The only way I can navigate through my life is because of the 98 percent that every life has in common.
I think of this as I go through the rituals of a Sunday morning at church. I keep looking at Roger’s mother, who is so tired, so taxed. I feel as much belief in her as I do in God—I find faith in human perseverance, even as the universe throws challenge after challenge our way. This might be one of the things I saw in Rhiannon, too—her desire to persevere.
After church, we head to Roger’s grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner. There’s no computer, and even if it weren’t a three-hour drive away, there wouldn’t be any way for me to get to Rhiannon. So I take it as a day of rest. I play games with my sisters and make a ring of hands with the rest of my family when it’s time to say grace.
The only discord comes when we’re driving home and a fight breaks out in the backseat. As sisters, they probably have closer to 99 percent in common, but they’re not about to recognize that. They’d rather fight over what kind of pet they’re going to get … even though I’m not sensing any indication from their mother that a pet is in their near future. It’s an argument for its own sake.
When we get home, I bide my time before asking if I can use the computer. It’s in a very public place, and I will need everyone to be in another room in order to check my email. While the three girls run around, I retire to Roger’s room and do his weekend homework the best that I can. I am banking on the fact that Roger has a later bedtime than his sisters, and in this I am correct. After Sunday supper, the girls get an hour of television in the same room as the computer. Then Roger’s mother tells them it’s time to get ready for bed. There’s much protest, but it falls on deaf ears. This is its own kind of ritual, and Mom always wins.
While Roger’s mother is getting the girls into their pajamas and getting out their clothes for tomorrow, I have a few minutes on my own. I quickly check the email I set up in the morning, and there’s no message from Rhiannon yet. I decide it can’t hurt to be proactive here, so I type in her address and start an email before I can stop myself.
Hi Rhiannon,
I just wanted to say that it was lovely meeting you and dancing with you last night. I’m sorry the police came and separated us. Even though you’re not my type, gender-wise, you’re certainly my type, person-wise. Please keep in touch.
N
That seems safe enough to me. Clever, but not self-congratulatorially so. Sincere, but not overbearing. It’s only a few lines, but I reread it at least a dozen times before I hit send. I let go of the words and wonder what words will come back. If any.
Bedtime seems to be taking a while—it sounds like there’s some argument about which chapter their read-aloud left off on—so I load up my personal email.
Such an ordinary gesture. One click, and the instant appearance of the inbox, in all its familiar rows.
But this time it’s like walking into a room and finding a bomb right in the middle of it.
There, under a bookstore newsletter, is an incoming message from none other than Nathan Daldry.
The subject line is WARNING.
I read:
I don’t know who you are or what you are or what you did to me yesterday, but I want you to know you won’t get away with it. I will not let you possess me or destroy my life. I will not remain quiet. I know what happened and I know you must be in some way responsible. Leave me alone. I am not your host.
“Are you okay?”
I turn and find Roger’s mother in the doorway.
“I’m fine,” I say, positioning myself in front of the screen.
“Alright, then. You have ten minutes more, then I want you to help me unload the dishwasher and head to bed. We have a long week ahead of us.”
“Okay, Mom. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I turn back to the email. I don’t know how to respond, or if I should respond. I have a vague recollection of Nathan’s mother interrupting me while I was on the computer—I must have closed the window without clearing the history. So when Nathan loaded up his email, it must have been my address that popped up. But he doesn’t know my password, so the account itself should be safe. Just in case, though, I know I need to change my password and move all my old emails, quick.
I will not remain quiet.
I wonder what this means.
I can’t forward all my old emails in the ten minutes that I have, but I start to make a dent in them.
“Roger!”
Roger’s mother calls me and I know I have to go. But clearing the history and turning off the computer can’t stop my thoughts. I think about Nathan waking up on the side of the road. I try to imagine what he must have felt. But the truth is, I don’t know. Did he feel like it was something he had gotten himself into? Or did he immediately know that something was wrong, that someone else had been in control? Was he sure of this when he went to his computer and saw my email address?
Who does he think I am?
What does he think I am?
I head into the kitchen and Roger’s mother gives me another look of concern. She and Roger are close, I can tell. She knows how to read her son. Over the years, they’ve been there for each other. He’s helped raise his sisters. And she’s raised him.
If I really were Roger, I could tell her everything. If I really were Roger, no matter how hard it was to understand, she would be on my side. Fiercely. Unconditionally.
But I am not really her son, or anyone’s son. I can’t disclose what’s bothering Roger today, because it doesn’t have much bearing on who he’ll be tomorrow. So I brush off his mother’s concern, tell her it’s no big deal, then help her take the dishes out of the dishwasher. We work in quiet camaraderie until the task is done, and sleep calls.
For a while, though, I can’t go to sleep. I lie in bed, stare at the ceiling. This is the irony: Even though I wake up in a different body every morning, I’ve always felt in some way that I am in control.
But now I don’t feel in control at all.
Now there are other people involved.
Day 6001
The next morning, I am even farther from Rhiannon.
I’m four hours away, and in the body of Margaret Weiss. Luckily, Margaret has a laptop that I can check before we go to school.
There’s an email waiting from Rhiannon.
Nathan!
I’m so glad you emailed, because I lost the slip of paper that I wrote your email on. It was wonderful talking and dancing with you, too. How dare the police break us up! You’re my type, personwise, too. Even if you don’t believe in relationships that last longer than a year. (I’m not saying you’re wrong, btw. Jury’s still out.)
I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Steve has another party soon. If only so you can bear witness to its evil.
Love,
Rhiannon
I can imagine her smiling when she wrote this, and this makes me smile, too.
Then I open my other account, and there’s another email from Nathan.
I have given the police this email address. Don’t think you can get away with this.
The police?
Quickly I type Nathan’s name into a search engine. A news item comes up, dated this morning.
THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT
Local boy, pulled over by police,
claims demonic possession
When police officers found Nathan Daldry, 16, of 22 Arden Lane, sleeping in his vehicle along the side of Route 23 early Sunday morning, they had no idea the story he would tell. Most teenagers would blame their condition on alcohol use, but not Daldry. He claimed no knowledge of how he had gotten where he was. The answer, he said, was that he must have been possessed by a demon.
“It was like I was sleepwalking,” Daldry tells the Crier. “The whole day, this thing was in charge of my body. It made me lie to my parents and drive to a party in a town I’ve never been to. I don’t really remember the details. I only know it wasn’t me.”
To make matters
more mysterious, Daldry says that when he returned home, someone else’s email was on his computer.
“I wasn’t myself,” he says.
Officer Lance Houston of the state police says that because there was no sign of alcohol use and because the car wasn’t reported stolen, Daldry was not being charged with any offense.
“Look, I’m sure he has reasons for saying what he’s saying. All I can tell you is that he didn’t do anything illegal,” says Houston.
But that’s not enough for Daldry.
“If anyone else has experienced this, I want them to come forward,” he says. “I can’t be the only one.”
It’s a local paper’s website, nothing to worry too much about. And the police don’t seem to feel it’s a particularly pressing case. But still, I’m worried. In all my years, I’ve never had someone do this to me before.
It’s not that I can’t imagine how it happened: Nathan is woken up on the side of the road by a police officer tapping on his window. Maybe there are even flashing lights bathing the darkness in red and blue. Within seconds, Nathan realizes what kind of trouble he’s in—it’s well past midnight, and his parents are going to kill him. His clothes smell like cigarettes and alcohol, and he has no way of remembering whether or not he was drunk or high. He is a blank—a sleepwalker waking up. Only … he has a sense of me. Some lone memory of not being himself. When the officer asks him what’s going on, he says he doesn’t know. When the officer asks him where he’s been, he says he doesn’t know. The officer gets him out of the car, makes him take a Breathalyzer test. Nathan proves to be stone-cold sober. But the officer still wants answers, so Nathan tells him the truth—that his body was taken over. Only, he can’t imagine anyone who takes over bodies except for the devil. This is going to be his story. He is a good kid—he knows that everybody will back him up on that. They’re going to believe him.
The officer just wants him to get home safely. Maybe he even escorts Nathan home, calling ahead to his parents. They’re awake when Nathan gets there. They’re angry and concerned. He repeats his story to them. They don’t know what to believe. Meanwhile, some reporter hears the officer talking about it on the shortwave, or maybe it gets around the station. The teenager who snuck off to a party and then tried to blame it on the devil. The reporter calls the Daldry home on Sunday, and Nathan decides to talk. Because that will make it more real, won’t it?
I feel both guilty and defensive. Guilty because I did this to Nathan, whatever my intentions. Defensive because I certainly didn’t force him to react in this way, which will only make it worse for him, if not me.
In the one-in-a-million chance that Nathan can persuade someone to trace my emails, I realize I can’t check this account from people’s homes anymore. Because if he can do that, he’ll be able to chart most of the houses I’ve been in over the past two or three years … which will lead to a lot of confusing conversations.
Part of me wants to write back to him, to explain. But I’m not sure any explanation will be enough. Especially because I don’t have most of the answers. I gave up on figuring out why a long time ago. I am guessing Nathan won’t give up as easily.
Margaret Weiss’s boyfriend, Sam, likes to kiss her. A lot. Public, private—it doesn’t matter. If he gets a chance to make a move, he does.
I am not in the mood.
Margaret quickly comes down with a cold. The kissing stops, and the doting begins. Sam is rather smitten, and he surrounds Margaret with the sweet quicksand of his love. From recent memories, I can tell that Margaret is usually just as willing to do the same. Everything comes second to being with Sam. It’s a miracle that she still has friends.
There’s a quiz in science. Judging from my accessing, it appears that I know more about the subject than Margaret does. It’s her lucky day.
I am dying to get on one of the school computers, but I have to get rid of Sam first. Even though I’ve separated them at the lips, I can’t seem to get Sam and Margaret separated at the hips. At lunch, he puts one of his hands in her back pocket while he eats, and then pouts when Margaret doesn’t do the same thing. They then have study hall together, and he spends all of it stroking her and talking to her about the movie they saw last night.
Eighth period is the only class they don’t have together, so I decide to run with it. As soon as Sam drops her off at the classroom door, I have her go to the teacher, say she’s going to the nurse, and head straight to the library.
First, I finish forwarding all my emails from my old account. All that remains are the two emails from Nathan; I can’t bring myself to delete them, just as I can’t bring myself to delete the account. For some reason, I want him to be able to contact me. I feel that much responsibility.
I load up the new email account, with the intention of writing Rhiannon back. Much to my surprise, there’s already another email from her. Giddy, I open it.
Nathan,
Apparently, Steve doesn’t have a cousin Nathan, and none of his cousins were at his party. Care to explain?
Rhiannon
I don’t deliberate. I don’t weigh my options. I just type and hit send.
Rhiannon,
I can, indeed, explain. Can we meet up? It’s the kind of explanation that needs to be done in person.
Love,
Nathan
It’s not that I’m planning to tell the truth. I just want to give myself time to think of the best lie.
The last bell rings, and I know Sam will be looking for Margaret soon. When I find him at his locker, he acts as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks. When I kiss him, I pretend I am practicing for Rhiannon. When I kiss him, it feels almost disloyal to Rhiannon. When I kiss him, my mind is hours away, with her.
Day 6002
The universe, it seems, is on my side the next morning, because when I wake up in the body of Megan Powell, I also wake up a mere hour away from Rhiannon.
Then, when I check my email, there’s a message from her.
Nathan,
This better be a good explanation. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop at the Clover Bookstore at 5.
Rhiannon
To which I reply:
Rhiannon,
I’ll be there. Although not in a way you might expect.
Bear with me and hear me out.
A
Megan Powell is going to have to leave cheerleading practice a little early today. I go through her closet and pick the outfit that most looks like something Rhiannon would wear; I’ve found that people tend to trust other people who dress like them. And whatever I do, I am going to need all the trust I can get.
The whole day, I think about what I’m going to say to her, and what she’s going to say. It feels entirely dangerous to tell her the truth. I have never told anyone the truth. I have never come close.
But none of the lies fit well. And the more I stumble through possible lies, I realize I am heading in the direction of telling her everything. I am learning that a life isn’t real unless someone else knows its reality. And I want my life to be real.
If I’ve gotten used to my life, could somebody else?
If she believes in me, if she feels the enormity like I do, she will believe in this.
And if she doesn’t believe in me, if she doesn’t feel the enormity, then I will simply seem like one more crazy person let loose on the world.
There’s not much to lose in that.
But, of course, it will feel like losing everything.
I manufacture a doctor’s appointment for Megan, and at four o’clock, I’m on the road to Rhiannon’s town.
There’s some traffic, and I get a little lost, so I’m ten minutes late to the bookstore. I look in the café window and see her sitting there, flipping through a magazine, looking up at the door every now and then. I want to keep her like this, hold her in this moment. I know everything is about to change, and I fear that one day I will long for this minute before anything is said, that I will want to travel back in time and undo wh
at’s coming next.
Megan is not, of course, who Rhiannon’s looking for. So she’s a little startled when I come over to her table and sit down.
“I’m sorry—that seat’s taken,” she says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Nathan sent me.”
“He sent you? Where is he?” Rhiannon is looking around the room, as if he’s hiding somewhere behind a bookshelf.
I look around, too. There are other people near us, but none of them seem to be within earshot. I know I should ask Rhiannon to take a walk with me, that there shouldn’t be any people around when I tell her. But I don’t know why she’d go with me, and it would probably scare her if I asked. I will have to tell her here.
“Rhiannon,” I say. I look in her eyes, and I feel it again. That connection. That feeling of so much beyond us. That recognition.
I don’t know if she feels it, too, not for sure, but she stays where she is. She returns my gaze. She holds the connection.
“Yes?” she whispers.