Chapters (37)
- COVER
- DEDICATION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- ONE MONTH LATER
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- SEVEN YEARS AGO
- TWENTY-THREE
- THE PRESENT
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- DISCOVER MORE
“You lied at the DMV when you got your driver’s license. You told them you were five feet when you’re actually four foot eleven and a half.”
Holden’s eyes widened to the size of hard-boiled eggs. “Oh my god, it’s you.”
“It’s me!”
“You’re a girl!”
“I’m a girl!”
“I’d hug you,” said Holden, “but…” He glanced trepidatiously at my tits.
I hugged him anyway. I squeezed him like I was stranded in the middle of the ocean, and he was the only thing for miles that floated.
And then I felt something nudge my thigh.
Something that was level with Holden’s pelvis.
Holden and I yelped and broke apart simultaneously.
“I told you!” said Holden. “I told you. I’m the same height as your tits. You can’t hug me if I’m the same height as your tits. Not to mention you’re Wynonna, and I like Wynonna, and… Oh my god.”
“What?” I said, while simultaneously trying to incinerate the memory of Holden’s nudging penis etched in my mental archives of traumatizing experiences.
“I didn’t start liking Wynonna until the week after the eclipse—while you were Wynonna.”
Oh.
“So which Wynonna do I like? Wynonna-Wynonna or You-Wynonna?”
I sighed. “Look, it was a fucked-up thing Wynonna and I were doing. I was helping her get you to like her, and she was helping me get Imogen to like me. It was manipulative and wrong.”
“So Wynonna likes me?”
I thought about my conversation with Wynezra the other day. How she thought we were turning into each other. I mean, maybe she was right to a degree, but…
But I was definitely not into Holden’s inadvertent penis nudge. Maybe Wynonna wouldn’t have been into it either. But I knew I wasn’t.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “We’ve been stuck in each other’s body for a whole month now. No swapping. We’ve actually been stuck ever since the double date.”
“Holy shit.”
“And I think being in each other’s body for so long is affecting… what we like.”
Holden stared at me for a devastating moment. “What do you mean?”
I related to Holden my entire conversation with Wynonna—the Almond Joy, the pork rinds, the uncertainty over her feelings for Holden, and her literal boner for Imogen.
“No!” said Holden softly, in faraway, detached horror. “You like pork rinds?”
I laughed.
“Just kidding,” he said. “I don’t care about the pork rinds. I’m just really sad that Wynonna doesn’t like me anymore.”
“She didn’t say she doesn’t like you. She’s just… uncertain.”
“But all this time, I’ve been eating lunch with Wynonna?”
I nodded solemnly.
Holden’s eyes inflated, suddenly engorged with horror. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“I’ve been picking my nose in front of her.”