“I know,” I say.

She’s gotten us coffee, and we sit there at the table with the cups sheltered in our hands.

I see some of the things I noticed yesterday—the birthmark, the scattering of pimples on her forehead. But they don’t matter to me nearly as much as the complete picture.

She doesn’t seem freaked out. She doesn’t seem angry. If anything, she seems at peace with what’s happened. When the shock wears off, you always hope there’s understanding underneath. And with Rhiannon, it seems as if the understanding has already surfaced. Any vestige of doubt has been swept away.

“I woke up and I knew something was different,” she tells me. “Even before I saw your letter. It wasn’t the usual disorientation. But I didn’t feel like I’d missed a day. It was like I woke up and something had been … added. Then I saw your letter and started reading, and immediately I knew it was true. It had actually happened. I stopped when you told me to stop, and tried to remember everything about yesterday. It was all there. Not the things I’d usually forget, like waking up or brushing my teeth. But climbing that mountain. Having lunch with Justin. Dinner with my parents. Even writing the letter itself—I had a memory of that. It shouldn’t make sense—why would I write a letter to myself for the next morning? But in my mind, it makes sense.”

“Do you feel me there? In your memories.”

She shakes her head. “Not in the way you’d think. I don’t feel you in control of things, or in my body, or anything. I feel like you were with me. Like, I can feel your presence there, but it’s outside of me.”

She stops. Starts again. “It’s insane that we’re having this conversation.”

But I want to know more.

“I wanted you to remember everything,” I tell her. “And it sounds like your mind went along with that. Or maybe it wanted you to remember everything, too.”

“I don’t know. I’m just glad I do.”

We talk more about the day, more about how strange this is. Finally, she says, “Thank you for not messing up my life. And for keeping my clothes on. Unless, of course, you didn’t want me to remember that you sneaked a peek.”

“No peeks were sneaked.”

“I believe you. Amazingly, I believe you about everything.”

I can tell there’s something else she wants to say.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s just—do you feel you know me more now? Because the weird thing is … I feel I know you more. Because of what you did, and what you didn’t do. Isn’t that strange? I would have thought that you would’ve found out more about me … but I’m not sure that’s true.”

“I got to meet your parents,” I say.

“And what was your impression?”

“I think they both care about you, in their own way.”

She laughs. “Well said.”

“Well, it was nice to meet them.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that when you really meet them. ‘Mom and Dad, this is A. You think you’re meeting him for the first time, but actually, you’ve met him before, when he was in my body.’ ”

“I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

Of course, we both know it won’t go over at all. There’s no way for me to meet her parents. Not as myself.

I don’t say it, and neither does she. I don’t even know if she’s thinking it in the pause that ensues. But I am.

“It can never happen again, right?” she eventually asks. “You’re never the same person twice.”

“Correct. It will never happen again.”

“No offense, but I’m relieved I don’t have to go to sleep wondering if I’m going to wake up with you in control. Once, I guess I can deal with. But don’t make a habit of it.”

“I promise—I want to make a habit of being with you, but not that way.”

And there it is: I had to go and bring up the issue of where we go from here. We got through the past, are enjoying the present, but now I push it and we stumble on the future.

“You’ve seen my life,” she says. “Tell me a way you think this can work.”

“We’ll find a way,” I tell her.

“That’s not an answer. It’s a hope.”

“Hope’s gotten us this far. Not answers.”

She gives me a hint of a grin. “Good point.” She takes a sip of coffee, and I can tell another question’s coming. “I know this is weird, but … I keep wondering. Are you really not a boy or a girl? I mean, when you were in my body, did you feel more … at home than you would in the body of a boy?”

It’s interesting to me that this is the thing she’s hung up on.

“I’m just me,” I tell her. “I always feel at home and I never feel at home. That’s just the way it is.”

“And when you’re kissing someone?”

“Same thing.”

“And during sex?”

“Is Dylan blushing?” I ask. “Right now, is he blushing?”

“Yeah,” Rhiannon says.

“Good. Because I know I am.”

“You’ve never had—?”

“It wouldn’t be fair of me to—”

“Never!”

“I am so glad you find this funny.”

“Sorry.”

“There was this one girl.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Yesterday. When I was in your body. Don’t you remember? I think you might have gotten her pregnant.”

“That’s not funny!” she says. But she’s laughing.

“I only have eyes for you,” I say.

Just six words, and the conversation turns serious again. I can feel it like a shift in the air, like when a cloud moves over the sun. The laughter stops, and we sit there in the moment after it’s faded away.

“A—” she starts. But I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about Justin or impossibilities or any of the other reasons why we can’t be together.

“Not now,” I say. “Let’s stay on the nice note.”

“Okay,” she says. “I can do that.”

She asks me about more of the things I noticed when I was in her body, and I tell her about the birthmark, about different people I noticed in her classes, about her parents’ concern. I share the Rebecca memory, but don’t tell her my observations about Justin, because she already knows those things, whether or not she admits them to me or herself. And I don’t mention the slight wrinkles around her eyes or her pimples, because I know they would bother her, even when they add something real to her beauty.

Both of us have to be home for dinner, but the only way I’m willing to let her leave is to extract a promise that we’ll share time together soon. Tomorrow. Or if not tomorrow, the next day.

“How can I say no?” she says. “I’m dying to see who you’ll be next.”

I know it’s a joke, but I have to tell her, “I’ll always be A.”

She stands up and kisses me on the forehead.

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I want to see you.”

We leave on a nice note.

Day 6017

I have gone two days without thinking about Nathan, but it’s clear that Nathan hasn’t gone two days without thinking about me.

7:30 p.m., MONDAY

I still want proof.

8:14 p.m., MONDAY

Why aren’t you talking to me?

11:43 p.m., MONDAY

You did this to me. I deserve an explanation.

6:13 a.m., TUESDAY

I can’t sleep anymore. I wonder if you’re going to come back. I wonder what you’ll do to me. Are you mad?

2:30 p.m., TUESDAY

You have to be the devil. Only the devil would leave me like this.

2:12 a.m., WEDNESDAY

Do you have any idea what it’s like for me now?

The burden I feel is the burden of responsibility, which is a tricky one to deal with. It makes me slower, heavier. But at the same time, it prevents me from floating away into meaninglessness.

It is six in the morning; Vanessa Martinez has gotten up early. After reading Nathan’s emails, I think about what Rhiannon said, what Rhiannon feared. Nathan deserves no less of a response from me.

It will never happen again. That is an absolute. I can’t explain much more than that, but this much I know: It only happens once. Then you move on.

He writes me back two minutes later.

Who are you? How am I supposed to believe you?

I know that any response I give runs the risk of being posted on Reverend Poole’s website within seconds. I don’t want to give him my real name. But I feel if I give him a name, it will make it less likely he sees me as the devil, and more likely he will see me for what I am: just a person like him.

My name is Andrew. You need to believe me because I am the only person who truly understands what happened to you.

Not surprisingly, he replies with:

Prove it.

I tell him:

You went to a party. You didn’t drink. You chatted with a girl there. Eventually she asked you if you wanted to go dance in the basement. You did. And for about an hour, you danced. You lost track of time. You lost track of yourself. And it was one of the most fantastic moments of your life. I don’t know if you remember it, but there will probably come a time when you are dancing like that again, and it will feel familiar, you will know you’ve done it before. That will be the day you forgot. That’s how you’ll get that part of it back.

This isn’t enough.

But why was I there?

I try to keep it simple.

You were there to talk to the girl. For just that one day, you wanted to talk to that girl.

He asks:

What is her name?

I can’t get her involved. I can’t explain the whole story. So I choose to evade.

That’s not important. The important thing is that for a short time, it was worth it. You were having so much fun that you lost track of time. That’s why you were at the side of the road. You didn’t drink. You didn’t crash. You just ran out of time.

I’m sure it was scary. I’m positive it’s hard to comprehend. But it will never happen again.

Answerless questions can destroy you. Move on.

It’s the truth, but it’s not enough.

That would be easy for you, right? If I moved on.

Every chance I give him, every truth I tell him, lightens the burden of my responsibility that much more. I sympathize with his confusion, but I feel nothing toward his hostility.

Nathan, what you do or don’t do is no concern of mine. I’m just trying to help. You’re a good guy. I am not your enemy. I never have been. Our paths just happened to cross. Now they’ve diverged.

I’m going to go now.

I close the window, then open a new one to see if Rhiannon will appear in it. I realize I haven’t yet determined how far away I am from her, and am disheartened to find she’s nearly four hours away. I break the news to her in an email, and an hour later she says that it was going to be hard to meet up today, anyway. So we aim for tomorrow.

In the meantime, there’s Vanessa Martinez to contend with. She runs at least two miles every morning, and I am already late for the routine. She has to make do with a single mile, and I can almost hear her chiding me for it. At breakfast, though, nobody else says anything—Vanessa’s parents and sister seem genuinely afraid of her.

This is my first tipoff to something I will see evidenced again and again throughout the day: Vanessa Martinez is not a kind person.

It’s there when she meets up with her friends at the start of school. They, too, are afraid of her. They’re not dressed identically, but it’s clear they’ve all dressed within the same sartorial guidelines, dictated by you-know-who.