Isaac/Ainsley: If you know what's right...

I was awake at about 2 AM the night we finally got thirteen people at the Inn. The change hadn't happened yet, and really, I don't understand how anyone who knows what's about to happen to them is capable of sleeping through it. I wasn't even looking at my phone. Something felt dirty about doomscrolling while waiting for something with this much significance. Instead I just sat there, cross-legged and staring at the wall in some kind of meditative pose as if meditation's something I actually know anything about. But when my phone buzzed, I picked it up anyway.

It was Heather, calling from the room next door. Physically visiting was out of the question for fear of ending up in the wrong bodies.

"Hey, hey Isaac, you're still up, right?" Sara's voice sounded like she'd been drinking. The last year's keyed me into a lot of the tells.

"Yeah? You okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Totally." I think she sniffled. "I want you to give me one good reason I shouldn't run away right now."

"What?"

"Like. Like from the Inn. Away from here. Before... y'know."

"You're not actually going to--"

"Tell me."

"Well." I took a deep breath. "You'd ruin everything for Sara. You know that. And for Ainsley, and for me and everyone else at the Inn right now if we can't get get someone to take your body on short notice, and it, it's wrong, you know--"

"I know!" Heather sputtered. "I know I know I know I know I know!!! I'd be horrible, a-a monster, it fucks everything up forever, I know. I don't need you to tell me that. 'Cept for how I just did, I guess." She found it in herself to laugh a bit at her own joke.

"So why--"

"I wasn't planning on it when we came in here. To Maine. I mean, Marvin put you through all that crap and he still handed over your body, and I'm not gonna be worse than him, right? But it's- it's different when you know it's coming for real, the gun's aimed at your head and you know you're gonna wake up sick and it's all gonna hit you all at once and I. I can't stop thinking about it! It's a whole, fight-or-flight, thing. God. Does this happen to everyone here who knows they're about to get a couple decades older and they're all too ashamed to admit it or did I just screw up my life that bad!?"

"It's gonna be okay," I said, after a lengthy pause in which I failed to come up with anything besides a platitude. I didn't really believe it. I picked that one up from Ainsley's friends and I don't know if they believed it either.

"Pfft. Sure." She sniffled some more. "Y'know? This was the best year I've had since, since... I don't even wanna think about it. I got to be bright and fun and cool and risky and energetic and I stole it all from someone else!! And I feel terrible about it, but, I won the Inn, Isaac. So many people get completely ruined by this place but I won, and if I were more of a piece of shit than I am I just never would've come back here. I don't have anything to come back to, I was, I am this warped, bitter shell and my kids don't want anything to do with me 'cause I ruined that too and I'm on track to die sad. I see it coming. And now I'm in this body that wants to live but I'm going back, by choice, 'cause if I don't ignore everything in me screaming to run away I'll never be able to sleep at night again."

I didn't know what to say. I've never been any good at comforting someone who's just venting and doesn't need any actual advice I'm capable of giving. Especially over the phone, where I can't use my body language. This kind of thing happened to me a lot with Ainsley's friends and I always felt like I was doing something wrong, more so than usual. I think I kind of suck at being a girl. And what does anyone even say here? I wasn't about to get thirty years older, I couldn't go "that's just how life is" or something worse. I can't understand where she's coming from, not really. Or should I have congratulated her for not doing one of the worst things anyone can possibly do to a person?

"It'll be okay," I sighed. Was that really the best I could think of? "Just... Just stay here. We can keep talking. If that helps."

"Wow, really? You oughta be a therapist." Heather started snickering before she abruptly cut herself off. "Actually, no, no, that was cruel. I dumped all that on you and I-- You can tell I'm a cruel person since that's the first thing I thought to say. Like, wow, what a bitch! I-I'm sorry. Really."

"Heather, I said this when I first met you, and I'll say it again-- I've had worse roommates."

"Heh." Her laugh didn't sound conflicted that time. I imagined Sara smiling to herself. Heather didn't hang up, but the line stayed quiet long enough for me to slip back into my own thoughts (and maybe even emotional exhaustion-induced sleep) before she broke the silence again.

"Am I really the only one who thought about what it'd be like if we didn't go back?"

Not this again. "Huh?"

"I mean. You've never seemed like you got much going on in your life, I guess? You complained about Ainsley's life a lot but I never really heard you say much about stuff you miss, besides the lower expectations. And your plants."

"So because I'm kind of pathetic, you think spending the rest of my life pretending to be a sorority girl would be an improvement?"

"If it was permanent, you wouldn't have to. That's the thing. You could ditch her friends and do whatever you want. Hang out with me and Sara's friends, maybe. I could tell you're kinda jealous."

"Are you kidding? You saw exactly what happened that time you dragged me to a concert and-- no." I'm never telling her she's vaguely right about that last part, but everything else about that spiel was out of line. "No. Back up. Did I think about what I'd do if I were stuck and had to like, cope with it? A little. But it was never a-- I can do whatever I want and not have to put up with someone else's friends in my own body! And as a bonus, I get to see my parents again. And, y'know, for someone who's spent the last year talking about how I don't appreciate my life enough, you're being incredibly cavalier about the idea of me throwing away five years of my twenties. You remember I'm really 21, right?"

That got her quiet again for a little while.

"Yeah. Okay, I-I shouldn't have-- I guess it was just, part of the fantasy I made for myself which I hate that I have about getting to stay but-- Sorry." Heather sighed. "I'd just miss having you around if it was only me who stayed."

"You really think that?"

"Yeah. You're on my mind, kiddo. You know, during that whole thing where you just threw yourself into being Ainsley, I just, I was really worried about you. I don't know if I ever properly told you that. And that's the other reason I asked about if you'd thought about what it'd be like to stay. I just... the way you tried so hard to be someone else, I don't know if someone who thinks they're leaving a lot behind would've been able to do that. So, I... I worry. That's all."

"...I care about you, too," I said after a while. "After all that, it'd be weird not to. You've helped me a lot. So, yeah. Though I'm not about to pretend you do were always the best roommate."

"Oh honey, you don't gotta, I know." Heather laughed again, full and genuine. "You know, sometimes you remind me so much of my Violet, before she-- oh shit I think I see--"

She hung up. I felt it, too.

I don't know if it happens the same way for everyone, but in my case the first sign was the hair, thickening, darkening, everywhere. I'd always had a lot of body hair, and after a year without it it felt only more so, great black vines breaking through my skin as it went subtly paler. Even on my face, which was a surprise-- I always kept myself clean-shaven, and Marvin didn't have a beard when I saw him two months ago. I barely even registered my head hair slowly retreating into my skull despite that being a far more blatant violation of the laws of physics. For a little while, I had the odd sensation of full breasts entirely covered in coarse chest hair (God, did I always have that much?) before the rest of my body began to catch up. Every second I inflated a little more, grew more rigid, and I hate that this is the least uncomfortably phallic terminology I could come up with to describe a masculinizing torso. My hands doubled in size. To my surprise a regrowing penis was far overshadowed by how I felt just above it, the entire abdomen churning inside or less frequently descending. My breath quickened until well after the changes subsided.

It's not me, in the selfie camera. It's not Isaac Strauss, not anything like the way I left him. This man has a full beard and a tight haircut and actual muscle and is missing a year's worth of babyface. He looks like he belongs somewhere. I kept staring, kept looking at every angle to find the old me in there, as if I could tear the Marvin off of me if I found the right seam. All I got was ephemeral flashes of what I wanted to see. Is my self-conception so awful that I'm just not myself if I don't look pathetic? At least Ainsley's body was supposed to be different.

I heard a knock on the door. I stood up, steadied myself, feeling like a lumbering giant although I only had a few inches on Ainsley and weigh about the same as her. I opened the door to see Heather Flynn, just like the in the old photos she used to show me of her with her kids, except she's gently crying. She reached out for a much-needed hug, and I embraced her with a hollow strength no body I've occupied ever had. I wanted to cry, too, but it's not as easy as it used to be.

Isaac/Ainsley: And the trees are sweetly blooming

Even after everything I've been through in the last year, I still don't like feeling visible in public. Or maybe that's not much of a surprise, but you'd at think I'd at least be acclimated enough to just suck it up and deal with it, right?

Well, kind of. In practice there were never very many places I went to by myself as Ainsley. I learned to tolerate and tunnel-vision through the commute to work, the grocery store, the small loop where I walked SugarBunny. (I imagine Ainsley's walks with SugarBunny had a lot more variety than my own did.) The Lounge, eventually. There were some others during my, manic episode, like the gym, but even if I wanted to reproduce those days I don't think it'd be possible right now. Not while I'm on the precipice of being Isaac again. Regardless, I hardly ever went out without a group, besides a few specific places I had no choice but to tolerate out of necessity.

Old Orchard Beach isn't one of those places. Like I said a lifetime ago, being alone in a place like this feels inherently suspect to me, for no good reason, and being Ainsley hasn't changed that besides replacing some of the suspectness with other vulnerabilities. But I have Heather to wander around with me this time, so it's not so bad.

Of course, she's still Heather...

"Heather? Is this yours?" A lavender bikini sat on the bed in my room at the Inn. Heather and I have separate rooms connected through a shared bathroom.

"Pretty sure it's yours," came the muffled reply from the bathroom.

"It's definitely not mine, I know I didn't pack any."

"Well, I did." Heather opened the door, wearing a sundress clearly meant to be a coverup. She sat down on my bed like she owned the place. "I snuck into your room while you were dropping off SugarBunny at the kennel and dug up a couple from Ainsley's drawers to throw in your suitcase. So. I think it's yours."

I didn't dignify that with any expression stronger than blankly staring at her. "God. Have you been reading the blog?"

She laughed. "Look, I'm never gonna look this good in a bikini again, and I'm not the first Inn guest to realize that. Some things are traditions for a reason."

"That doesn't expl--"

"And the same goes for you. C'mon. Don't you want to at least try something you'll never get the chance to do again? You might as well try being girly when Ainsley's friends aren't making you do it."

"And it's so much better when you're making me do it?"

"I'd like to think so." I wonder if she'll be this enthusiastic when she's thirty years older.

I rolled my eyes, which must've made me look to Heather like one of the far too many teenage girls she's encountered over her career, and I choose to assume that's why she giggled at me. "You're just saying all that because you don't want to be the only one of us in a bikini."

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm the one who's scared of that? You gonna think about what you said for five seconds?" I couldn't argue that she had a point; she's been wearing Sara's skimpiest clothes since we got to the Inn. "Please. Y'know, some of us call that projection."

I wore the bikini.

I wish I'd brought a book with me to Maine. I get why that's a stereotype now; the sun's glare was so strong that it was nearly impossible to see my phone's screen, and you really need some form of distraction from the fact that you're just sitting there in what amounts to socially acceptable underwear. We really should've just shelled out for an umbrella, I don't intend on giving Ainsley an accidental sunburn as a parting gift and I don't think Sara's body is even capable of tanning.

I don't know how much time I spent in my own world before Heather tapped me on a bare shoulder. "Y'know, I don't think I've ever seen you take a selfie, and now you've been trying out angles for like, ten minutes. Like what you see?"

I blushed. "It's not like that!" I turned my phone towards her to show the screen was off, not that it'd make much of a difference if it was on in this lighting. "I'm looking at my reflection on the screen-- don't look at me like that, it's the only thing our phones are good for right now and what am I gonna do, sleep? I can't sleep like this."

"I could sleep like this." Heather theatrically stretched out and yawned.

"Yeah, well, I know most people would be totally okay sleeping basically naked in public, but I guess I'm just built different."

I sat up a bit higher and pulled my knees closer to my torso, sighing. "I just thought I'd be more used to this, I guess? After this long? We're on a crowded beach in the middle of summer, there's women in bikinis in every direction, I've been wearing bras for a year, I know nothing looks out of the ordinary here and I still feel like I'm a freak."

"Wow, I can't believe I'm talking to the first girl ever to be insecure with how she looks in a bikini."

"Oh, fuck off, you know it's different. And I know I look, Ainsley looks... fine. Good, even." My voice got lower the closer I got to genuinely complimenting Ainsley's appearance, before I caught myself and cleared my throat. "It's not a logical thing, okay? I was like this before the Inn, too. Not that I was wearing bikinis, but I always thought I looked gross shirtless."

Heather thought for a moment. "Well, at least you're admitting it's not logical, since I'd say you're wrong abou-- actually forget I said that."

"Oh, so you're agreeing with me that my old body's--" Then I remembered the particular circumstances in which Heather actually had seen Isaac Strauss' body shirtless. "As I was saying. I've never liked showing much skin. There's swimshirts but those just look stupid. I've always kind of hated the beach except when I was a little kid."

"I'm sorry, the guy who spent money to spend two weeks in a town called Old Orchard Beach hates the beach?"

"Ugh. I wasn't supposed to be alone, it wasn't my idea, the booking was non-refundable, I was going insane. You know this already, come on."

"I know, I know, I just couldn't not make that joke after you said all that."

"Well, I already know everything's a joke to you."

That got her to quiet down for a while. Served her right, I thought at the time. I've spent the last year dealing with her and Marvin and Ainsley's friends trying to prod their way into my issues even well past the point where it's called for.

I went back to alternating between staring at my phone and the sky (it'd be nice to be able to sleep like this) for a while. The next time I looked over at Heather, I saw tears welling up in her eyes.

"Hey, are you crying?"

She sighed. "Don't worry about it."

"You know, if you saw me crying and I went all 'don't worry about it', you'd practically want to interview me. But I'll--"

"It's hard to stop being a mom," Heather spoke softly. "Even after everyone leaves you."

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I went back to laying down and just kind of feeling bad about the whole thing. Eventually she sat up, dusted off a part of her hand which had strayed from her towel, and started packing up her things.

"Hey. Want to take some selfies?" I asked.

Heather grinned a bit. "That'd be a first, coming from you."

"Well, people keep telling me I need to try these things, apparently."

We took some selfies before we got back to packing up. Heather was really fussy about her exact facial expression and it took us a while to get one she found acceptable. I'd rolled my eyes about it, but then I didn't like how I looked in the one she got, and we must've spent a solid five minutes trying to get one that satisfied both of us before I finally had enough of my fit of vanity and we left the beach.

Heather kept looking at the selfies as we walked back. "Where'd you learn to smile like that?"

"More time practicing in front of a mirror than I'd like to count."

I looked at the selfie again and saw two completely ordinary young women on a beach trip. I looked at Sarah, and down at my body in the bikini, and back at the crowd, and I saw the same thing. Crazy.

Isaac/Ainsley: Karma?

Is it common for Inn people to start slacking a bit in their current body's life when they know they're about to return to the Inn? Like, the Old Orchard Beach version of senioritis? You end up in a strange body, freak out about it, come up with as many excuses as you can to avoid their commitments, eventually have no choice but to throw yourself in, you slowly and painfully adapt, and then when the light at the end of the tunnel appears you start to give yourself permission to let go a little?

Well, I've been trying to not do that. This isn't really because I feel like I owe it to Ainsley to be perfect; I think I've done an okay enough job keeping her life together under the circumstances (whatever that's worth) and her friends can handle a few no-shows if they're about to get the real her back. She's doing the same thing right now herself. No, I'm not cutting myself any slack because I've read enough of the blog's archives to know just how many opportunities there are for things to go wrong at this part of the process. I've got this basically superstitious instinct which tells me that if I act like I'm about to leave this life, I'll get hit by some kind of karmic whiplash which keeps me from returning to Isaac Strauss. And I know it doesn't work like that-- the Inn is anything but fair-- but the idea of letting myself relax just makes me feel deficient right now.

I don't even need the archives or my instincts to know that right now. The situation going on with Penny is absolutely horrible, and I considered not even posting this and holding off on any updates until after my Inn block is over. And yeah, this kind of thing has happened plenty of times in the past, but talking about the possibility of getting my own body back from a difficult-to-trust youth-seeking man with a chip on his shoulder just feels wrong.

But Marvin kept his word. I didn't give myself the luxury of fully believing him, but he's been communicative about his trip to the Inn, and even sent me an unsolicited video of himself mid-transformation while reciting a lengthy disclaimer about he's returning my body to me and how I shouldn't waste it. There was a lot more to it, but I think we've all had enough of me transcribing that guy. He's made his point very thoroughly by now.

So, entirely justified paranoia aside, I'm all set to arrive at the Inn next week. Everything looks good with Heather's plans as well. Speaking of Heather, I actually haven't seen much of her lately. She's usually gone whenever I get back to the apartment and doesn't come back until well after I've gone to bed, if not the next afternoon. As far as I can tell from when she does talk to me, it's the same kind of youthful hedonism she's been doing this whole time, just more of it. I don't really like to pry besides the occasional snide comment, and I'm not gonna stop her. The more things change...

I get jealous of her, sometimes. I kind of hate admitting it, but it's true. But then I remind myself that I've been clubbing as Ainsley, and went to a concert, and other stuff I never would've come close to a year ago. And, well. Look at how those went! I think I'm just not capable of being that type of person, and I say that as someone with experience in semi-successfully forcing myself to be a different type of person, so I at least kind of know what I'm talking about here.

Heather and I have done one interesting thing together since the last time I posted; not long after the Marvin incident we made an impromptu trip to the Grand Canyon since we were both feeling particularly bad about ourselves. It seemed like simply the thing one does if you find yourself in Arizona, despite being several hours away from Phoenix by car. Honestly, it kind of sucked? Neither of us wanted to spend Ainsley and Sara's PTO on anything not Maine-related, so we left very early Saturday morning and returned after midnight the next day. The view really is as beautiful as people say it is, but it was brutally hot the entire time and we spent most of the weekend in at least one of sleep deprivation or heat exhaustion. Neither of us felt up to doing any hiking, and between that and the horrible motel we slept at the trip felt more or less like a wash. I suppose that's the cost of doing something mostly so you can tell yourself you've done it. Of course, that's the same motivation that brought me to the Inn in the first place...

So I'm alive. Things have gone okay for me thus far after looking questionable for a while, especially when I last had anything to say. But the work isn't done. I hope it won't be much longer, and I'm not going to let myself upgrade past hope until it's no longer needed.

Isaac/Ainsley: What Once Was

10:05 at the Lounge and that creature still hadn't shown itself. I was left with only Heather for company-- Heather, who I'd ignored since the previous night's events to take a couple of sleeping pills, vanish from consciousness, and then stay holed up in my room until absolutely necessary.

"Seriously, Isaac, I had no idea-- I let that fucking maniac into my bed, I'm so--"

"It's not your fault," I sighed. "I never showed you what my body looks like. Not that any of my old pictures would've had a strong resemblance to that."

"Still. I feel-- on Tinder it said his name was Kurt!"

"Oh my God. Kurt?! Really? You fell for that!?"

"What, don't look at me like that-- he told me his parents named him after Kurt Cobain! Lots of people did that! I was gonna name my oldest Kurt but my ex wasn't having any-- Oh, so you do know who Nirvana is?"

"Okay, I--" We were interrupted by Heather's phone going off on the table in front of her. Incoming call from: "Kurt". Heather made a face and picked it up, putting it on speaker.

"Hey ladies. You at the booth I mentioned?" asked Marvin's voice. (It sounds nothing like mine, at least, not how I remember it.)

"Think so. Where are you?" I was perfectly fine to let Heather do the talking.

"Oh, nah, I'm not coming in. This is more of a pit stop, I just want to make sure you two see something. Set the stage a bit." I rolled my eyes. "But yeah, if you look at the wall opposite to the bar counter, about head height, you'll see a band pic that's just two guys. Got it?"

I didn't get it. Heather and I, already frustrated not even sixty seconds into the ordeal of interacting with Marvin, looked around at any of the band photos in the vicinity. "You mean the one where they're both wearing these colorful... bodysuit things?"

"What? No. It's somebody else."

"Somebody Else played out here? I saw them in Albany when they were active like ten, fifteen years ago. I thought they only stuck to Canada and the Northeast--"

"Heather, what are you talking about?" I muttered.

"Whoever that is, it's not them. It's just two guys. In normal clothes. Really skinny guy in overalls and a bigger guy with facial hair. It's not that hard."

I noticed a photo with two men matching Marvin's description, posed together onstage, closer to my side of the booth. They appeared fairly young, and happy, though the bigger one looked like he was having the time of his life and the skinny one seemed a lot calmer about it.

I pointed the photo out to Heather. "Green overalls?" She asked her phone.

"Yeah." Marvin rather uncharacteristically paused for a few moments. "Okay, we're good here. Meet me outside and we'll talk." Marvin hung up, and Heather and I glanced at each other as we headed for the exit.

We found him in the parking lot, leaning against his oversized rental SUV like he's gonna wake up in somebody else's seventies again if he spends a single second not trying to convince himself he's cool. He wasn't any easier for me to look at than the night before.

"You guys get a good look? Cool. I got one more place to show you, and then I'll actually get to the point and talk about why I'm doing all this shit, I swear."

Heather crossed her arms. "Uh huh, and what is this place?"

"It's a while away but it's just off the highway. It'll make more sense when--"

I tried looking at him, almost. "You're expecting us to just trust that we can blindly follow you? You're not even gonna tell us where this is?"

"*You're* not the one in position to demand things from *me* right now, okay? But, I get it, it's pretty sketch. That's why I'm asking you to follow me in your own car instead of doing the whole 'get in the car now, no time to explain' bit. If I'm lying and I end up driving you up to an abandoned warehouse or something you're free to fuck right off. And I'm not gonna hurt you. You outnumber me, I bet Heather's got mace on her or something, and besides. I don't have anything against Ainsley."

We got in the car and followed him.

"A while away" turned out to be over an hour down I-10, west of the city, well into the pitch-black desert. The highway narrowed to two lanes in either direction. Heather drove-- she told me this wasn't her first car chase and I'm inclined to believe her. I confirmed with her that Marvin's intuition was right and she had, in fact, brought pepper spray.

"I don't like this one bit," Heather said once we'd crossed the point where the only sign of civilization's existence became the highway itself. "This is some true crime BS. 'Two young women follow a jilted man obsessed with their bodies out into the desert for some reason'? Really? Do we want to be that stupid? Mace isn't gonna do us any good if he's got a gun."

"Even if he actually wanted to kill us," I replied, staring into the darkness, "I don't get how he'd do it without ruining things for himself. He keeps talking about stealing my body, you think he'd want to make that body a wanted criminal? And he's not gonna run back to the Inn and make it someone else's problem, he keeps talking about how much he hated most of the bodies he's had."

"There's your problem; you're assuming whatever he's doing has to make sense. If anything he did made sense, and he still wanted to steal your body, he would've just gone no-contact with you. And he definitely wouldn't have shown up here. Maybe he's just crazy. You sure you don't wanna bail?"

I looked at my lap. "Not following him is a risk, too. He's holding me hostage. I don't blame you for not wanting any part of this, it's not... It's not your fight, really." I felt bad that I never even suggested that Heather go home and let me follow Marvin himself. Everything is all lined up with the woman in her body, and they're communicating regularly. She could go to Maine without me, if it came to that.

Heather said nothing. But once Marvin slowly decelerated in front of us, she followed in turn, and she didn't leave him behind when he pulled over on the highway's left shoulder.

Marvin exited the SUV, hands up and pockets inside-out. We watched without leaving the car. "Evening, officers, is there anything I can do for you?" He joked. "But seriously. I know what this looks like, and I'm saying again, it's not. So get out the car and let's talk."

Despite what I'd said, leaving the car felt like an insane idea. But Heather and I glanced at each other, and I think the tipping point was being too curious for our own good at why on Earth he'd take us to this specific place. She left the car, and I climbed out through the driver's side rather than open the passenger door any closer to the highway.

Marvin walked us down the highway, around fifty feet from our cars. All of us had our phone flashlights on. The entire time since I first arrived in Phoenix I'd never left its massive sprawl before now. The world became void, its only features the stars far greater than any I'd seen in Phoenix or Charlottesville or the NoVA suburbs, and the occasional shrub I had to avoid tripping over. Every so often the void was disturbed by the roar and blinding lights of a car speeding through the darkness, breaking the illusion of nothingness for just long enough to remind me of my own fragility.

Finally we came upon a spot about ten feet off the highway with an angled pole sticking out of the ground, and Marvin stopped. There were objects scattered around the pole-- album covers, cards held down with rocks, figurines, a handpainted tile, a couple framed photos of the same two guys from the Lounge, covered in dust. The highway next to us bore a large, unsettled scar in the pavement, clearly old but obvious nonetheless. There was a moment of silence.

"This is the spot where they died," Marvin spoke. "They and their tour manager, about seven years ago. They'd just left the Lounge and were driving off for their next gig. Drunk driver going full speed the wrong way on the highway. It was instant, you see that shit on the road?"

"What does that have to do with--"

"They were your-- they were Ainsley and Sara's ages, just about. But they did something with their lives, in that short time-- way more than you, or Ainsley or Sara. Or me at that age. It's the kind of thing that when you hear about it you go, man, I haven't done shit with my life. I thought I was kind of a fuck-up when I went to the Inn. My girlfriend dumped me. Said I was 'behaving toxically'. Okay. Fine. We'd just moved in together a few months before and she bailed and stiffed me with the rent. But I was doing pretty good besides that, y'know? I went to the gym and thru-hiked when I could get the time off and had friends I'd get drunk with and go to Vegas with and they'd invite me to their bachelor parties and... Yeah, a lot of them dropped off when they had kids, but I had a pretty good thing going."

"Then I found a nice vacation deal in Old Orchard Beach and it all got taken away from me over and over and over again. The thing with waking up four decades older and some dickbag stealing your body is you start obsessing over how good you used to have it and how much you'd do with it if you somehow got it back, and you feel like you wasted your life now that you're stuck and everything's just over, and you can't live up to the potential you knew you had. It's contradictory, but that's what it's like. You two are the lucky ones! Especially you," he pointed at Heather. "But at least you know it. But you?" Marvin looked me in the eye, a gesture just barely visible past the glow of the flashlights. "You only think you know it."

"God, man, I was so happy to wake up a college kid instead of yet another retiree. And I felt kinda guilty about it-- yeah, hard to believe, I get it. I was gonna do it the right way. Adjust to your life, try not to fuck it up, enjoy it while it lasts, go back to Maine and pray I land somewhere long-term with an expiration date that's not in the next couple of decades. But when I got into it, there's hardly anything about your life to adjust to. Besides being able to actually walk and move and see and hear without hurting anything after five seconds, that's all great, but that's not you. Other than that it's just the accounting classes. Bro, you don't do anything! Your letter was tiny! The only obligation you even have outside of classes is watering a couple of plants. Like, was I missing something the whole time? Do you just take your parents' money, sit in that dorm room all day, and rot? I kept thinking there had to be some weirdness, something I'd missed, but there wasn't shit! I looked at you in the mirror every day and I, I started to hate you. You have every advantage in the world and you choose to just exist. What's wrong with you?"

I don't know if Marvin expected a response from me, but Heather gave him one. "Do not," she said, making herself as big as Sara could, "talk to my friend that way. You don't fucking get to take out your personal issues with getting your life stolen on him. I signed up to listen bullshit from adults who still don't know any better when I took a job at a high school, he didn't. You got unlucky. But there's guys your age who get cancer and I never hear about them going around telling 20-year-old kids they're wasting the gift of life. So tough shit."

"Oh really? You're going to say that?" Marvin sneered. "That's rich. I should just accept it. Tell me, all year, you really never once thought about some way you'd get to keep that body? Not stealing it, no, never, you're too kind for that. But that's not the only way it could happen, can it?"

Heather flinched.

"Why, there's so many ways! You don't even have to hope the real Sara dies in a convenient freak accident. She could just... have something come up, and then she asks you to bodysit for another year since it's better than risking anyone worse. But, nah, even that's gonna make you too guilty, right? So you think about what if she wants to stay! It happens all the time on that blog! Some kid gets knocked up and wants to keep the baby? Congratulations, give up that rusty old retiree body of yours and start all over at eighteen! Girl you're in falls in love with her new body's previous owner? Throw away a lifetime of scholarship and slut your way into being a homewrecker no matter how many times you tell yourself it's just temporary! A beautiful, single twenty-something fresh out of college in the big city gets a life that's apparently better, refuses to elaborate, and leaves? It's all yours!! We like to think we're just too good to steal a body, but you imagine it just... ending up that way and it not being your fault, don't you. For it to just kinda happen that way, so you have to reluctantly accept the burden of getting to be young and hot again. And it doesn't matter that all that youth comes from somewhere else, it fell into your lap anyway, right? For everyone who won the lottery there's just as many people who got permanently fucked into an old one-- at least the ones who die suddenly while they still think they get to go back don't have to live with it! And people like that, they seem to be a lot less talkative on the blog, huh. Maybe they just don't have the energy for it anymore, not at their age. That's what it's like for the rest of us, either we give up and die or we turn into that GIF of those old people at a casino hitting the slot machines all day. That's terrible, you feel bad for them, sure. But why go back to the Inn? There's no need to donate a decade or two to the beggars, right? There's so much that can go wrong. You might as well donate a kidney to a stranger, or sell your house to buy malaria nets. The people who do it are saints, but you're not gonna do it. There's no need. You're free to imagine getting what you've always wanted, but without asking for it, so you don't have to take responsibility for wanting it. To be young, and free from your mistakes, and wild again, going to concerts and being hot and getting high and having one-night stands with whatever hot college boy from out of state catches your eye. Or am I wrong, Heather, and you're too good to even catch yourself dreaming?"

No response from Heather besides a clenched fist and a silence which spoke for itself. Marvin turned back to me. "But anyway. I was gonna say... The more I got to know you, the more it felt like you were living life already dead. Like I could do better. You were barely occupying your own body, after all, and every day it got harder to look at. The potential you're just not using. So why shouldn't I change things? And I did. Isaac Strauss has a life now. He takes care of himself. He's getting jacked. He gets laid. He has actual friends who like having him around and do cool shit with him. Your 21st birthday was wild, by the way. His parents look more and more relieved every time they see all the progress he's made. But dammit man, no matter what I do with your body there's no escaping the old you, is there. Nothing's ever enough. I keep building and building and I still have to look at your face every day in the mirror and it, I just hate it. It's like it's mocking me, somehow. It's disgusting. I wanna pull a Nic Cage and just... take it off."

With every word Marvin spoke his breath grew heavier and Isaac Strauss' voice raspier. He stared, manically, at somewhere between me and the ground. It was the most utterly alien I'd seen that body yet, sweating and pushed to the limits and in a terrible passion. Or, that's the impression I had, even if my eyes hadn't been blurry the darkness made it so difficult to tell aside from the occasional passing headlights, so I had to fill in the blanks myself.

He'd paused long enough that it felt like he finally expected me to say something. "I hate it... I hate it too. Seeing my body look like this," I said, barely audible over even the distant cars, let alone the closer ones. Trying to reason with him over the whole scope of his rant felt pointless. "So if you really agree... You know where to go in July."

"Dealing with seeing your face in in the mirror beats seeing an eighty-year-old's. Look, I'm gonna be honest. Keeping your body was never the plan, and it still isn't. I really don't wanna be responsible for someone else getting hit with what I've been through. But that doesn't mean I don't think about doing it every waking moment. Trying to do the math in my head to get something that means I get to live again. You wanna know the real reason I came out to Phoenix, besides showing you what your life and body are capable of with someone who knows how to use them? I wanted win an argument with myself. I let all this shit I've been thinking out at you without getting you so mad that you throw your own body onto the highway and add to the death count at this exact spot. And now I want you to tell me. Man to man. How do I know I'm not gonna hand this perfectly good body over to the walking dead?"

I don't want to know how long it took for me to say anything to that.

"It's... It's not fair. It's not fair! You come in here with this... this whole speech, you hold my body hostage so you can shit all over me for all this time almost uninterrupted... And you expect me to--" I almost said thank you but got scared. "--to just. Defend myself? Write a cover letter for my own life? It's not..."

I sat down on the ground, balling myself up, totally uncaring of all the sand and dust and car exhaust that'd get on my jeans. "I-I can't take it anymore," I spoke quietly, through tears. "Everyone keeps telling me they can live life better than me... that I'm wrong... whether they think I'm Isaac or Ainsley. I've always been... behind other people, but I... Yeah. I don't know how to live my life. But that doesn't mean anyone's got the right to make me do it their way!!"

I tried to look Marvin in the eye. "I want to grow vines on the window of my dorm... I want to hug my parents again... and I want everyone to stop looking at me. That's all I'm good for. And if you think I need to be like those guys in that band, or Kurt Cobain, or Tupac or whoever, or a thousandth of that to not waste my life, then... that's all I can tell you. I'm sorry." After that I put my head in my arms and never looked back at him.

"Well, I hope you're happy," I heard Heather say, with a gentle but firm tug on my arm. "I hope your little vent session was worth it, I really do. But if you really think we're the same, Marvin, you need to realize that no matter what I'm tempted by, I would never do that to Sara. Torture her just because I feel that awful about doing the right goddamn thing and I want an award for it. C'mon Isaac, get up. We're leaving. He said he's giving it back. You don't owe him another second to indulge himself."

"Oh, I don't need you for that." Marvin snapped. "I've got another few weeks left in this, before I have to go. I'm not gonna waste it, I know how to enjoy myself. Maybe the original owner should try it sometime."

I didn't give him the dignity of a response. Heather and I returned to the car, she helped me into the passenger seat from the driver's side and drove us off, able to make it up to speed from the left shoulder without any problems. We were silent the way back through the desert, I stared blankly up at the windshield, leaning back in the chair, trying to fade from existence. It almost worked, but whenever we passed someone going the opposite direction the headlights would catch my eye, and I'd flinch just slightly, holding on to every tether, and imagine how I'd have felt about my life up to now if it'd been me on this stretch of highway west of Phoenix seven years ago.

Isaac/Ainsley: THING

Eleven at night and they were still going at it in the other bedroom, just early enough that I couldn't bring myself to sleep through it out of pure exhaustion. Heather tries to convince her various hookups to host, and it usually works out that way, but she's never let my sanity get in the way of her getting laid if it comes down to it. Eventually, the noise died down for long enough without me overhearing any talking or anyone exiting the apartment that I felt safe enough to assume they'd both gone asleep and go get myself a drink of water.

It was on the couch when I opened the bedroom door. Not looking at a phone or trying to leave or anything. Just sitting there, eyes already peeled to my door before I even opened it. I averted my eyes and speedwalked as non-conspicuously I could manage to the kitchen. As I filled a cup I involuntarily dropped the glass into the sink when I heard it speak.

"Well? Aren't you going to look?"

My breathing stopped. Without thinking I bolted around and did as instructed. It sat casually stretched out like it owned the place, a toothy grin I'd never seen before on its face. It had an immaculately maintained side-shaved haircut, clear, lean muscle visible alongside a muscle top and well-fitting jeans. Its voice, buried under a deeper affectation and genuine confidence, just hauntingly familiar enough to invoke nightmares. It was Isaac Strauss' body.

"What's up? Can't look yourself in the eye?" It laughed-- an actual laugh, not the disgusting choke-snort I long believed was the only thing it's capable of. "I kinda thought you'd react that way. You're so predictable, really-- both of you." I continued silently looking at the floor, not wanting to confront or provoke or comprehend the problem before me in any way possible.

A disheveled, half-naked Heather emerged from her bedroom, giving the intruder and I something else to look at. She yawned, looking over the both of us. "Ainsley, he was just leaving," she said, as if she'd be nudging him with her elbow if she were close enough. She looked at him. "I told you not to bother my roommate, she's kinda--"

"Heather that's my own fucking body!" I let out in a far more pathetic whimper than I'd hoped for.

She froze and looked around again. "Huh? I, I-- That's not how I would've--"

The body seemed to consider this the funniest thing in the world. "I still can't believe you never even showed her what you look like, this whole time. Like, I made some changes, but damn. She could've figured it out the second she saw me on Tinder, y'know? Do you just hate yourself that much?"

I had no response for that. It's true. I'd never shown Heather what I used to look like. It never came up and I didn't feel like volunteering it.

Heather, fists clenched, answered for me. "I am not. Going to tolerate you treating me, or my friend, like that ever again. If you say one more fucking word to him I swear I'm gonna make sure you won't even dream about showing your face again."

"Oh, really? Never show my face again-- is that permission to cancel my Inn reservation?" Heather flinched. "Yeah. I thought so. And I've been hitting the gym, so, y'know, I think I can handle a one-v-one fight with a stick like you-- since we all know you're--" Its face looked right at me again "--gonna be too busy hiding in a corner to help out. But, you look pretty pissed, I'm not gonna risk it. So maybe I should just--"

"--Just say whatever the hell you're gonna say and get on with it!" I cried.

"Thank you," it grinned. "For asking, 'why'd you come all this way, Marv?' Well, I'll tell you. The semester wrapped up, and all the cool, new friends I made over the last year skipped town for the summer. So I thought, hey, I'm young and got nothing better to do, why not visit two very special acquaintances of mine in Phoenix before I head up to Maine? It'd be a waste to just rot in a dorm all summer. I mean, can you imagine?"

"So I'm here for two reasons. One, I want to give you a demonstration of what you're capable of-- one way," it pointed at itself, "or another." It made double finger-guns at Heather, who I was almost about to join in nearly being driven to violence. "I can't believe I got away with that one, by the way. Crazy. But, yeah. And two, I want to give you an invitation, for tomorrow night. An event I'm putting on, just the three of us, where we can talk... Old Orchard Beach? And a couple other things."

Heather and I both waited for it to get to the point, unwilling to give it the satisfaction of a reaction.

"So yeah, meet me at ten tomorrow night. Little place called The Lounge, at least by someone in this room." Sometimes I wonder why anyone ever risks putting anything on the blog. "Sit at that booth in the back corner, by all those pictures of acts that've played there. Should be a good time. Better than this-- for you two, at least, I know *I'm* having fun." It started making its way towards the door, apparently, this was as far as it'd gotten with his clearly rehearsed speech. "We try to have some fun around here, huh? So, 'til tomorrow. Marv out."

The thing that was me left the apartment before either Heather or I could collect ourselves enough to do anything, for all it would've been worth if we had.

Isaac/Ainsley: Violet

"Holy shit Isaac you're not gonna believe what I just saw!" wasn't a sentence I expected to be greeted with while preparing to walk SugarBunny at the godless hour of 8:30 AM on a Saturday. Heather sleeps past noon every chance she gets.

"Or, Ainsley? Are you still doing-- It's hard to keep track."

"Don't worry about it," I dismissed her completely reasonable question. "What's going on?"

"Violet's in Phoenix! Right now!"

"Violet?" The name did sound somewhat familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Uh, my youngest daughter? I've talked about her plenty of times, don't tell me you forgot."

Right. Heather used to talk about her family and some of the drama surrounding her divorce a lot, especially earlier on in our Inn experience, but they came up less and less as Heather got settled in to Sara's life. That, or I got a lot better at ignoring it than I think I did. I mostly just let her talk at me while I paid the minimum amount of attention to get her to wrap it up sooner, but I remembered enough to know that Violet is about the same age as Ainsley and Sara, and it'd been over a year since Heather last saw her in person even before the Inn.

"I like to keep tabs on her Instagram every now and then-- don't look at me like that, I bet your mom does it too--"

"I don't have an--"

"And I saw she posted about being in town for a concert! Tonight! And I don't know why she's coming out here for it when she lives in LA and pretty much every artist also goes through there but she's here! It feels like fate. I'm never gonna get another chance to see what she's really like, on her own terms, eye to eye. I'm totally going."

I'd never seen her that nervous and that excited about anything. "Okay. Well, good luck with that. I'm gonna go walk the dog, so."

"Oh, you're coming with me."

"What? Come on. You know I'm horrible at places like that. Can't you get one of Sara's friends to go with you?"

"They don't get it. You're the only one I'm not gonna need to explain why I need to talk so bad to someone who doesn't recognize me."

"Heather..."

"I already got the tickets and I'm blowing off this guy I've been talking to for this. And, look. This whole time, have I ever asked you for a favor? I bet you don't have anything planned tonight anyway."

I hate how much of a pushover I can be, even without needing to uphold Ainsley's reputation.

We'd planned to arrive at the concert, which turned out to be some kind of EDM show with artists neither I nor Heather had heard of, early enough to be able to keep tabs on whoever entered the venue. That didn't happen because Heather felt like vetoing my outfit and insisting on letting her redo my makeup was worth the risk of blowing up her once-in-a-lifetime-chance. Between the leather shorts and sparkly, low-cut top Heather dug up from deep in Ainsley's closet, the (in my opinion) greatly overdone eye makeup, and the jewelry she had me borrow, I saw someone in the mirror who looked like neither Isaac nor Ainsley. It was... strange, and fortunately Heather provided the welcome distraction of rushing us out of there as if it was my fault we took so long.

One of the opening acts had already started by the time we finally arrived, and though the venue wasn't packed yet the crowd was still fairly sizeable. At least by my standards. I expressed my skepticism that two people would be enough to find one individual in this kind of environment.

"Relax," Heather replied. "I had to find my friends at concerts all the time, before cell phones! This is nothing. Been to plenty of shows wilder than this-- I saw Nirvana live, y'know?"

"You're always saying that, and I keep meaning to ask. Who's Nirvana?"

Heather went pale and froze, and for a moment I saw every decade she'd borrowed back from the Inn spill out onto her face. "...Ha! Good one, kid! Y'know, sometimes you're not so bad." I just let the moment sit for a little bit.

Heather eventually moved towards the edge of what was slowly turning into a moshpit, while I fanned out to keep being a wallflower. I tried to avoid the temptation to look at my phone instead of staring around like a complete weirdo, but after a few minutes I lost track of myself and my looking around became predictably half-assed.

I suddenly noticed a girl standing a few people away from me who matched the pictures Heather showed me earlier-- kind of tall, purple streaks in dark, short-cropped hair, a septum piercing. Damn it, I was really hoping Heather would be the one to run into her and I wouldn't have to do anything. But I knew Heather would never let me live it down if I blew this for her, and I made myself slowly approach.

"Hey. Uh. My friend's been looking for you, she really wants to talk to you." I didn't really make eye contact.

"Oh, I'm not poly, sorry."

"Huh!? What gave you--"

She gave me a closer look. I can't even begin to know what kind of vibe she got from me. "Why's your friend looking for me, do I know her?"

"...Sort of? She sort of... vaguely knows you. You probably don't know her. It's complicated, but she... wants to see you."

"This is some of the worst wingwomanning I've ever seen in my life." She snorted, but seemed to be in a decent enough mood that she wasn't actively trying to make me regret talking to her. "Is this about a commission or something?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe?" It'd have been easier to lie here if I knew exactly what type of commissions Violet was taking. "She just told me to look out for you, I don't really know what's going on with her. You're Violet, right?"

Violet was ultimately curious enough that she agreed to wait for her secret admirer. Fortunately, Heather wasn't too caught up dancing to miss the text I sent her and she came over and joined us pretty quickly. I bailed not long after the conversation started, when Heather asked Violet if she was dating anyone. After only another twenty minutes looking at my phone at the edge of the venue and two rejected invitations from randoms to dance, Heather sent a text, telling me that she was leaving the venue and to meet her at the car. I didn't need to be told twice.

We got in the car, lit only by the poorly angled, hazy streetlights and what little colorful glows escaped from the tiny window on the door. A clearly shaken Heather finally spoke: "You know what she told me? She told me to stop asking her all these questions, that I sound like her mom!" She laughed a bit, despite herself. "Like, come on. I know she can't possibly actually think-- but, God. Am I that obvious?"

I've never felt like I'm very good at comforting people. "If it's any consolation, I think if my mom had gone to the Inn instead of me and ended up in the body of a guy my age, and she ran into me somewhere after not getting to talk to me for months, it would've ended the same way."

"So I'm just, Mom," Heather said, looking down at her lap. "No matter what I do, no matter how I look or how much I embrace being this person I'm in... With Violet, or Jack, or Morgan, it's just... they'll never see me any other way, because I just can't help myself? They'll never let me in?"

"I can't tell you anything about being a mom, Heather..."

"What do you think I should do?"

"I..." How should I know? "I, don't know? Here's what I think, I think that's the first time you've ever asked me for advice."

Heather laughed, just softer and wearier than her typical cackle. "Fair enough, kiddo. Let's go home. Violet deserves to enjoy being young and having fun without any more interruptions."

Ainsley: Out Of Bounds

Nobody told me going on my first first date in three years would be this nerve-wracking!

OK that's a lie, everybody told me that. My friends, kind of my roommate, musicians, those reality TV ladies who've had enough of their exes' bullcrap but also haven't had enough of Netflix's bullcrap. And even kind of me, but the last time I'd just gotten over a breakup was... I don't even wanna think about it! So, it turns out it's just another one of those things you have to learn firsthand no matter how many times people try to warn you.

Tinder hasn't gotten any better since I was fresh out of college, that's for sure. But it's not like I had high expectations in the first place? I'd just like to know at what age I'll see fewer pics of guys holding up a fish than of them. I don't know. Golfing? From what I hear at work there's a point when a set of golf clubs magically zaps into a man's bedroom and he starts having opinions about who's going to win The Masters.

You know it had to be a dog pic that got me. Yeah yeah, I'm so predictable, I get it!!! But what am I supposed to do, just turn down the chance to meet an adorable Dachshund? Hey guys-- bigger isn't always better when it comes to dogs! It leans in to the whole inoffensively cute vibe the guy -- Erik -- had that let me feel comfortable enough to roll the dice. Don't want to get back into dating on a bad note, after all.

We met up outside the restaurant he picked and that's when it hit me how I hadn't really had a one-on-one conversation with a man in. Well over a year, I think? Not counting work stuff.

But dinner went really well actually, and not just the surprisingly great Korean/Mexican fusion food! I would've been happy to let him do most of the talking, just to put the pressure off since I'm still a little nervous about everything. Instead he seemed really interested in my hobbies instead of just wanting to go on all evening about the rock climbing gym he's at half the time. Not that I have a ton of interesting hobbies right now, lol. But it was a good excuse as any to bring up SugarBunny and the dog talk carried us the rest of the way through dinner.

Erik's a busy guy, and before we met up he told me about another hobby of his and invited me to come with. Contra dancing. Really?? I didn't know anything about it but I figured the average age would be like, 50 so it seemed pretty harmless and I said yes. I can handle a little dancing, right? It won't be a nightclub this time, I should be able to have fun somewhere like that.

My first impression was the crowd was actually pretty young, so I was wrong about that! Maybe I'm not as in touch as I like to think. Dinner ran kinda late so we got there with only a couple minutes left of everyone standing around and Erik giving me a rapidfire explanation of how to contradance before the music started and everyone paired up. There was some kind of emcee on stage saying random phrases that correspond to dance moves but I had no idea what any of them went, so I just kind of let Erik guide me through whatever we had to do and tried to follow along. Then before I know it everyone switched partners and I stood there staring around at the crowd of strangers before this other guy made eye contact and came up before I could say anything. He tried twirling me around but before I could even think about where to put my feet everyone switched partners again, this girl with a pixie cut looked at me, and the same thing happened again! Finally it was back to Erik, where I hoped I'd get at least a couple minutes to catch myself.

But I didn't get any better. Erik kept telling me to just relax, try not to move so stiffly, and I wasn't able to make myself do it. The others who wanted to dance with me seemed just as unimpressed. It's like, no matter what I tried, I was always out of step with everyone else. We lasted fifteen minutes before Erik took me aside and asked if I was having a good time. I think Mel would have a good time at a place like this. Sara would act all embarrassed about going somewhere this wholesome and have some choice words, but she'd find a way to have fun with it anyway. And Ainsley... Ainsley...

Okay, look. I know that I owe any of you readers who may happen to be concerned a real explanation for what's going on with me. I'm going to say it up front: I know I'm not Ainsley, I don't believe I'm Ainsley, I didn't wake up one morning so unable to cope with the reality of the Inn and my own body's uncertain status that I convinced myself I'm someone else. Regardless of what anyone else does, I'm going to Old Orchard Beach when the reservation receipt says I am.

But if everyone kept telling you there's something wrong with you, whether they know the truth or not, and you start to believe it, and you kind of always did. And there was a hole in the world, one whose shape you suddenly fit, one you become immersed in every hour of your life for months, and you can tell how badly everyone around you wishes it were never there, and what left it behind had a better life than you... Wouldn't you eventually want to fill it? Just to see what it's like? Would it really be so horrible to try more than just the minimum of what the world expects?

That's what I realized, lying in my bed late one night. I hated the idea of giving in to the shit Sara and Marvin keep throwing at me, and a lot of Ainsley's choices weren't exactly ones I'd make on my own-- but I knew what those choices are! I had a guidebook, embedded into this entire life, for what's expected of the person shaped like Ainsley Thomas.

So I followed it-- more than the amount I'd been that's just enough to keep her from losing her job or (more of) her social life. I didn't wake up the next morning thinking I'm Ainsley, but I kept telling myself I did. I went to the gym, immersed myself in her interests, made small talk, annoyed my roommate, cooed at dogs, and generally tried to act like a happier person. And, to my shock, it sort of worked? Maybe it's the forced optimism but I think people have been nicer to me since I started doing this. The air of confused concern surrounding I used to get from Ainsley's circle lessened, even if it didn't go away. And over time, I got these moments where I could just, stop thinking about it and coast off the inertia of my own Ainsley impression. Like I've previously said, the important thing is keeping myself too busy and immersed to run out of momentum.

It essentially became a game where I'd ask myself how far I could take this. That's probably how I managed to talk myself into getting on Tinder, the prospect of which would've caused the me of even two months ago to spontaneously combust. Even still, I didn't intend taking it any further than going on one date and saying whatever I needed to to end things after that. I'd assumed that a random Tinder guy would give me plenty of reasons to regardless. But no, somehow my date turned out to know how to treat a lady.

That's a lot of what I thought in the back of my mind as I ran down my standard Ainsley small-talk script at Erik, being treated that way. How big his arms are compared to mine, getting the door opened for me, they way his speech was weird combination of respectful and slightly patronizing. He kept looking at me. Obviously I've experienced all this one way or another just by existing in public but that was always in situations where I could just leave or, at worst, zone out. But there, we both signed up for it, and I, Ainsley Thomas want to be treated that way on a date, I reminded myself. It's normal. Maybe I actually did kind of like parts of it once the sense of danger wore off a bit, but it's hard to tell whether I've Pavloved myself at this point. Or it was the novelty. I don't know.

The point is, I'd mentally prepared myself for my date to be the one to ruin it, but no, I had to ruin it when I finally hit the limit of my Ainsley persona. I just can't bring myself to dance. It's more funny than sad, compared to the nightclub from the bachelorette party. Clubs like that are high-pressure environments full of stressors that would've set me on edge even if I didn't have Ainsley's relationship with her best friend on the line. But I still can't find it in me to move freely in an all-ages group dance in a brightly lit gym? Come on. It makes it feel unreachable, that sense of fluidity and gracefulness (or enthusiasm, if the first two aren't great) all the women Ainsley's age I meet seem to have. Not that I could dance as a guy either but at least then it felt like there's lower expectations. Everyone at the contra dance could tell, they looked concerned, they were right to be!

I held off Erik's requests that we could seriously just chill out by the side and talk if I wasn't having any fun for about ten more minutes of dancing before I caved. But it felt like there wasn't anything to discuss. The momentum left broken and how un-Ainsley I really am returning in full force. Soon enough I left, telling him I'd had a good time (not completely a lie) and I'd talk to him later. We haven't spoken since, and now I don't know who I'm going to be in three days, in a different sense from how I don't know who I'm going to be in three months.

Heather/Sara: Got some explaining to do...

Watching my roommate over the last couple weeks is the most unsettling thing I've ever seen.

Is what I would say if I didn't spend the last twelve years working at a high school. I've seen some shit, okay? But it's in the top 10. Probably. Definitely 20, I'll give 'em that much.

But yeah. I don't really pay a ton of attention to the blog, but no matter what my roommate might think I like to keep an eye on it, and when I saw the post earlier I felt like I should let you guys in the loop on what I know. And also. Who else am I even supposed to talk to about it!? The real Ainsley? Hell no am I gonna be the one to have that conversation. (For her own sake, I hope she doesn't read the blog!)

The other day Isaac, late at night (for him but not for me anyway) told me he's gonna try to be Ainsley "for now" and that I should call him that and not mention Inn stuff unless I absolutely have to. Looked all teary and out of his mind. I was kinda high and didn't really process what he just said so I just went "yeah sure OK" and set him back to bed. The next day I didn't see my roommate-- okay, I gotta add, I don't even know what name or pronouns to use here, I mean I don't really get the whole thing but I try to be respectful about it but also this is a different kind of thing, get what I'm saying? Like it's not the same situation with the crap I get from parents over a teacher using the ones the kid wants them to use, or not using the ones the kid wants and-- It's different. So I'm just gonna stick with he, and Isaac (I'm not gonna put "Ainsley" in quotes everywhere that'll just get old) at least until he lets me have a real conversation about this!

But yeah, if you saw what he wrote you get the picture, he's gone the full Ainsley. Finally went and snapped, and I gotta admit part of me was just surprised that it took this long. Okay I was surprised about the shape he snapped into, if I were a betting gal I would've put it on him losing it enough to take a pill from some stranger at wherever that bar he's been disappearing to is ("The Lounge" isn't its real name, apparently, kid covers his tracks!), who happened to offer it to him at the exact wrong moment. Honestly I was looking forward to it. That kid just hates himself, it got sad to watch before we even got on the plane, he would've needed to let off some steam even if he wasn't stuck impersonating Miss Perfect here while that weirdo's dangling his own life over his head. I've never seen anyone that permanently uncomfortable.

Only now he's really impersonating Miss Perfect instead of having the fun breakdown I'd regret wishing for once I had to clean up all the vomit (wouldn't be the first roommate who pulled that on me, but at least she had to return the favor. Or maybe it was me returning the favor. Whatever, long time ago, and also I did that for three kids so a hungover roommate is a breeze!!). And it's just. Uncanny! He's got the impression most of the way there (or at least I think he does, I never met Ainsley) but you can still kind of see the Isaac in there if you know him, which only I do, so. Point is, I hate fake smiles and forced cheeriness and all that crap, and I say that as someone whose job description includes lots of it so I know what I'm talking about! Now Isaac has the combined powers of a self-loathing anxiety case and the worst PTA moms I have to politely throw out of my office, and even "in character" he went out of his way to admit he likes how much it fucks with me. I've seen those smirks. I'm not self-centered enough to think I'm the main reason he's doing all this, but I'll give him that if I were, it'd be working. Never would've bet he had it in him to act that passionately about reality TV, or that dog, or really anything besides his plants, for anywhere near that long.

It's rich that Isaac's spent the last eight months going all "wow Heather, you like Sara's life too much, you're getting addicted to being too young and too cool and having too much fun" and now he goes off and throws his personality on the altar of someone who actually has a life. But look, I used to hang out with girls like Sara. I used to be girls like Sara. And I made mistakes in my life, but I know what it's like to be someone like her-- I saw Nirvana live, ya know? I've been cool!-- and what am I supposed to do, sit around all day feeling guilty about how I got one of the better curses the Inn can throw at you? Apologizing? Panicking about every little choice? Obviously that doesn't work, Isaac knows it, and now the whiplash got him so hard it's got him trying to date men. Good luck, kid! He doesn't know how shitty men can be. He thinks he does, we all start out thinking we're so smart, but he doesn't. He's like a teenage girl. Assuming he doesn't snap out of it and/or chicken out, of course.

Welp, at least losing his mind gets him out of the house more.

Ainsley: Rebound

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give you guys a couple updates on what I've been doing to get my life back together.

I know I've been in a funk for awhile, since I got out of the denial stage about the breakup, really. I wasn't feeling like myself and it took me too long to really realize how much it was hurting me and my friends. So one day, I just decided-- I've had enough! I can choose to be different! And so I told myself, and the world, that Ainsley Thomas is BACK!!!!!

I started by getting back into my old gym routine before work. Bringing back the habit of getting up that early was an adjustment but I've learned that keeping myself too busy to really think about anything is just part of the process, lol. It's also an adjustment for SugarBunny, who I think was finally getting used to having to get up before me for his walkies, but I can tell he's really happy about not having to practice his patience like that. I've neglected him more than anyone else lately and now I'm always giving him extra belly rubs to make up for it.

Like I said, the secret is just keeping myself busy. I got my hair done without waiting for the absolute last minute, volunteered to be a presentation lead at work for the first time in months, and best of all, quit it with the excuses for skipping Brunch With The Girls every now and then. These ladies know me better than anyone and I hate that I somehow lost sight of that. Well, them and my parents. I'm working on it but I don't know if I'm ready for that one yet.

I've even been having Mel over to help me catch up on Love Island. I hate how withdrawn I got from my bestie and it's been too long, even before the whole thing with my ex, since we just kind of chilled out on a couch together with a bottle of wine like we're back at the Gamma house. And god, the look on Sara's face when I started inviting someone over without telling her beforehand? Priceless. And she knows she can't complain about it, at least Mel always goes home before midnight!!

Sara and I for sure have our differences and rough patches, but I love the girl and she's been more on my case about how I'm not doing anything fun anymore than anyone else I know. And she was right! Which is why it's so weird to catch her staring at me like something's wrong every now and then. This is what everyone wants, right? For me to get over myself? Maybe I should just be flattered to get the hint that underneath the sarcasm she really does care about me, but it's still pretty weird.

I'm still getting those weird looks from some of the other girls, too. I'm not at a hundred percent yet, I know, I forgot in front of my friends about when we all went to an Eras Tour show and I had to spend a quarter of it consoling one of them in the bathroom when she got sick-- we all have our moments, you know? And I had to see the same concerned looks I've gotten ever since the breakup, and haven't really lessened since I decided to get my act back together.

I love my friends but maybe what I need is to meet some new people, people who haven't seen me at my worst. That's why I bit the bullet and finally redownloaded Hinge even if it makes me a little nervous to get back into things. Okay, a lot nervous. I'm definitely not ready for anything serious-- how can I commit to anything when I don't know what my life will look like a few months from now? But it'll help me train some muscles I haven't used in a long time, and maybe I'll come away from it with a couple interesting stories. That doesn't make updating my bio any less nerve-wracking though! All the pics are 3 years old at least and I don't have a lot of good recent ones. It's not cheating if I use ones from before last summer, right?

We'll see if anything happens. Or maybe I'll just get run over by how awful casual dating can be now that it's been long enough that I forgot about it. But really? I'm just glad I'm doing things on my own again-- really trying to be happy and enthusiastic and affectionate and all the things about myself I'd lost in that fog! And at the end of the day, all the hours I spent in front of the mirror teaching myself how to smile again are gonna be worth it.

Isaac/Ainsley: Get a life!

As if two wasn't enough. One and a half? I'm not gonna go even lower and say one and a quarter, my self-esteem isn't that bad. I don't think I'm fully living Ainsley's life either but that number's gone up over time. Wouldn't call that part a one, though. Maybe I've got more than two if you count my increasingly tenuous claim on whatever that maniac is getting up to in Charlottesville.

I've been going to a bar, lately. I realize what that sounds like after what I just said but I swear, it's not like that. I have to drive there and back anyway.

I felt like I had to get out somewhere, anywhere, just to prove to myself I'm capable of doing something of my own initiative. I wanted to pick somewhere Ainsley likely hadn't been before, and the kind of place Isaac wouldn't go to either (he's not drinking age yet). Also didn't want to run into Heather there, even though I ended up going with a spot she'd probably like.

It's called The Lounge. It's forty or fifty minutes away from the apartment, which, while annoying, serves the dual purpose of assuring me that nobody connected to any version of Ainsley or Sara will show up and guilt-tripping me into actually going inside. "You drove that long and you really think you're allowed to bail now? Come on." The place is more of a music venue with a bar attached, which is one reason I've never gone on a Friday or Saturday night, but the artists on weeknights are small-time enough that the back of the bar doesn't get too crowded those days.

It's also a convenient distraction, even though whether I actually like the band any given night is a crapshoot. The music gives me something to think about other than the situation I've put myself in to avoid thinking about things: being a woman alone at a bar. I don't think the combination of Ainsley's preppier looks and my general vibe are in line with what the vaguely punk-y regulars here are looking for, and I dress pretty conservatively when I go here. But, not doing anything besides sipping on my one see-I'm-not-a-freeloader cocktail and checking my phone makes me come across as easy pickings, I suppose. Nothing actually bad has come close to happening, it's just that whenever some guy grabs the seat next to mine I'm almost intrigued and even weirdly flattered, and then within two seconds I immediately regret not instantly telling him off. Even the ones who aren't weird about it. Being in these conversations is just too stressful, and things pretty quickly get awkward enough that either they leave or I do.

What I wasn't expecting was how often women approach me to ask if I'm doing okay. It happens whether I'm in the middle of being picked up or not; a couple times a woman came up to me as I was staring at the drink selection and told me I could meet her in the bathroom if there was anything I needed to talk about. Are my vibes that fucked!? Twice, some guy was trying to talk to me and then a woman walked up and started acting as if she knew me, which obviously makes me freak out even more since I have to figure out if this is some friend of Ainsley's I've never met before, and then she just thinks I'm too oblivious to get what I'm trying to do, and it's... It's a mess to get out of. Twice! These were completely different women! I've only been going here for a few weeks!

Going to The Lounge isn't all like that, of course. I usually don't regret going. The bartenders make small talk with me, and in that profession you have to get good enough to have an at least okay conversation with pretty much anyone. Sometimes I'll get roped into conversation by a livelier group that happens to be sitting nearby that night, or I'll overhear a topic I actually know how to talk about. Last time I went a group of girls Ainsley's age came up and asked for my thoughts, as an impartial observer, on a dispute over pet care duties one of them had with her roommate. Conversations like that are easy mode compared to keeping up with Ainsley's friends, but I left the bar that evening feeling like those girls didn't like my answer anyway.

I find myself asking "What would Ainsley do?" a lot when I'm here. But that shouldn't be relevant, right? I'm somewhere she's never been, she wouldn't even want to go to, and at which she has no relationships or reputation to worry about. The whole point of going here is to escape Ainsley, to do something on my own terms, to live life for now while I don't know which body I'll have in several months. But Ainsley is the obvious point of comparison for everything I do, as I'm reminded every time I look down at myself or catch a glimpse of my reflection. And I can't escape the thought that even in a totally new situation for her she'd just be better at this. If she ever went to bars by herself (which I doubt), she wouldn't draw concern and pity in every direction from total strangers, I bet. It's one thing to get those reactions from the people who know Ainsley best, but to see it from random observers just sets me off.in a way I don't know how to describe.

I think she'd be happier than me. I wish I knew why.

Isaac/Ainsley: While It Lasts

Why does everyone keep telling me I'm supposed to hate the way I'm living my own life?

That's the big question these days-- or the most abstracted, slightly less terrifying version of the real question; "will Marvin give me my life back"? It'd be bad enough if it was just him playing whatever sick game he's got in mind (for what it's worth, he did at least follow through on securing an Inn reservation), but I've been hearing it from all around me. Heather. The way Ainsley's circle clearly doesn't know what to do with me. Even before the Inn, from my parents. Not explicitly, but the way they always come across as underwhelmed when they ask how I've been doing since I moved out.

Often I feel like whatever's going on with me, I've only worsened Ainsley's life with it, in her absence. But this life makes me spend a lot more time talking to people than I have since I was a kid. First her coworkers, then I stopped turning down her friends (as often), and as separate as I feel from all of these people it's ultimately more satisfying to talk with them rather than be talked at, now that I've picked up enough to be able to do that occasionally. And sometimes, the conversation will turn to something completely mundane, and I can chime in, or make a joke, and for a couple minutes I'm able to forget myself and feel like I'm not an interloper, like I'm normal.

And isn't that just what it is? Completely normal? I can't think of anything more normal than getting lunch with your coworkers or chatting with (the people who think they're) your friends. Back home, I'm always by myself whenever I'm at the dining hall-- how often you think Ainsley ever got lunch by herself in college? Once or twice a month, tops? There's only a couple people I ever really talk to, and with all the free time I get from not having a life I just... tend to my plants. God, I miss my plants. That was something in my life that made sense, dammit. But now I'm more social than I've ever been, off of a completely different person's inertia, and when I'm not freaking the hell out or waiting to be alone again it can actually be kind of nice! Sometimes. And that terrifies me, because if something that basic feels that abnormal to me, then it only raises the voice in the back of my head telling me that my tormentors are right. That Isaac Strauss couldn't live his own life.

I was considering all this as I arrived back at the apartment from the latest installment of "Brunch With The Girls" at around 2 PM, just in time to see a still-groggy Heather fumble around the kitchen for some cereal. My plan was to head to my room and exchange the floral sundress (damn this city, making stuff like that the uniform for Ainsley's group in mid-February) for something warmer, since we keep the A/C inadvisably high in here. But when I saw her I just couldn't help myself and ask her if my own life is really that depressing.

"Oh my god." She looked like she was about to slam her face in her cereal. I've seen her do it before. "Okay, look. Do you actually think asking me this shit for the twentieth time's gonna make the Marvin, thing, suck any less? I'm gonna try asking you something-- What would you do if we stayed?"

"What?"

"I'm just saying. Suppose we stayed. What kind of Ainsley would you want to be? How much of her would you keep, if you had the choice?"

"I'm very concerned by the we in that hypothetical."

"Look, I'm just--" Heather caught herself, apparently thoughtful enough to at least appear guilty. "Okay. Forget about me. Forget about Marvin, or the real Ainsley, or the mom she's subbing for, or some other body you might end up in, or anything. This is about you, doing what you want. What would you do?"

I thought about it for a little while. It's a tough question, even harder than resisting the temptation to dispute the question's premise.

"I... I don't know. It's not like I've had much of a reason to think about it. You know, actually? I'd get some plants. Some nice vines. That's the first thing I'd do. Besides that, I don't know, and I try not to imagine it."

"So why haven't you done that already? Too busy knitting?"

"It's not that, it's, well..." I couldn't bring myself to look anywhere above the floor. "It'd feel like I'm cheating on the ones in my dorm-- Hey!" I heard a loud snort and some barely restrained giggling. "It's not that funny!"

"Sure." Heather let out that wide smile she always gets whenever she thinks she's gotten the upper hand in a conversation. "But what I'm saying is, I think you should try doing something on your terms. Not Ainsley's. Not Marvin's. Yours. Take initiative or control of anything, for once, God."

"And then what? Am I supposed to convince Marvin I deserve my own life? Play along with that, that rat? I don't think he's earned the good faith of the assumption he hasn't already decided what he's going to do with my body, one way or the other! I don't know what's going to happen, and it feels like even the act of going along with him would be handing him a victory."

"That's what I'm saying, dumbass! You don't know what's going to happen, and that's exactly why you should do it! Not for him! For you! Because you don't know how your life's gonna turn out, or your next life. What if you get stuck as an old man who can barely walk, or a mother of, I dunno, eight, or some empty-nester at a high school's front office counting down the number of entitled parents she has to yell at before retirement!? Just. Do anything that's not Ainsley's leftovers, while you still know what your body's gonna look like when you wake up in the morning. You don't need the Inn to get thrown from one life to another before you know it. Trust me."

I couldn't bring myself to listen to any more of this. "You know what? I am sick and tired of every conversation I ever have turning into a, some kind of guilt-tripping morality play! I don't know if all you people are right about my life, but I can tell everyone thinks they know how to live it better than me." I then took the initiative and control to turn my back on Heather and head off to my bedroom, like I should've done to begin with.

Then I spent a couple hours coming up with reasons she's wrong.

Isaac/Ainsley: Ungrateful

Incredibly, by the time Thanksgiving came around and I couldn't put off meeting Ainsley's family any longer, I wasn't all that terrified. I don't know whether that's growth or just numbness, or if the two can be considered the same thing at times. It helps that, as Ainsley's family lives nearby and "I" blew all my PTO in Maine over the summer, I had an excuse to only show up for a few hours on the day of.

It was basically a vacation compared to the wedding, and nothing really noteworthy happened why didn't have a worse equivalent at the wedding. I fielded Ainsley's parents' questions about how the job is going, if I'm back into dating yet, and why I stopped showing up to watch the Cardinals with them this year with disappointingly flat answers. Her family does the big extended family gathering type of Thanksgiving (it was at an aunt's house), which normally isn't my speed but it helped keep me from getting put on the spot too much by the people who know Ainsley best, again.

Christmas went much the same way, after changing out the food and decorations. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As predicted the holidays made it difficult for Ainsley's friends to coordinate any more big meetups for several weeks, not helped by how Ainsley is usually the one doing the coordinating. I got talked into a holiday party where about two-thirds of them showed up, it went okay. The wedding gave me enough experience with these girls to settle into an uncomfortable but stable equilibrium where they're clearly baffled by Ainsley's lack of being in sync, so to speak, but I'm present enough that they've learned not to pry too hard. I eat and drink and wait for a conversation topic which gives me opportunities to speak in ways that won't humiliate me and count down until I get to leave.

Melissa is the exception. I kept my promise to see her again and we've gotten lunch a couple times. Whenever I interact with her it feels as if she's trying to figure me out (though with less openly stated desperation than at the bachelorette party), as if she believes if she cracks the code, she'll be able to tease the real Ainsley back out. More than awkwardness, I just feel terrible for her. She's genuinely charismatic and engaging to be around, even if we don't have much in common, and all she wants and deserves is something I don't know how to give. But I can tell, she'd rather have the illusion of Ainsley in her life than to have her vanish again. So it goes.

That all being said I drew the line at going clubbing with the group on New Year's Eve. I already tried doing the courageous thing and taking a big step out of my comfort zone at the bachelorette party, and you remember how that went. Heather also made plans so I had the apartment to myself for the night. It went pretty well, all things considered. I broke into Ainsley's wine stash and watched The Truman Show. I'd had worse NYEs.

The next day I got a text from Isaac Strauss.

Also known as Marvin Harrell. I've kind of avoided talking about the man in my body, and I didn't like thinking much about him, either. Once it became clear that my life requires relatively little micromanagement it just became, too uncomfortable to imagine someone else in my place. Easier to avoid it altogether, despite how irrational a fear I thought it was.

Hey man,

I've been wanting to tell you. I mentioned I'm a 35-year-old guy, but that wasn't the whole truth. I'm SUPPOSED to be 35. But I was in this woman's seventies before I ended up in your body.

I've been in a few seventies, actually. An eighties, once. Life starts to look different when you keep taking peeks at the end. Fucker steals my body 'cause some girl smiled at him at the gym and he thinks he's got some kind of soulmate, and every summer since then that place finds another way to take everything from me again. Eyesight. Strength. Independence. The future. Lust, and not just that kind but. The lust for life. One time the guy in my at-the-time-body's husband's life got a heart attack, and he barely lived, but man, he got to go back in the end. And the fucked up part is you get used to it. You start to forget what you've lost, 'cause there's no other way to cope.

And then I finally got a good roll and woke up in your body and, man. You're a scrawny young guy, maybe that chick you're in's stronger than you used to be even. But you're a young guy. Could've been made of toothpicks and you'd still have one thing I hadn't had in years. Potential. You've got problems, but with the time to solve them. When a guy your age rots there's either something wrong with him or it's by choice. And I'm watching you do the same thing to Ainsley's life, too.

I just wanna know, what's up man? If you asked me in the first couple days I would've been relieved at how little you've got going on but it's just. Sad. The more I thought about it every joint pain-free day, the more I looked at you in the mirror, the less it sat right with me. And when I couldn't take it anymore I started making some changes. It's not that hard, you've got free time out the ass. Getting a real haircut was one of the first things I did. Been hitting the gym for a while now. Tried figuring out how to take care of your plants but some of them keep trying to die on me, I'm working on it though. Started chatting with some people at the dining hall, been going on hikes with them every now and then. Not a bad time. I tried out for the improv club but ate shit at the audition. You'd think all this Inn stuff'd make us better actors. Oh, and I cut off that girl you're always texting. She's too nice to say it, but she's for sure tired of you dude. Being the only person you have. You've been holding yourself back, it's for the best. Trust me, I've been there.

So yeah, I'll let you know about Inn reservation stuff once that opens up but I just felt like I had to tell you all that. You've gotta appreciate what you've got before it's gone. I mean, can I keep your life? It's not like you were using it. Lol

-Marv

I had to replace Ainsley's phone after that.

Isaac/Ainsley: Not Like Other Girls

After all that, I learned it's not that hard to dissociate your way through a wedding.

So much of it didn't require a lot of social effort. Yes, the other bridesmaids looked at me weird when I met them in the hotel lobby the next morning, and I gave Melissa a probably unsatisfyingly-flat reassurance when she asked me if I'm okay again. But after that it was easy. We all got our hair and makeup done; I let the other girls handle the obligatory small talk with the hairdressers and obviously we couldn't talk while our makeup got applied. Afterwards, everyone was too focused with helping Cayley navigate her big day to worry about me, besides the occasional concerned glance from Melissa.

We got Cayley into her dress and I silently watched her fiancée get his first opportunity to gawk over her. The wedding photos were a breeze; I just had to turn my brain off and do whatever the photographer said. He gave me a couple of reminders to smile more, which is a typical comment for me to get in my own life during the rare occasions I've had photos taken professionally, but he had criticisms and suggestions for several more of us so I didn't stick out there. The whole experience had the opposite dynamic from how it used to be when I went to weddings and bar mitzvahs as a kid: I now prayed for busywork and scheduled activities instead of facing the terrors of getting a break and being responsible for my own choices. Basically, I preferred the role of bridesmaid to the role of Ainsley.

The ceremony all went according to script, aside from the ringbearer faceplanting and some guest leaping out of his aisle seat to catch the rings before they hit the ground. Good thing the venue was indoors, I suppose. I cheered and clapped for the bride, fake-laughed half a second after the other bridesmaids whenever the maid of honor referenced some sorority story or in-joke in her speech. I mostly occupied myself strategizing exactly how long I had to stay at the reception before I could go home without causing suspicion, but to my surprise I actually found myself caught up in the ceremony a handful of times. Teared up a little. I think it's because I'd spent the last couple of days seeing a lot of Cayley and she came across as a shy, very nice person who deserves her happiness. Not that I didn't feel weird about it once I realized what I was doing, nor did it make me any better at shouting and cheering for her when the time came.

Finally the reception arrived. Just a few more hours before I got to relax. We had dinner and I made sure to focus more on eating my food when the conversation turned to subjects I was less able to respond to. When the bridesmaids all got up to dance, I activated the plan I'd come up with for avoiding a repeat of last night's disaster: I'd let the talkative groomsman I'd been paired with for the ceremony dance with me.

That certainly wasn't something I would've done fresh out the Inn a few months ago, but if there's anything I've learned since then it's that people who actually know Ainsley are far more terrifying to interact with than anyone who doesn't. Still, I found myself reminded of one reason I was so terrified to go out in public at first. It hit me after I'd already allowed him to invite me to the dance floor just how infrequently I interact with men anymore for more than fleeting moments; Ainsley's friends are all women, and so is the one person stuck in this misadventure with me. (Not that she'd consider herself stuck.) Really there's only the men at Ainsley's job, and her office is decidedly majority-female so being around them isn't especially nerve-wracking. This guy, on the other hand. He didn't do anything wrong. But everything about being around him-- the leading questions he asked me, the occasional comments, how he held onto my waist during the slow dance and how big his hands were, the way he kept scanning my body-- made it hit me that in this body I'm a woman, in a way that wearing bras, having a period and spending a weekend as a bridesmaid didn't. The sheer difference from how I would've interacted with him in my own body. And that is, deeply uncomfortable to have to think about.

But at the end of the day, my plan worked. I could respond to all his small talk and when it came to dancing I just let him lead me. I never had to live up to any expectations besides those related to the immediate setting. And nobody interrupted me to ask me if I was doing okay. As uncomfortable as it was, it solved the problem I'd hoped to solve. After I was satisfied with how long we'd been dancing I even let the guy have my number when he asked, as a tip of sorts, not that I plan on being prompt with any responses. And with that, I said my goodbyes to Cayley and the bridesmaids, made sure to hug Melissa and promise to see her again soon (we'll see. The upcoming holidays provide me with a lot of convenient excuses but I really did mean it), and went on my way.

I noticed an open window as I parked in front of the apartment, and when I walked in there was Heather, on the couch, a lit joint in hand. I was relieved to see her, which mostly only happens when I'm exhausted from trying to be Ainsley. It's never a great sign about how I spent my day, or my weekend in this case. "Welcome back, girlie", she told me. I looked down at myself in my bridesmaid dress and sighed, standing there for a few moments.

"Heather..." I asked, "Do you think there's something I'm missing, some obvious piece I've overlooked for why I'm so much worse at pretending to be... these lives, than you, or the people on the blog?" I had a lot of time to dwell on the drive back home. "Like, there's people who can but choose not to because they don't care, or there's horrible situations like kids in adult bodies who really can't do it. But I'm not in a position like that, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to. Can I figure it out and it'll just click into place, and I'll slap myself wondering how I could've been stupid enough to overlook it? Or is there something wrong with me and I'm just that different from everyone else?"

Heather thought for a little while. Answering that question probably wasn't the way she'd planned to spend her chill Saturday night indoors. So she didn't. Instead she scooched over on the couch, shrugged, and silently offered me the joint.

I hesitated, but not long enough to change out of the bridesmaid dress, before I sat down and accepted.