If I Were You

Chapter 19 Amy

I’m in Flynn’s body. I can see I am. I know I’m me, but I can move his hands. The scar on his left knuckle is as clear as day. The navy-blue cotton shorts I gave him for his birthday are now damp and sticking to my legs. I feel like him too, my body heavier, balance peculiar, nothing feeling right. My head swims as I stare down at his thighs with their wiry hairs, the ridiculous long diamond socks.

That’s when my breathing gets shallower and my vision blurs and the rain feels louder and the whole scene gets hazy and more bizarre.

And I can hear him laughing now. Well, it’s not really a laugh, more a crazed snort of hysteria. And on one level the noise makes sense. He is me. In my favourite flowered tea dress, damp and sticking to him from the rain. He has my curly dark brown hair, wet clumps escaping from the wilting knotted hairband, my freckled nose, my face running with mascara. It’s absurd. But this is the very furthest away from funny. I am not sure what it is: I can’t organize my thoughts, I can’t stay in any one moment.

We’re pulled over and every now and again a car passes, loaded with holiday things and people. Life going on as usual: as if this hasn’t happened.

How did it happen? I just don’t comprehend. One moment I’d stepped out of the car, angry and not wanting to stay in the small space with a person who didn’t understand me. The next the sky seemed to split open and there was a blinding light as my whole body lifted off the ground. After that all I remember is slamming to a stop, stunned and confused as I lay in the long, wet grass.

It was only when I stood, dazed and blinking, that I knew something was very wrong, felt something was off kilter. When I lifted strange hands to my face, registered the rough stubble on my chin, the nose broken in the middle. I couldn’t stop the scream.

Then that sound, my scream but two registers lower, made me scream harder and clutch my face.

Then to see myself walking around my car towards me, arms held out, my rain-spattered body approaching me, a concerned expression on my face, made me scream harder still.

A nightmare, a terrifying nightmare.

‘OK,’ I say in a shaky voice. ‘OK.’ I try desperately to get a handle on something and as I’m trying to do so I hear the ringtone on my phone. ‘We are Family’. I reach for it on automatic.

‘Hey Laurs,’ I say shakily, shocked again that my voice is not my own.

‘Flynn? Is Amy driving?’

‘Um … um … yes, Amy is driving. I am Flynn.’

‘Has something happened?’ Her voice is worried.

Where to begin?

I open my mouth and snap it shut again.

‘Flynn?’

‘No, no, nothing’s happened,’ I squeak.

Laura can’t disguise her huff of frustration. ‘Well then, where are you guys? I was expecting you half an hour ago. I really need Amy.’

This sentence makes me feel even more terrified.

‘We’re … we’re not far away,’ I say slowly, and realize there is no way we can go now. My throat closes as I continue, ‘But we’ve … stopped.’

‘Flynn, hold on. No, Jay! Tell your mum not to, they’ve told me they’ll dry the seats … Flynn, Flynn?’

‘I’m here,’ I say, listening to my sister fretting at the other end.

‘What do you mean, you’ve stopped? Tell Amy to put her foot down. Oh my god, this rain, it’s like the worst thing.’

‘Not the worst thing,’ I can’t help snapping, looking down at my shorts and thinking about what’s inside. Not the worst thing at all.

‘Flynn, I’ve got to go … Jay! I told her Geoffrey will row her boat, tell her … just you guys get here soon, OK?’

I hold the phone limply in my hand as she disappears.

Flynn looks across at me and I get another wave of the unreal as I stare into my own face, my brown eyes wide in enquiry, my lips parted: waiting. I can see he is doing the same thing.

‘OK, we obviously cannot go to the wedding,’ I say, shaking my head in the hope I can organize my thoughts.

‘What do you mean? We have to go.’

‘Flynn, look at us! Look. At. Us. This is …’ I can feel my chest tightening as the thoughts crowd in once more and my breathing comes faster.

A hand circles my back. ‘It’s OK, we can work something out. We don’t have to go. Don’t worry …’

The storm is still raging outside and we are both chattering with cold.

‘We need to change back, we have to find a way to change back,’ I say. The moment this plan forms I get a burst of energy, something real to cling to. I reach for the door handle and push it open. The wind and rain batter the side of the door as I step out.

We cannot go to this weekend like this. I can’t just roll up and pretend this catastrophic event hasn’t occurred – pretend all is fine for Laura. It’s not possible. I need to change back; I have to get back into my body before I can even consider doing anything else.

Another rumble of thunder increases my determination and I move shakily around the car, arms sticking out as I accustom myself to this strange, lumbering body. My feet sink into the mud and the diamond socks are soaked as I stagger through the long grass of the verge to the wooden gate.

‘Flynn, come on.’

We can un-do this, move on like nothing has happened. Clambering over the gate I jump down into the field, some of the nearby cows turning to watch me curiously as they chew.

‘What are you going to do?’ Flynn calls, attempting to clamber over the gate behind me. ‘Oh my god, how do you climb in this?’

I look back to see him stuck on the top bar with my dress up around his thighs, my pink pants on show. I look so small, so inconsequential. I always felt too tall, too thick-boned in my body as if I was taking up too much space, but from here I seem fragile, a girl who I would normally run to help.

That thought makes me speed up. This is not going to be permanent; it’ll be a quick fix, we can pretend the last few minutes never happened.

I turn back and march away, past a Friesian who stares at me with unblinking eyes as I stumble over the uneven field, slipping in the mud.

Flynn is racing to catch up with me and I look over my shoulder, realizing I’m quicker than him as he picks his way over the grass, arms stuck out wide like he’s also struggling to balance. For a second I tip my head to examine what I really look like: it’s bizarre. Would anyone else realize it wasn’t me? His bird-like walk, fast and uneven. The hair barely restrained by the limp polka dot scarf, my face, arms and legs the same. But there’s something in the slope of my shoulders, the stiff way he walks that gives it away, arms slightly swinging as he attempts to catch me up.

Shaking my head, I turn back and focus again on where I’m headed. I can see the oak tree in the distance on the crest of the hill and my lungs burn as I make my way there.

‘Amy,’ Flynn calls, ‘wait up.’

As I stagger higher, slanting rain striking my face, the fields around me reveal themselves, rolling away in greens and browns, a dark blue silhouette of hills and trees in the distance, a flash of lightning nearby.

We need to change back.

‘Amy, come on, we’re soaked,’ Flynn’s new voice is lost to the wind and rain.

I’m panting as I reach the oak tree, its branches stretched out like enormous hands. It must be two hundred years old at least. The perfect spot.

By the time Flynn catches up with me I’m standing, arms wide beneath its branches.

‘What. The. Hell.’ He can barely talk, bending over and clutching his sides as the words are whispered. ‘God, you’re unfit,’ he adds.

I ignore him, nervously jumping at the rumble of thunder I’ve been waiting for, water pouring down my neck, underneath the collar of the polo shirt. ‘This is it,’ I say, closing my eyes, tipping my palms heavenwards and tilting my neck back. ‘This is it.’

There’s a tug on my arm. ‘We need to get back to the car, work this out,’ Flynn says.

I open one eye, urgency in my voice, ‘We need to get hit again,’ I say, determinedly shutting my eyes once more and shaking him off.

‘Absolutely not.’ He pulls on my arm now. ‘Amy! You’ll get yourself killed. You’ll get me killed! Come on …’

But he is not robust enough to move me. I stand, relishing this new strength that keeps my feet planted, stance firm, my body strong, resisting his urgent tugs.

‘Amy! Come on, I’m serious! You can’t do this …’

I open my eyes again and look at him, that line I get between my eyebrows deep with worry.

And then the rain starts to ease, the wind dials down and I drop my hands to my side. Behind him I see the fork of lightning above the tree line in the distance. It must be more than a mile away.

‘Come on,’ he says more gently now, ‘the storm’s moved on. Amy … we’ve got to go.’