I gnaw at my lip. “The second stanza has to be directions for the fifth day, about how we’re supposed to switch back.”

We stare at stanza two for another three minutes.

Jamie gets up and starts pacing. She recites the first stanza aloud, and then what I have on the paper. “Something something feels … real?”

I nod. “I remember feels rhyming with real and thinking the poem was mediocre and childish.”

Jamie raises her/my brow sarcastically. “Ah, a critic. I’m sure the magical overlord of the universe is loving your feedback.”

I hold up a finger. “Your counterpart feels … hold on, I’ve got it!” I stand, my eyes retreating into my head as I force my brain back to that moment. “Once you’ve discerned how your counterpart feels!”

Jamie nods from the other side of the room. “To come back to yourself…” she whispers.

“Just share something real!” I scream and throw my hands up in the air. “We need to share something real!”

Jamie opens and closes her mouth like a dying fish.

“We did it!” I throw my hands out.

“We didn’t do anything,” she says. “We’re still not us.”

I sit back down. “Come sit across from me on the other bed again,” I instruct. “This should be easy; we just have to share something real.”

Jamie throws herself onto the bed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Share something that you felt during the switch!”

She settles herself crisscross applesauce. “You go first.”

“Fine.” I look directly at … myself who is Jamie and shake out my arms. “Okay … well I thought we were going to get closer by doing this, and that’s why I agreed … but it made me feel further away from you, Jamie. No matter what happens today, I want to be sisters after this. Ever since I was little and lost you, I’ve dreamed about having a sister. And now I do … I want to be the kind of sisters who invite each other over, and talk on the phone for hours, and go on trips with their significant others together, and depend on each other when things are bad, and … who eventually have kids that are best cousin friends.” I shrug. “I want loud, splashy Jamie sibling memories with you.” I feel a sneeze coming on.

“That doesn’t just happen over—” Jamie screams.

78. A Girl Is Having Trouble with This

JAMIE

September 8, Tuesday

Nevada

I fall backward as Siri sneezes and explodes into a cloud of sparkly particles.

I lunge forward off my bed, eyes burning, blindly flailing about. “Siri?!”

My hands land on a human. I fall into a squat, gripping what must be her elbows. She’s coughing.