Page 111 of Switch!

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What color am I?”

“Purple with some whitish-blue. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ve got a rare color?” Trixie pulls back, fist trembling in celebration. “Yes! What color do most people have?”

“A lot of the couples I’ve seen are either magenta or orange. Sometimes both. The job interview guy was pure green.”

“Sounds like there might be a pattern.” Trixie leans forward to grab the laptop before shaking her head. “We’re getting sidetracked. You promised to possess me. I want myBeetlejuicemoment.”

I laugh. “Okay. I’ll try again.”

This time I don’t hesitate. The instant I leave Patrick’s body, I shoot toward Trixie, but the same thing happens again. I ricochet off her like a ball striking a wall. Charging in isn’t working. Maybe a more subtle approach is required. I will myself to move near her. Then I reach out a hand and… stare, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I’ve never seen myself like this before. I’m usually hurrying while in the void, intent on reaching another body so I won’t suffocate like a fish out of water. The hand in front of me is made of purple light, but I still feel emotional when seeing thin and bony fingers because I’m seeingmyhand, not anyone else’s.

My strength begins to ebb, reminding me of the task at hand. I reach out and touch Trixie, placing a palm over the center of her chest. As soon as contact is made, the place where we’re touching sizzles and snaps, like one of those electric bug zappers. I don’t know if that’s normal. The sensation doesn’t hurt exactly so I push, seeing if I can gently break through the surface. It takes all my will and concentration before it finally works. My hand disappears inside her chest, followed by my arm and then the rest of me as—

FIRE!

A searing pain consumes me, like I’ve been tossed into bubbling lava. Burning, burning, burning! The agony overrides any rational thought. I’m reduced to instinct as I flee, bouncing around inside her like a maddened bee trapped in a car. When I finally escape, I shoot back to Patrick’s body and sit upright, my eyes wide in panic as I suck in air. I can still feel the scorching of my soul, but it’s soon reduced to a smolder, and a few seconds later, a sizzle that continues to fade.

“What was that?” Trixie says from next to me. “Was that you? Why are you so cold?”

“Cold?” I repeat incredulously. “Why are you so hot?”

Under different circumstances, she might have turned that into a joke. Instead she shivers and rubs her arms, as if to warm them. “It felt terrible,” she murmurs.

“That’s not how it usually works,” I tell her. “I promise. We aren’t putting people through that kind of… It freaking hurt!”

“Yeah, like frostbite.”

“No, more like a really bad sunburn.”

We stare at each other in mutual confusion. I’m the first to come up with a theory. “Maybe it’s because you’re a girl.”

Trixie groans. “Don’t tell me the gender divide exists in the spirit realm too.”

“I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because you’re different. You have these…thingson the side of your head.” I put my hands behind my ears and wiggle my fingers.

Trixie’s mouth drops open. “Nobody else has those?”

“Not that I’ve seen so far.”

“I’m such a freak.” This revelation seems to please her, judging from the slow grin that unfurls on her face. “So awesome!”

I’m relieved that she’s acting like her usual self, and that she doesn’t seem traumatized by the experience. “Do you think it has something to do with your ability? I mean, you can hear when people are lying or telling the truth. That all goes through your ears, right?”

“Maybe,” Trixie says. “What do you look like in the void?”

“Like my true self. The body I was born in.”

“What color are you?”

“Similar to yours, except a deeper purple.”

“Huh,” Trixie says, grabbing the laptop. “This calls for an update.”

I wish I hadn’t failed. I wanted to make her happy, but she seems perfectly content as we take more notes, writing down the details and trying to make sense of it all. The notebook is officially gone. We destroyed it after transferring the last of the information to the cloud storage I barely used in my old life. I never had anything interesting to upload then. Now I have weird secrets and silly photos that Trixie and I have taken together. I even managed to download images from Caleb’s phone that were automatically backed up to his own cloud storage. I typed his go-to password often enough while living in his body that I still have it memorized. The photos of that life are a bittersweet reminder of how much can change with little warning. No more happy dates with Sarah or weekends goofing off with Eddie. I don’t want to lose touch with Trixie in that way, regardless of what happens, but I’m hopeful. Much like the data we’re compiling and uploading, she’ll still be there no matter what body I change into—a friend I never have to part with.