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The song “Alive” comes on, and my heart trips a little. I lean back against my pillow and listen to the words. It’s all about this kid finding out his father is dead. Even though the kid never knew his father, the death leaves a scar on him. An absence so all-encompassing, it’s there even in his happiest moments.

I close my eyes and wish I could tell my mother about my day. I’d tell her I’m worried about Sophie and how there’s a new boy who’s really kind of hot and how I think Mattie and Amber are up to no good. I’d tell her I miss her. I’d tell her I love her. I’d tell her everything.

A
couple of hours later, Mattie and Amber spill into the kitchen, all ponytails and giggles and pom-poms. I roll my eyes over my glass of chocolate milk. Through the kitchen window, I see Samantha Phillips’s car pull away from the curb. The ridiculous thing is that, instead of just ditching me as a friend, Samantha hangs out with my little sister now, like she’s upgraded to a newer, shinier version of me. I suppose it was inevitable, since Mattie joined the cheerleading squad. And Mattie has way more in common with her than I ever did. I’ve heard Mattie spend hours on the phone with Samantha, debating the merits of thong underwear.

Mattie tosses her purse and pom-poms onto the kitchen table before raiding the fridge. “Hey!” She grimaces at me. “You finished the chocolate milk.”

She pulls out a bottle of Evian and twists the cap off before taking a long gulp.

Amber helps herself to a bottle of water and shakes it at my sister. “You don’t need chocolate milk, anyway, honey. Remember, we’re off sugar and flour.”

Mattie sticks out her tongue at Amber.

“So, what are the chances I can get you guys to lie low tonight?” I hoist myself onto the kitchen counter. “Rollins is coming over to watch movies.”

At the mention of Rollins’s name, Amber stands up straight. I can practically smell the pheromones coming off her.

“What will you give us to stay in my room?” Mattie, ever the negotiator, asks. Her gaze drifts up to the half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan on top of the refrigerator.

“There’s loads of sugar in rum,” I say, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice.

“Booze doesn’t count,” Amber announces. “Your body burns booze calories superquick. Especially if we practice our new routine a few times.” She swivels her hips and tosses her ponytail in either an epileptic seizure or their new routine.

“Please?” Mattie’s eyes are pleading. “We’ll just stay in my room. Won’t we, Amber?”

Amber shrugs. “Whatever.”

I sigh. If they actually stay in Mattie’s room, I’ll be free to enjoy the movie instead of having to explain the plot to Mattie, and Rollins won’t have a freshman in heat crawling all over his lap. Besides, if I tell them no, they’ll just sneak it anyway. Isn’t it better that they drink here, where I can keep an eye on them?

“Fine,” I say. “Just stay in your room.”

“Yoink!” Mattie grabs the bottle of rum.

Amber paws through the refrigerator until she finds a two-liter of Coke. “Don’t you have any Diet?” she whines, and I shoot her death rays until she looks away.

Armed with booze, Coke, glasses, ice, and a butter knife to mix their drinks, the girls bounce out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Just in time, too. At that moment, Rollins pulls up in his old Nissan Stanza.

I watch him climb out of the car and amble up the front walk, carrying something under his arm. He runs his fingers through his hair before ringing the doorbell. When I open the door, he holds his hands behind his back.

“Choose,” he says.

“Choose what?”

“Choose a hand. Right or left.”

I point at his right hand, and he brings it forward. I’ve chosen
The Exorcist
.

“Wise choice.” He nods.

“Mos def,” I say. “What’s in the other hand?”

He slowly reveals his other hand. He’s clutching a bundle of blue cloth. He shakes it out, and I see that it’s a T-shirt. I suck in my breath. The cover of The Smashing Pumpkins’ album
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
, with an angel bursting out of a star, is on the front.
Mellon Collie
is one of my favorite albums. I’ve been trolling eBay for this shirt for ages.

“It came in with a shipment of vintage T-shirts,” Rollins says. “Is it the right one?”

“Ohmygod!” I cry, jumping up and down. “I’ve been looking for this
forever
.”

Rollins laughs at my excitement. “Are you sure? I can take it back if you don’t like it. . .” He playfully tugs it away from me, and I slap his hand.

Rollins follows me into the living room and flops onto our plaid couch, in his regular spot. I lay the T-shirt carefully over the top of the couch, a cheesy smile plastered on my face, and pop the DVD into the player before throwing myself into the recliner.

“So who’s your dad operating on today?”

“Ah, I forgot to tell you. Conjoined twins.”

Rollins’s eyebrows jump with interest. “Really? Conjoined twins? Awesome.”

I knew he’d be excited at the prospect of real, live conjoined twins. There was one time last year when we were so bored that we went to Goodwill and bought a size XXXL shirt we could both fit into. We went to the mall, and everyone stared at us while we fed each other sticky buns and went up and down the escalator. Rollins even accompanied me into the girls’ bathroom and looked away while I went pee. I know it wouldn’t be fun to
really
be a conjoined twin, but we love the concept of it.

I fill him in on the details of the operation. In a weird way, I envy the soon-to-be-separated twins—assuming everything goes well. Soon they will be nestled in their cots, able to lead normal, uncomplicated lives. I wish there was an operation my dad could do to fix whatever is wrong with me.

“That’s intense. It’s so cool that your dad is able to have that kind of impact,” Rollins says, pulling a loose string off his T-shirt.

“Jared Bell saves the day again,” I say.

I’m unable to stop the dark feeling that passes through me. Yeah, my dad has a positive effect on so many lives— just not mine. Maybe if I saw him more than a few minutes a day,
if that
. I immediately feel terrible for the thought. Selfish. Sick babies are way more important than me getting to hang out with my dad. He’s a hero for being able to put right what nature made wrong.

I aim the remote control toward the DVD player to start the movie. The sky outside is just darkening in preparation for night. Rollins interrupts the movie every few minutes with a snarky comment. I pull a quilt tight around me, wrapping myself in the moment, the familiarity. This is the way our friendship used to be, before we started drifting apart. I miss it.

Linda Blair’s head is just about to start spinning like a top full of vomit when Mattie bursts into the living room, followed by Amber. Mattie bumps into the coffee table and giggles. Someone’s been hitting the rum a little too hard.

“Oh,
hello
, lovely sister. So sorry to bother you. But Samantha’s coming to pick us up, and we’re going to a movie.” She slurs her words slightly and laughs again.

Amber eyes Rollins hungrily. She plops down next to him on the couch and gives him a sly smile. The tiniest worm of envy works its way through the apple of my heart. I don’t know where it comes from, but it annoys me and I squash it by glaring at my sister.

“
Mattie
,” I growl. “You said you were going to stay here tonight.” My eyes gravitate toward Amber and Rollins on the couch. She’s batting her eyes at him, and it looks like he’s trying to inch away from her.

“Come on, Vee. All the Poms are going to be there. Do you want me to miss out?” She yanks up the volume on her “poor me” shtick, the one I always fall for.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Amber moving closer to Rollins and hitching up her skirt. She lifts a single finger and reaches out to touch Rollins’s pierced lip. “I like your piercing. I bet it feels great—”

I interrupt Amber. “Fine, Mattie. Go to the movie. But you’d better be back here by midnight. I’m not covering for you if Dad gets home early.”

A blaring comes from outside, probably Samantha leaning on her horn.

Mattie pops a hip. “Don’t do me any favors. Come on, Amber, let’s go.” She pries Amber away from Rollins, and the two of them skip out the door.

The older sister part of me winces at the thought of letting Mattie go out, as drunk as she is, but the rest of me feels suddenly lightened. At least they’re gone. They’re Samantha’s problem now. And why do I always have to be the teenybopper police, anyway? I’m not the parent. I deserve a night to just enjoy myself, don’t I?

Rollins looks relieved, too. “Should we rewind? We missed the best part.” It takes me a moment to realize Rollins is talking about the movie.

“Oh, yeah.” I find the remote control under a pillow on the floor. I find the part we were watching before we were so rudely interrupted and push Play.

I settle back into the chair and pull the blanket up to my chin. After a while, my eyelids start to droop. I shake my head, trying to wake myself up.

“Vee? Are you okay?”

I hold up a finger and take deep breaths, but it does no good. I feel that I’m about to go. Quickly, I take inventory of what I’m touching. Chair, blanket, clothes. So I could slide into anyone who’s sat in this chair recently—my dad or Mattie. Shit.

I jump out of the chair, not wanting to slide into my father in the middle of some gross medical procedure, but it’s too late. I feel myself falling to the floor. Rollins cries out.

Wherever I am, it’s not the hospital. I’m not at the movie theater, either. I’m in a bedroom—a girl’s bedroom, it looks like.

The girl I’ve become cries as though someone ripped her heart in half. She sobs, clutching a lacy blanket, wiping her snot on it. Someone rubs her back. The pressure against her skin moves in circles, this way and that. It feels so good. It feels like everything I should have but don’t.

The sensation calms me, but it does nothing to stop the noise coming out of the girl I’ve slipped into. She wails like a banshee for ten seconds, then gulps in air until it feels like her lungs are going to explode. The pink walls, punctuated with framed pictures of ballerinas, seem to be closing in.

A middle-aged woman, presumably the back-rubber, comes into view. Her cheeks are full and flushed, and she reaches out a soft hand to tousle the girl’s hair.

This is what a mother is.

“Honey, those girls are no good for you. I’ve been telling you that all along.”

The girl just cries harder. I can barely see through her tears.

“
Sophie
,” the woman says.

The realization creeps up on me: I’m inside Sophie Jacobs. What could I have been touching that would have Sophie’s imprint on it? I suppose she’s been over at our house enough times. She’s probably sat in that recliner.

The scene in the locker room this morning comes rushing back to me. Amber and Mattie. Who else could “those girls” be? They betrayed her somehow, went forward with their plan to “put her in her place.” But how? What did they
do
to her?

“I don’t understand,” Sophie says. “How could they be so mean? They’re supposed to be my
friends
.” She wipes her eyes with the comforter, clearing my vision for the moment. Her mother hovers inches away. She hooks one finger under Sophie’s chin and tilts her head up, looks her straight in the eye.

“Sophie, listen to me. True friends would never do what they did to you
.
Do you understand me? And on your birthday, no less. What kind of monsters do that? The best thing you can do is cut them loose. Be strong. You’ll be so much better off.”

What did they do? What did Mattie and Amber do that was so terrible?

Sophie sputters. “Mom. I’m not strong. I’m not.”

An image slices through my mind: Sophie, on her hands and knees in the bathroom. I wonder if that’s what Sophie’s thinking of. I wish I could reach in, pull out her thoughts, examine them like a roll of film. But I don’t have that kind of power. I am only a passenger. A witness.

Sophie’s mother speaks firmly. “You’re stronger than you’ll ever know.”

Sophie’s breath gradually becomes more even. Her mother holds out her hands, and Sophie grasps them. They feel soft. I don’t want to like it so much, this feeling of a mother. I don’t want to know what I’m missing.

“Come on. Let’s go have some chocolate-chip ice cream. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how skinny you’ve been getting.”

Sophie tenses. Again, I remember Sophie curved around the toilet. Something within her breaks. Her body relaxes, her decision made. She lets her mother lead her out of the room.

“Sylvia?”

Rollins’s face is inches from my own. I’m sprawled on the floor, and he’s leaning over me, his brow furrowed. He pulls me into a sitting position, and his fingers catch on something around my wrist.

Sophie’s bracelet, meant for Mattie. That’s what made me slide. She must have imprinted on it while she was braiding it. I slip it off and toss it onto the coffee table.

“What’s that? You joining the cheerleading squad?”

I rub my temples. “Ugh. No. That’s for Mattie. Argh. My head.”

Rollins rubs my shoulder sympathetically. “Twice in one day. You must be exhausted.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. A part of me, small but growing every day, wants to come clean to Rollins. I mean, Rollins knows everything about me. Everything but
that
. Rollins is ruled by logic, though. If I told him I slid into other people’s minds, he’d laugh at me.