Chapter 2: The Weight of Seconds

I laid there for hours staring at the stars puddy tacked to the cieling before i started to drift. A car roared outside, tires screeching around the corner. Rain. Headlights. And everything is blurry. My hands gripping the wheel as my knuckles turned white. And then I see it. Glowing eyes in the road. The eyes of death. My death. I have to escape. I can't let it catch me. I have to get away. Then suddenly; metal screamed and glass exploded. My body lurched forward, seatbelt slicing into my chest, as I now float in cold darkness, suffocating

I shot upright, gasping, my fingers clawing at my chest. No seatbelt. No blood. Just the walls of a now foreign bedroom, the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. My chest heaved, ribs straining against the lace of Krysta's camisole.

"Breathe. Breathe." I repeated like a mantra.

But the memories surged—Dad's funeral, Mom's hollow eyes, Jake's overdose in a motel bathtub, the eviction notices piling up—each image sharper, louder, until the room spun. I stumbled to the window, wrenching it open and vomit- the night air burning my lungs.

"I died... No, no, no—" I choked, sliding to the floor.

My hands—now small, manicured, and delicate—trembled as I pressed them to my face. *This isn't real. None of this is real.* But the floorboard beneath me was squeaky and familiar. The hum of the fridge downstairs was the same. These are memories of MY life that i already lived, except they are different. Everything is wrong. What will happen to me? Will I eventually fade away if Krysta returns?

A sob ripped out of me, raw and guttural. I scrambled for the window, retching again, but nothing came up this time. The journal I fumbled through seeking answers lay open on the vanity, Krysta's beautiful loopy handwriting mocking my despair.

"Krys?" A pattern of rhythmic taps. "You okay? I heard a scream."

I froze. *Dad?*

"Fine," I croaked. "It's open."

He creaked the door open and popped his head in, to see me in my fetal position on the floor, knees to my chest. He walked over to me, helping me off the floor onto my bed.

"Are you alright? Want some hot chocolate or something?"

The question shattered me. He'd asked Kris the same thing after nightmares. Except that this really happened. The tightening in my chest eased.

"Okay," I rasped. "Thanks, dad."

--

The kitchen clock ticked like a bomb. It was past midnight. Dad whistled as he stirred the pot, marshmallows bobbing in the steam. I counted his movements: *clink* of the spoon, *hiss* of the stove, *thud* of the mug on the counter. Real. Solid. This is my reality now. I got a second chance.

"Here." He slid the mug to me, his wedding ring glinting. Still on his finger.

I clutched it, the heat searing my palms. "Dad?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"I... I had a dream where I watched you die. I buried you. And I failed you."

At first he was worried, but his glance softened.

"It's okay now kiddo, it was just a dream" he said. "Your old man's still got plenty of years left in him."

He ruffled my hair—a gesture that once annoyed me but now made my eyes sting.

"Plus your mom wont let me smoke, you're stuck with me."

I finally broke. I threw myself at him and gave him the hug I always wanted to give him.

"I love you, Dad."

And I grieved. I grieved for my dad. For Jake. For mom. And for myself. All I could do to stifle the cries was to plant my face into my dads chest, the smell of cooking oil and beer, a once lost comfort.

"Woah," Dad held me as I cried. "I love you too, kiddo. It's okay. I'm here."

--

Back in my room, the panic simmered under my skin. I dug through Krysta's vanity desk, desperate for evidence—anything—something that could prove that I was at least crazy and imagining everything. Polaroids spilled out: Krysta and Lena at a pool party, Krysta's arms looped around Ethan's neck, Jake making a bunny-eared shadow behind them. I remembered this day, i was the one who took the picture. And instead of me and Lena, it was her and Rachel. So who took the picture?

"POP!" I jumped at the sudden sound. It was a text message. The first thing I did when I picked it up was silence it.

Ethan* *Can't sleep. Come to the roof?*

The roof. Our spot. Me and Ethan had snuck up there multiple times to watch meteor showers, debate, argue about whether Han Solo could beat Captain Picard in a fight. We had been neighbors since kindergarten and it seems even in this life we managed to remain good friends. There was a direct path from my window to his window, if we walked across the garage roofs. 'No Man Land' we had called it. Thats actually where we met eachother. A thought that brought me comfort.

I hesitated, with a brief smile I typed: *5 mins.*

The cold night air bit through Ethans hoodie I toss over my camisole. Ethan sat cross-legged by the edge, a blanket draped over his shoulders. He gave me a corner of it, his fingers brushing mine.

"You've been… off," he said. "Are you good?"

I grabbed the corner of the blanket and nudged up next to him, the first bit of normalcy I've felt since I woke up like this.

"Bad week." I bit my lip. Wait... That was a lie, seeing dad was totally worth it.

"Try bad month." He nudged me. "You used to tell me everything."

Would he believe me?* The stars blurred. "What if I'm not who you think I am?"

He joked. "You're Krysta, right?"

I opened my mouth, *No. I'm a ghost. I possessed your friend.* is what i wanted to say, but he cut me off with a question:

"Remember when we tried to build a rocket out of soda bottles up here?" he said suddenly.

I stiffened, and locked my stare at him. My memories flickered—the bottle exploding, Ethan handing me a sparkler, our hands touching. Everything that has happened between us seems to have still happened, just with me as a girl. I think I can work with this, it's not like we are starting over. Everything is still the same. Did everything that happened in my past life also happen here? This is a very interesting discovery. Lets give this a shot...

"You kept insisting we sauder the fins on," I laughed. "It made it exploded all over me and your mom grounded you for a week."

We both laughed awkwardly, silently confirming my theory. "I uh.. just didn't think about it at the time, how was i supposed to know your shirt was see-through?"

The comment reminded me of my body again. That's right. I'm a girl now. And I'm sitting on a roof with a boy. Under the blanket with him. I am embarrassed of my own body still, every time we touch a constant reminder.

He leaned closer. "You finally smiled. Thank god, I was sure I had done something to piss you off again."

This is getting weird. His breath fogged in the air, his eyes searching mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he'd kiss me—when he annoyed me, normally I would've shoved him off the roof, and laughed it off—but I turned away.

"I'm cold," I said. "Let's call it a night."

Awkwardly, I climbed into my window and he scaled the roof bridge to his room, as our eyes meet one final time we wave each other goodnight.

--

At dawn, I sat at Krysta's vanity, studying her face. The freckles, the too-wide eyes, the lips that quirked up unevenly when she smiled. She even had sectorial heterochromia just like me, the right eye was split down the middle: half green, half brown. The other eye was just regular brown, nothing too special. I still have the scar on my eyebrow from when I fell off the slide as a kid, too. Its identical. Even my features are similar. I still have attached earlobes, but they are pierced now.

I opened the journal, flipping past the note I wrote in an emotional panic. My busted phone buzzed as I headed downstairs.

Jason Choi* *Wanna grab coffee?*

Lena had mentioned something about Jason Choi... what was it again? Didn't he like have a crush on Krysta or something? If that's the case, I should be able to casually ask questions about myself without seeming too weird. At least, in front of my close friends, anyway. Jason had always been irrelevant to me.

I paused, then typed: *Sure.* In my previous life Jason was not my friend, so does that mean he's not my friend here? This is too confusing. Either way, I should use this as an opportunity to learn more about whats going on. It's too grand of an oppertunity.

Mom grinned over her crossword, sipping coffee. "Where are you off to so early?"

"Im meeting Lena for coffee" I fibbed, stealing a strip of bacon from Jake's plate. He squawked, and Dad laughed at him.

The panic still lurked, sharp and serrated, but I tucked it away.