“Lauren said he wasn’t that bad,” I tell him and he laughs.
“Are you listening to me, Chris? I just….” He lets out a long frustrated breath. “Keep it up, farm boy. He’s the great pretender. You remember we saw that movie where the guy kills the rich dude and takes over his life and keeps knocking other people off to keep up the façade?”
“You’re saying he’s a serial killer?” I ask sarcastically.
“Hey, I’m not going that far but without us, who knows?” I’m starting to think Cal is paranoid, and this seems to be going nowhere.
“Then what are you saying? Because as far as I know, Collin didn’t interrupt my life just to screw with me. You did!” I ask him angrily and his expression turns venomous.
“There you go again. Thinking that I interrupted your life, that you’re the golden child and I’m the ugly step kid. Every good thing that you have now is because of me. Lauren, Caylen, and the money you so sanctimoniously wanted to hand over to your half-brained friend. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be living paycheck to paycheck married to that frigid bitch Jenna!”
It’s so strange. The anger in the room, my defiant face staring at me. His expression is hard, and he looks like how I feel. A few moments pass between our stare off. He’s me, or I’m him. This proves it even more how out of touch I am with myself. Being here is bizarre but it is another nail in the coffin to how real this is.
“You can think whatever you want about me but I love Lauren and Caylen. I’d never do anything to hurt them. We’d all go before they would.” The promise in his tone should scare me but it doesn’t. “If for some reason I knew that we were a danger to them, I’d end it all without a second thought.”
I clear my throat. “So if what you’re saying is true… wouldn’t Collin be aware of all of this?”
“Don’t let the pretty face fool ya. I’m smarter than I look,” he laughs and I hold mine back. “It’d be easier if you were on board.”
“And what do I get out of this?” He looks both amused and shocked by my question. “I’m already used to being left out—being ping-ponged between the two of you. How do you help me?”
“Look at you, graduating from checkers to chess!” He has a proud, twisted grin on his face. “Okay, we can start off with me sharing my memories with you—if you can handle them.”
“I don’t want to be caught off guard anymore. I want to know if a transition is going to happen,” I tell him. He nods.
“Just so you know the clinical terms you don’t have to use with me,” he winks.
“Deal or not,” I reiterate. He stands up.
“Deal.” He says, and I almost feel this is too easy.
“How would we—I don’t know the schedule for this…” I search for the words to ask.
“What do you think is fair?”
“I don’t know…” I didn’t really consider this.
“Every other month?”
“That seems like a long time,” I say scratching my head.
“Every week…” he sounds slightly annoyed. That seems too frequent.
“Every two weeks. And if there’s an event one of us has, we agree to let the corresponding person attend without interference.”
“That sounds fair,” he says. “But one thing—this stays between us. We don’t tell anyone—not Helen, your parents, and especially not Lauren.”
“Why not?”
“There are some things that are not quite sitting right with me that I have to find out answers to. I’m not entirely sure what role Helen plays in all of this,” he says, and I’m surprised by this because you’d think they were best friends the way Lauren describes it.
“And these things are?”
He glares at me then shrugs casually. “When I find out you will.”
“Fine…But my parents are pretty obvious, but why can’t we tell Lauren?” I ask.
“Because she should think we’re integrated. It’s what’s been hammered into her about us being ‘cured’ I don’t want her worrying about us.”
“You may be able to lie to her…”
“It’s not lying!” he says defensively. “I don’t lie to Lauren,” his voice drops dangerously low, and I wonder what he thinks this is.
“Us working together is a form of integration,” he reasons. I try to think how Lauren would react if I told her that Cal and I were decided to switch out…. co-exist would be a better word. I think she’d understand.
“Don’t puss out on me, Chris. We can discuss telling her at a later date. Let’s gauge her reaction first,” he relents. That I can go for. “And we allow access to each other’s memories and thoughts.”
“Don’t you already have access to mine?”
“Things have been a little different since I kicked Collin out of the club.” He shrugs. So he does need me.
I never imagined a day when we would sit down… or I would sit down with myself and talk. Cal explains how I can summon him if I need him. It sounds ridiculous, but this whole thing is. I let him know what he’s missed out on in the missing weeks he’s had. Still, something just doesn’t sit right with me.
“Why should I trust you?” I ask and he smiles.
“You don’t trust yourself? Look I’m you, and you’re me, and we have to act in our own best interest.”
“You thought killing someone was in our best interest?” I remind him.
“Okay, I was probably a little hasty about that… but I wouldn’t have gotten caught,” he says.
“Okay. So… how do we do this?”
“We shake on it.”
“That’s it?” I ask, and his eyebrows rise. “Okay.” And we shake on it.
“What you thought there’d be a rainbow or something?” He’s such a smug…
“Christopher?” Helen asks when I open my eyes. Her gaze is speculative.
“Yeah?”
“How did it go?” she asks.
“It was okay I guess,” I say nonchalantly.
“Were you able to speak to him?”
“Yeah, he said he’s willing to integrate for Lauren,” I clear my throat. I’ve lied more this year than my whole life, and I still don’t feel like I’m getting any better at it.
“Really?” she sounds surprised, and that makes my stomach twitch.
“Uh…why wouldn’t you think he’d want to integrate?”
“The same reason you never wanted to, Chris. But I always guessed if anyone would bring you together, it would be Lauren. Let’s go back to my office, and we’ll wrap up.”
Something is wrong. My temples are throbbing, and I know I’ve missed time. I’ve missed events before but this does not happen. Not with me. I stare at Helen who just asked something about Lauren, and then look at the screen and see my face. But it’s not me… I’m not sure who it is. How did I get here?