Dumb move. I am taller than her. Bigger than her. I could beat the shit out of her. I could smash her face in. I could break her arm in three places. I could put my hands around her throat and strangle her right here and that would be that. She is entirely at my mercy because there is nothing to hold me accountable. She has no idea what kind of stupid danger she’s in as she swats at me and screams. If I weren’t finding it so funny, I could start hitting back. I could take the lamp off her desk and bash it down. I could knock out her teeth or crack her skull. She has no idea. She thinks her boyfriend is here. She thinks her boyfriend would never do that. But if I wanted to, I could do it. I have all the power here.
She swings at me and I catch her arm. I yank it behind her back. Her anger turns to terror. This guy’s never come close to crossing this line.
She wriggles in my grip. I lean into her ear and whisper, “You text too much.”
She starts to really scream. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” I let her break free. She screams it again. “GET OUT!”
I know how this plays out. In a minute, maybe less, there will be a knock at the door, a friend or floormate asking if everything’s okay. Worst-case scenario, I’m face to face with a campus cop.
Or at least that’s the worst-case scenario for me. For Girlfriend, there are even worse options.
But I’m tired now. There’s always a point in a joke like this when it stops being funny enough to merit the mental energy it’s taking. She’s shaking and crying now, looking at him in horror. I try to take it in as much as I can, so when he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll feel the echo of his own horror, vaguely remembering what happened but having no idea why he did what he did. It’ll probably drive him crazy. She’ll never forgive him.
I guess that’s enough for me.
“See ya,” I say. There’s a teddy bear on her bed, clearly beloved. I grab it and take it with me, for effect.
In the hall, there are three people who’ve been listening in, debating what to do. When I pass them, I say hey, and one of them says hey back to me.
Girlfriend needs a better support system. But that’s not really my problem.
I can’t go back to this guy’s room now, just in case there’s going to be some immediate follow-up to what just happened. It’s better to keep him out of the way until he’s himself again and has to deal with it.
I leave the car behind. I walk awhile. When I have to pee, I pee, shocking a pair of elderly women out for an afternoon stroll. I consider peeing on them, but even the elderly carry phones nowadays, and I’m not in the mood to be in the back of a patrol car. I think for a moment about leaving this guy with a broken leg or spine—maybe if he’s in traction, Girlfriend will somehow feel like it’s her fault, which would be an interesting twist. But it’s too hard to time it so I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain and mess. Better to make a clean departure. Lucky boy.
I get him a hotel room. Let him wonder tomorrow how he got there and what the phone number on his arm means. Let the rest dawn on him. His life is about to get very ugly.
When sleep comes, I’m sure to let go fully—I bring his memories to the front of his mind, and give up on my presence entirely.
The next morning, I wake up inside someone else, and within a few minutes I know I’ve done well. A divorced divorce lawyer. Rich and miserable. His kids no longer speak to him. His hypochondria is acute. His hair is greasy; his shirts all have small splattered-soup stains that only a person who doesn’t care could ignore. There’s no one around to tell him to take his shirts to the cleaners, no one around to take out the trash when he’s worried he’ll throw out his back. It’s almost like he welcomes me when I arrive. The less time he has to spend in his own life, the better.
I can use that.
NATHAN
It’s not that we hit dead ends. There aren’t even roads to turn onto.
I can tell Rhiannon’s boyfriend, Alexander, is a little confused by my sudden presence in her life. He can’t put his finger on what connects us…and who can blame him for that? She told him we met at a party—technically true. But there’s no way to tell him the reason I’m so attentive isn’t because I want to sleep with her or date her. I’m attentive because she’s the only one besides me who knows the most unknowable thing about my life.
A lot of the couples in my school are glued together emotionally, but Alexander is all about them having their own lives—which is great for me, because it means he doesn’t get all weird when he comes over and finds me and Rhiannon on her computer, searching the Internet for news of body snatchings.
“Watching more Lorraine Hines videos?” he asks. This is a pretty good guess, since it feels like everyone’s been watching them lately.
“Just searching for the elusive truth,” Rhiannon replies. Which could be taken to mean we were trying to get the elusive truth from a Lorraine Hines video. But I know A’s location is the real truth that eludes her.
I don’t know how Rhiannon does it. It’s clear that she likes Alexander. It’s clear that he treats her well, and that Rhiannon is still getting used to the thought of being treated well. I also notice that she never lies to him, if only because he doesn’t know the right questions to ask. And even if he did, even if she told him everything…the strange part is that he might actually believe her. Us. But I can see how it’s easier not to risk that.
We search and search the Internet for some trace of A. We read about other people’s experiences of being taken over, and wonder whether they’re like us, or whether they’re just crackpots, making it up in a way we’re not making it up.
Finally I ask her the question that’s been nagging at me the most. We’re in her room, looking at the same “strange phenomena” websites for the twelfth time.
“We’re looking for a sign of him, right?” I say.
Rhiannon nods.
I press on. “What about leaving him a sign? Why not let him know you’re looking?”
“How?” she says. She sounds defensive.
“There’s this thing called social media? And you have a pretty distinctive name?”
“What am I supposed to say? Status update: Missing you, A. Alexander will see that and say, Hey, babe, I’m right here.”
“He wouldn’t actually say babe, would he? Ew.”
“No. But anything I post, everyone sees. Not just A.”
“You don’t need to write him a message. Just give him a sign.”
“Like what?”
I think about it for a second. “Do you guys have, like, a song?”