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"Go get some pills," he says e break apart

I hope my mom has some extra birth control I can slip hiether, and a forest So today I decide we should go to a mountain

A quick search shows me the nearest place to climb I have no idea if Rhiannon’s ever been there, but I’--her Converse don’t have a whole lot of tread left on the a water bottle and a phone with ain it’s a Monday, and the trails are largely clear Every now and then I’ll pass another hiker on his or her way down, and we’ll nod or say hello, in the way that people surrounded by acres of silence do The paths are haphazardly h I can feel the incline as it’sair I keep going

For our afternoon, I’ve decided to atte fully alone Not the lethargy of lying on the couch or the dull ht wandering in a sleeping house or the pain of being left in a room after the door has been slammed shut This alone is not a variation of any of those This alone is its own being Feeling the body, but not using it to sidetrack thenot with the person next to you, but with all of the ele sure not to slip, not to fall, not to get too lost, but lost enough

And at the end, the pause At the top, the view Grappling with the last steep incline, the final turns of the path, and finding yourself above it all It’s not that there’s a spectacular view It’s not that we’ve reached the peak of Everest But here we are, at the highest point the eye can see, not counting the clouds, the air, the lazy sun I aain; we are atop that tree The air feels cleaner because when the world is below us, we allow ourselves to breathe fully When no one else is around, we open ourselves to the quieter astonishments that enormity can offer

Remember this, I implore Rhiannon as I look out over the trees, as I catch her breath Remember this sensation Remember that ere here

I sit down on a rock and drink some water I know I am in her body, but it feels very much like she is here withthis

I have dinner with her parents When they ask me what I did today, I tell them I’m sure I tell them more than Rhiannon would, more than the day usually allows

"That sounds wonderful," her mother says

"Just be careful out there," her father adds Then he changes the conversation to soistered, becoain

I do her homework as best I can I don’t check her e there that she wouldn’t want me to see I don’t check my own email, because she’s the only person I’d want to hear froht table, but I don’t read it, for fear that she won’t reain anyway I thuazines

Finally, I decide to leave her a note It’s the only way she’ll know for sure that I’ve been here Another palpable temptation is to pretend that none of this has happened, to deny any accusation she makes based on whatever remnant of memory remains But I want to be truthful The only way this ork is if we are entirely truthful

So I tell her At the very beginning of my letter, I ask her to try to remember the day as much as possible before she reads on, so what I write won’t taint what’s really left in her mind I explain that I never would have chosen to be in her body, that it isn’t so I have control over I tell her I tried to respect her day as much as I kne, and that I hope not to have caused any disruption in her life Then, in her own handwriting, I map out our day for her It is the first time I’ve ever written to the person whose life I’ve occupied, and it feels both strange and co that Rhiannon will be the reader of these words There are so many explanations I can leave unsaid The fact that I a the letter at all is an expression of faith--faith both in her and in the belief that trust can lead to trust, and truth can lead to truth

This is how it feels as her eyelids close

This is how sleep will taste to her

This is how night touches her skin

This is how the house noises sing her to bed

This is the goodbye she feels every night This is how her day ends

I curl up in bed, still wearing lass recedes, the butterfly threat diine that we’re both here in this bed, thatat the sa in unison We have no need to whisper, because at this distance, all we need is thought Our eyes close at the saht Our breath slows together We split into different versions of the same dream Sleep takes us at the exact sa Where are you today? Instead of writing a long ehly two hours away from her when I read this email, in the body of a boy naeek, and his rooh to know that when he really, really likes a girl, he creates a font and names it after her