a good day, and that certainly helps me more than a bad day. There are moments when I don’t think about her, or even think about me. There are moments I just sit in my frame, float in my tank, ride in my car and say nothing, think nothing that connects me to anything at all.

Day 6014

I am forty minutes away from her.

It’s Sunday, so I decide to see what Reverend Poole is up to.

Orlando, the boy whose body I’m in, rarely wakes before noon on Sunday, so if I keep my typing quiet, his parents will leave me alone.

Reverend Poole has set up a website for people to tell their stories of possession. Already there are hundreds of posts and videos.

Nathan’s post is perfunctory, as if it’s been summarized from his earlier statements. He has not made a video. I don’t learn anything new.

Other stories are more elaborate. Some are clearly the work of nutjobs—clinically paranoid people who need professional help, not arenas in which to vent their hyperbolic conspiracy theories. Other testimonials, however, are almost painfully sincere. There’s a woman who genuinely feels that Satan struck her at the checkout line in the supermarket, filling her with the urge to steal. And there’s a man whose son killed himself, who believes that the son must have been possessed by real demons, rather than fighting the more metaphorical ones inside.

Since I only inhabit people around my age, I look for the teenagers. Poole must screen each and every thing that appears on the site, because there’s no parody, no sarcasm. So teenagers are few and far between. There is one, however, from Montana, whose story makes me shiver. He says he was possessed, but only for one day. Nothing major happened, but he knows he wasn’t in control of his body.

I have never been to Montana. I’m sure of it.

But what he’s describing is a lot like what I do.

There is a link on Poole’s site:

IF YOU BELIEVE THE DEVIL IS WITHIN YOU,

CLICK HERE OR CALL THIS NUMBER.

But if the devil is truly within you, why would he click or call?

I go on my old email and find that Nathan’s tried to get in touch with me again.

No proof, then?

Get help.

He even attaches the link to Poole’s page. I want to write back to him and point out that he and I talked just the other day. I want him to ask his friend AJ how his Monday was. I want him to fear that I could be there at any moment, in any person.

No, I think. Don’t feel that way.

It was so much easier when I didn’t want anything.

Not getting what you want can make you cruel.

I check my other email and find another message from Rhiannon. She tells me vaguely about her weekend and asks me vaguely about my weekend.

I try to sleep for the rest of the day.

Day 6015

I wake up, and I’m not four hours away from her, or one hour, or even fifteen minutes.

No, I wake up in her house.

In her room.

In her body.

At first I think I’m still asleep, dreaming. I open my eyes, and I could be in any girl’s room—a room she’s lived in for a long time, with Madame Alexander dolls sharing space with eyeliner pencils and fashion magazines. I am sure it is only a dreamworld trick when I access my identity and find it’s Rhiannon who appears. Have I had this dream before? I don’t think so. But in a way, it makes sense. If she’s the thought, the hope, the concern underneath my every waking moment, then why wouldn’t she permeate my sleeping hours as well?

But I’m not dreaming. I am feeling the pressure of the pillow against my face. I am feeling the sheets around my legs. I am breathing. In dreams, we never bother to breathe.

I instantly feel like the world has turned to glass. Every moment is delicate. Every movement is a risk. I know she wouldn’t want me here. I know the horror she would be feeling right now. The complete loss of control.

Everything I do could break something. Every word I say. Every move I make.

I look around some more. Some girls and boys obliterate their rooms as they grow older, thinking they have to banish all their younger incarnations in order to convincingly inhabit a new one. But Rhiannon is more secure with her past than that. I see pictures of her and her family when she is three, eight, ten, fourteen. A stuffed penguin still keeps watch over her bed. J. D. Salinger sits next to Dr. Seuss on her bookshelf.

I pick up one of the photographs. If I wanted to, I could try to access the day it was taken. It looks like she and her sister are at a county fair. Her sister is wearing some kind of prize ribbon. It would be so easy for me to find out what it is. But then it wouldn’t be Rhiannon telling me.

I want her here next to me, giving me the tour. Now I feel like I’ve broken in.

The only way to get through this is to live the day as Rhiannon would want me to. If she knows I was here—and I have a feeling she will—I want her to be certain that I didn’t take any advantage. I know instinctively that this is not the way I want to learn anything. This is not the way I want to gain anything.

Because of this, it feels like all I can do is lose.

This is how it feels to raise her arm.

This is how it feels to blink her eyes.

This is how it feels to turn her head.

This is how it feels to run her tongue over her lips, to put her feet on the floor.

This is the weight of her. This is the height of her. This is the angle from which she sees the world.

I could access every memory she has of me. I could access every memory she has of Justin. I could hear what she’s said when I haven’t been around.

“Hello.”

This is what her voice sounds like from the inside.

This is what her voice sounds like when she’s by herself.

Her mother shuffles past me in the hallway, awake but not by her own choice. It has been a long night for her, leading into a short morning. She says she’s going to try to go back to sleep, but adds that it’s not likely.

Rhiannon’s father is in the kitchen, about to leave for work. His “good morning” holds less complaint. But he’s in a rush, and I have a sense that those two words are all Rhiannon’s going to get. I get some cereal as he searches for his keys, then say a goodbye echo to his own quick goodbye.

I decide not to take a shower, or even to change out of last night’s underwear. When I go to the bathroom, I will keep my eyes closed. I feel naked enough looking in the mirror and seeing Rhiannon’s face. I can’t push it any further than that. Brushing her hair is already too intimate. Putting on makeup. Even putting on shoes. To experience her body’s balance within the world, the sensation of her skin from the inside, touching her face and receiving the touch from both sides—it’s unavoidable and incredibly intense. I try to think only as me, but I can’t stop feeling that I’m her.

I have to access to find my keys, then find my way to school. Maybe I should stay home, but I’m not sure I could bear being alone as her for that long without any distractions. The radio station is tuned to the news, which is unexpected. Her sister’s graduation tassel hangs from the rearview mirror.

I look to the passenger seat, expecting Rhiannon to be there, looking at me, telling me where to go.

I am going to try to avoid Justin. I go early to my locker, get my books, then head directly to my first class. As friends trickle into the classroom, I make as much conversation as I can. Nobody notices any difference—not because they don’t care, but because it’s early in the morning, and nobody’s expected to be fully there. I’ve been so hung up on Justin that I haven’t realized how much Rhiannon’s friends are part of her life. I realize that until now, the most I’ve really seen her full life has been when I was Amy Tran, visiting the school for the day. Because she doesn’t spend her day alone. These friends are not what she wants to escape when she makes her escape.

“Did you get to all the bio?” her friend Rebecca asks. At first I think she’s asking to copy my homework, but then I realize she’s offering hers. Sure enough, Rhiannon has a few problems left to do. I thank Rebecca and start copying away.

When class begins and the teacher starts to lecture, all I need to do is listen and take notes.

Remember this, I tell Rhiannon. Remember how ordinary it is.

I can’t help but get glimpses of things I’ve never seen before. Doodles in her notebook of trees and mountains. The light imprint her socks leave on her ankles. A small red birthmark at the base of her left thumb. These are probably things she never notices. But because I’m new to her, I see everything.

This is how it feels to hold a pencil in her hand.

This is how it feels to fill her lungs with air.

This is how it feels to press her back against the chair.

This is how it feels to touch her ear.

This is what the world sounds like to her. This is what she hears every day.

I allow myself one memory. I don’t choose it. It just rises, and I don’t cut it off.

Rebecca is sitting next to me, chewing gum. At one point in class, she’s so bored that she takes it out of her mouth and starts playing with it between her fingers. And I remember a time she did this in sixth grade. The teacher caught her, and Rebecca was so surprised at being caught that she startled, and the gum went flying from her hand and into Hannah Walker’s hair. Hannah didn’t know what had happened at first, and all the kids started laughing at her, making the teacher more furious. I was the one who leaned over and told her there was gum in her hair. I was the one who worked it out with my fingers, careful not to get it knotted farther in. I got it all out. I remember I got it all out.

I try to avoid Justin at lunch, but I fail.

I’m in a hallway nowhere near either of our lockers or the lunchroom, and he ends up being there, too. He’s not happy to see me or unhappy to see me; he regards my presence as a fact, no different than the bell between periods.