C
I stare at her, suddenly wide awake, as a single thought echoes through my mind.
Vivi is here.
There is no way that she doesn’t know. She has no other reason to talk to me otherwise. The real question is how she found out. N seemed so happy last night. So much like the vision of everything I was ever going for. N has gotten so good at being extroverted. It comes so naturally to her—Unless, of course, N confessed of her own accord. But what reason would she have to do so?
“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to,” Amélie adds hurriedly. “I can just tell her you’re not feeling well and ask her to come back at another time. Maybe that’ll work best, huh?”
She gives a short nod and turns away, about to close the door behind her, but I sit up, prompting her to stop short.
“No, tell her I’ll be there in a moment.” I jump out of bed, fighting hard to keep moving through the vertigo that envelops my mind like impenetrable mist.
Mum watches me from the door as I throw open my closet, hurriedly picking out a fresh T-shirt and underwear.
“Are you sure?”
I know what she’s getting at, of course. My eyes are still sore from all the crying I did yesterday, and my hair is an absolute mess. But if Vivi knows that we swapped bodies, I can’t just leave her alone with that knowledge. I don’t even know if she went to N first, and whether she was able to appease her at all.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say, trying to sound confident. “But… maybe let her wait inside.”
She nods, and leaves to let Vivi inside as I get dressed as quickly as I possibly can. Really an upside to being a boy, that nobody cares if I don’t put in any effort—that nobody expects it. Well, I suppose Vivi wouldn’t care either way, but I still always thought about it.
When I’m dressed, I quickly run over into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, apply some deodorant, and wash my mouth with mouthwash before making my way downstairs.
Vivi looks great, as per usual. She’s still wearing her coat, and her hair is tied back into a tight-ish ponytail that looks relaxed but tidy.
She looks up when she sees me coming down the stairs, offering an awkward smile that tells me absolutely nothing about how much she knows.
I don’t hold her gaze for long, though, opting instead to focus at the stairs even though I know them blind by now.
“Hi,” she says in an unreadable tone. “I’m sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s no problem,” I reply, stopping on the last step, a respectful distance away. “How can I help you?” I know there’s not a chance she doesn’t know, but what if there is?
“I would like to talk to you, if that’s alright? Like, privately. We could go for a little walk?”
Right. Not a chance.
I give a nod. “Yeah, sure.” I have to turn sideways to fit past her to the shoe rack without touching her.
I feel her eyes on me as I tie my laces. They follow me as I get back to my feet and put on my coat and get my key.
I’m about to grab my scarf when she says, “It’s pretty warm outside. 10°, but the sun is shining, so it feels warmer.”
So I leave the scarf and turn to Amélie who’s just come through the living room door. “We’re going out for a bit. I don’t know how long we’ll be, so probably don’t wait for me for breakfast.”
“Of course. Have fun outside,” Amélie says, before stepping forward and offering me a little bottle. “You haven’t drank anything today, you should hydrate yourself.”
After that, we leave without further ado. It is indeed warmer than I expected, almost warm enough to be out in just a hoodie, definitely too warm to close my coat.
We walk in silence for some time. Vivi lets me lead the way, and I take us along my usual morning-run route.
Only when we’re far enough that nobody from my family has any chance to even see us talk, much less overhear anything, Vivi finally says, “I guessed it, yesterday at the party.”
I don’t look up. I knew this was coming. “How’d Chloe react?”
“Chloe?”
I look up then, and she’s watching me, dumbfounded.
“Why’d you call her that if I know—”
I give a vague shrug, turning my face into the sun. “It’s her name, isn’t it?”
“So should I call you Noel, then?”
The question gives me pause. Not because I don’t have an answer – the answer is yes, of course, because that’s my name – but because something in my stomach shifts at the idea. Not discomfort, necessarily, but not comfort, either.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “Call me whatever you like.”
We turn away from the suburban street and into the park where I spend the majority of my runs.
“She got really scared at first. Seemed like she was going to pass out for a moment. Hyperventilated for a full minute and I had to reassure her that I wouldn’t tell anybody before she could explain to me what had happened.”
“So she told you everything?”
For some reason, I’m surprised to find the trees still naked. They haven’t even started sprouting yet. Which I suppose makes sense, seeing how it’s still only late February. It’ll be the next full moon soon.
Vivi shrugs. “That she’s trans? That you agreed to give her your body, so she could live as a woman. That you don’t plan on changing back, even though you can?”
Right. Everything that’s relevant to Vivi, at least. I doubt she’d’ve mentioned the whole body-exploration thing.
“And how’d you react to that?”
“I mean, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But then I came up with the idea entirely on my own, so I was already kind of believing it anyway. Which feels even crazier, to be honest.”
Despite the temperature, the park is almost entirely empty. I suppose most of the Sunday-walkers are yet to arrive. So I take Vivi up a little hill. There’s a bench there I keep looking at during my runs, but it’s never been warm enough to sit there. Except now, and I’m not even alone.
“What are you going to do now?”
When I look up, I see that she’s watching me attentively, as if she were looking for something in my expression.
“I wanted to talk to you first. But I mean, what is there to do? Not like anybody’d believe me. And if this is what you chose to do—” Her expression shifts. “You did choose this, didn’t you? You can tell me, you know, if it wasn’t? I’m sure we can—”
I shake my head decisively. “It was my idea, it was my choice. I’m confident Chloe would let me swap back if I ever decided I wanted to.”
She gives a minute shake of her head and lets out a huff more than a laugh, like she still can’t quite believe the situation, or the fact that I’m calling N Chloe.
“Well, if that’s the case, it’s none of my business to interfere with that.”
We arrive by the bench and she takes her coat off before she sits down. A breeze picks up a few stray hairs she didn’t put back into the pony tail and moves them.
“I do have one—request, though.”
I sit stiffly on the edge of the bench, tensing only further at her words. “What is it?”
“I would like to hang out with you again, even in this body. I know—Noelle is probably nice and all, and sure, I can hang out with her and school and stuff, but she’s not you. And I want my best friend back, Chlo.”
My chest grows warm and I’m not sure whether it’s because of the nickname only she ever uses on me, or if it’s the fact that she still wants to be around me so much after I willingly ditched her.
Thoughts of yesterday night flash through my mind. I’m not a good person. I don’t deserve a friend like her.
“Yeah, sure. I’d like that.” My voice sounds mechanical and she notices as much.
Her brow furrows slightly before she asks, “Are you happier right now?”
I flinch, too fast to suppress the motion. “Do you think I’m not?” It comes out defensive.
Vivi shakes her head, eyes widening. “Course not, I don’t mean that. I’m genuinely curious. I imagine it must be difficult to live as an introverted boy all of a sudden when you’re—you.”
I’m standing at the edge of a ravine, looking down at the black void below me. She deserves to know, doesn’t she? She needs to understand why I’m doing this—
Whom am I even trying to kid? Hope is painful in my stomach at the prospect that she could know and still—
I go perfectly still as the ground holds my gaze in an iron grip. “I was never really that girl to begin with, you know?”
“What?”
I don’t look up. “It was all an act. Before you joined our school, I never really had any friends besides N. I was too odd and too bookish. Didn’t anybody tell you that? And—well, when she stopped talking to me, I had nobody, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone again, so I tried to make myself better. So I could be worthy of her friendship again. Really, I just copied you. Didn’t you ever notice? I am pretty much you.”
The park falls silent as I finish my little speech. When I finally look up, Vivi’s eyes are wide, and there’s something there I can’t quite put my finger on. Pain? Pity? The emotion vanishes as soon as our eyes meet, and she narrows her eyes appraisingly. The silence is just about to become unbearable when she shakes her head and says, “I’m flattered, but I don’t believe you.”
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. I expected anything: I expected she would get cruel, laugh, frown and say that I’m weird—I didn’t expect this.
“What? But why would I lie to you?”
“Correction, I believe you that you think it was all an act, but I don’t think that it was. Don’t flatter yourself, Chlo. You are good. You are maybe the most disciplined and committed person I know, but not even you could do that.” She leans forward, wetting her lips before she speaks on. “Tell me, do you not like hanging out with me?”
“Of course I do,” I protest, tensing at the implicit accusation.
“Or Lucy, or Lila, or Nur. Do you not like them?”
“No, I do like them.”
“See?” she says, tilting her head as if to indicate a shrug. “Then it wasn’t all an act. And even beyond that, when people ask you for help these days, do you really think you can stop yourself? Sure, you can tell yourself that it’s to uphold your great charade, but let’s not kid ourselves, you’re compulsive with these things.”
“Because I’m scared out of my mind that people might not like me!” I choke, pleading for her to understand. I don’t know why I care so much. Shouldn’t I be happy that she thinks I’m better than I am?
She scrunches up her nose and there’s a flash of pity in her eyes. “Okay, we’re definitely going to work on that, but how does that make a difference in whether you’re a good person? You do good things, you’re a giant net-plus for this society. In spite of all your insecurities, you’re the most amazing person I have ever met, and nobody can just become a person like you.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek. Gosh, why can I not stop crying right now? Irritatedly, I wipe away the tear, blinking rapidly to meet her eyes. Maybe it’s that I’m scared of leaving any doubt in my mind about whether her opinion of me can be swayed with honesty.
I want to say more, but before I can do that, her arms are around me, and she’s pulling me into a tight hug. “Never forget that, okay?” she says, her breath cradling my ear. “You’re amazing, and if Noelle doesn’t realise that, she’s not worthy of your love.”
My heart skips a beat, but I don’t let go. “How did you know?”
The low laughter that escapes her throat is barely more than a slight irregularity in her breath. “Chlo, I suspected even before I met you today, because who would ever give up their body like that? But now, after everything you told me, it’s even more obvious than the fact that Jason is in love with you. Or with Noelle, I guess.”
“You knew?”
She gives a disbelieving gasp. “You didn’t?”