CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nora
We laid on the mattress we’d dragged from Corey’s bedroom to the living room floor as the blue curtains danced in the breeze. I stared at the white ceiling, a thousand opportunities floating through my mind. Opportunities I never asked for and never wanted, but opportunities nonetheless.
Corey could chase his illustration dream, and I could work towards my goal of becoming CFO.
My gut twisted at the idea, but getting everything I wanted didn’t feel right when I didn’t feel like, well, me.
It wasn’t me, Nora, getting the opportunities.
It was Corey. The son of a financial shark.
Expectations about the way I act, dress, and, God, even the way I speak, would follow me everywhere I went.
Kind words weren’t tolerated by men in positions.
They’d expect me to be harsh and brutal.
Which I found strange, because I didn’t see Corey like that, even when he’s a jackass.
Beside me, his chest rose and fell beneath his black vest. My chest.
The strangest part of it all was that despite struggling with the idea of staying like this forever, I could get used to certain parts.
Like coming home to Corey’s confidence, his jokes, and his understanding.
The way he held me together when everything fell apart.
Spoke to me like I mattered, then listened like he cared about the words I spoke.
The comfort he felt with his green hat on – he was my green hat.
Anything felt possible when he was here, and he liked me. At least, part of me. My soul.
The best soul.
The curtains flapped, and the wind increased until it howled through the window like a wolf finding its pack.
The night air called for me. I watched the delicate material moving back and forth, covering the stars in the sky then revealing their glory like a parent playing peak-a-boo.
As the curtains covered them again, a flash of light burst outside, but when the curtains moved aside, it showed only the sky I’d seen before.
A distant sound prickled the hairs on the back of my neck.
Faint, but a sound I would recognise even in my sleep.
I’d been hoping for it. Dreaming of it. Thinking of it day and night, imagining what I would do when the sweet call of home finally came for me.
They say you’re more prepared and level-headed compared to when emergencies strike.
And that’s what this was.
An emergency.
My brain packed its level-headed ability into a suitcase and panicked. My heart raced, my thoughts dancing around like a carousel.
‘Corey.’ My large hands grasped Corey’s shoulders with the grip of a beast, shaking him with my wide eyes so close to his face that my lashes grazed his cheek when I blinked.
‘Holy shit!’ Corey jumped off the mattress and put some distance between us. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Be quiet,’ I yelled.
‘You’re freaking me out,’ he yelled louder.
‘Shh.’ I held my palms in front of me, eyes maniacally focused on the window.
It came again. The gentle rumble, coaxing me and luring me to the window, causing Corey’s golden curls to sweep against my forehead in the breeze.
‘Do you hear it?’ I whispered.
Corey didn’t respond, but the warmth of his breath touched the back of my neck. A moment later, his heartbeat pounded against my back, and his arms wrapped around me.
‘I can hear it,’ his voice muffled against my back. ‘Let’s go outside.’
‘We didn’t find the umbrella.’ I shook my head and examined the red, curved mark across my palm.
Corey lifted his own hand and stared at his. ‘Maybe the umbrella never mattered. We can only try.’
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Perhaps he was right.
Maybe this had been a supernatural experiment to see if we’d learn more about ourselves and each other.
To learn we were both capable of more. Either way, we couldn’t turn our backs on this chance.
I grabbed his hand and our marks nuzzled together like puzzle pieces.
We made our way to the lift in silent anticipation where despite being the middle of the night, Gerald waited.
The lift dinged open, and we waited for him to move inside before following and waiting either side of him.
The floor numbers slowly decreased as the lift dropped further down the building.
Somewhere around level two or three, a horrific smell of boiled eggs filled the small space.
I shifted my gaze to Corey, and he subtly shook his head.
The doors opened at the ground floor, and Gerald gave a cheerful goodbye before heading around the corner to check the mail.
I raced through the lobby, out the doors to the fresh air.
‘Was that you?’ I shrieked. ‘My throat is thickening. My lungs are either swelling or shrivelling, I can’t tell. The only thing I can tell is that air shouldn’t smell like that.’
Corey laughed. ‘That’s what I call the Gerald special.’
‘There is nothing special about that smell, I assure you.’
‘Even your citrus scent is better than that,’ he agreed.
I sucked in more fresh air. ‘He competes with that foul second-hand store for World’s Worst Smell.’
‘All right, all right. Give the old man a break. Replenish your lungs, Nora Claremont. We’re off to sort this shit out once and for all.’
A few steps down the path, we stopped. Despite the fierce wind, there by the pole on the ground, sat Corey’s umbrella.
The universe deemed our shitshow complete.
A full circle of madness. I could feel it in my soul.
Our souls. The universe was shaking our hands and congratulating us, handing us our prize.
The damn umbrella that had ruled our lives these last two weeks.
‘This is it,’ I shrieked. ‘It’s actually happening.’
‘How the hell did it reappear from Katoomba?’ Corey asked.
‘Fate? Destiny? I don’t know! But we can’t miss this opportunity.’
Goosebumps raced down my back, thrill and excitement consuming me. Corey put the umbrella up and I wrapped my hands around the stem overlapping his.
‘As freaky as this has been, it’s been nice to get to know you. Even if I got to know you as me,’ Corey yelled over the rumbling thunder.
‘Would it be wrong to say I’m almost glad this happened? I’ve learned more about myself in the last two weeks than I did in twenty-eight years of being me.’
‘Nora, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’
I waited, recognising his hesitation as nerves.
‘I want to—’
His words were cut off by the blinding light and crack of thunder.
The metal of the handle clung to me, refusing to let me release my grip as pain seared through my palm, just as it had the first time.
‘This is it,’ I yelled over the noise.
Corey didn’t speak, his mouth parted in surprise and fear.
I wondered if my body would feel the same as it had before our switch, if I could even remember how that felt.
Would I fall back into my old habits and please my way nowhere, or would my new sense of self-worth follow me?
Then there was Corey – what would happen to him?
Would he shake my hand then return to his father like a loyal puppy?
Would he even shake my hand once this was over, or would he sneer and berate me in class next week?
Would we compare exam results? Would we still understand the new people we’d become?
Eventually, the wind slowed, the thunder disappeared, and we both fell as the umbrella released us.
Instead of landing on the pavement as I’d expected, I fell forward and landed on Corey.
I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
Our bodies were a tangled mess as we desperately tried to move apart from each other and figure out who we were.
Part of me didn’t want to know, like that cat in a box.
Was it dead or alive? You didn’t know if you didn’t check.
Like me. I could be Corey or Nora right now, and if I didn’t check, I could decide on the answer myself.
I lifted my arms and rested my hands against my cheeks. Soft and smooth. No stubble.
‘I’m me.’ Tears blurred my eyes.
The last thing I saw was Corey tugging the waistband of his drenched pants and staring down into them, before I closed my eyes.
My hands moved over my body. My soft skin, breasts, long hair, everything I’d taken for granted.
A tear slid down my cheek. When I opened them, Corey stood in front of me, a sad smile on his face.
He reached out and wiped the tear away, his hand lingering against my cheek.
‘Why are you sad?’ he asked.
‘Why are you sad?’ I countered.
He grimaced for a moment. ‘I’m not sad, but I’m confused. I’m going back to a life I didn’t really enjoy. A life you somehow made better, and now you won’t be there.’
‘Why? You gonna start ignoring my calls and crossing the street when you see me coming?’
His lips lifted in a small smile.
Heat filled my cheeks. ‘You made my life better, too.’
I don’t know who grabbed whose hands, but our fingers laced together, familiar yet strange.
I’d never held his hand as myself. He tugged me against him, my cheek resting against the large chest I’d come to know and possibly love over the past two weeks.
My arms wrapped around his waist; my palms flattened against his shoulder blades.
‘It’s nice to enjoy your hair without being responsible for it.’ His fingers grazed the top of my head.
‘I thought you hated my hair.’
‘I hate when it gets in the way, but I’d be lying if I said I hated your hair. It’s like a thick black border of a photo frame giving me no choice other than to look at the picture inside, and I love what I see.’
His words were a fist squeezing my heart, and my hand rubbed my chest trying to ease the joyous ache there. ‘Are you trying to tell me you wish you still got to look at my beautiful face instead of your ugly mug when you look in the mirror?’
Corey laughed. ‘I don’t want to see your face when I look in the mirror, Nora.
I want to see your face when I wake up in the morning.
On the pillow, next to mine. In the kitchen when you’re making coffee.
Coming through the door at the end of work.
Smiling, laughing, crying, I want to see it all the time in every situation possible. Unless it means me being you.’
His words rattled through my mind like symbols clashing together.
We’d gotten our bodies back and I’d been crazy enough to think he’d kick me to the kerb.
Perhaps he should. A chance for him to come to terms with everything.
A chance for me to come to terms with everything.
Nora Claremont the people-pleaser no longer existed.
Pretending to be Corey had left a spark of confidence in my soul.
A confidence that needed a chance to bloom.
‘I’m not bailing on you, but we need a chance to learn to be the people we’ve become. And I can’t do that if I’m already giving up a part of me – my apartment and space – to start another new life.’
Corey laced his fingers through mine. ‘You mean, you’re not going to smile and try to find the positive in a situation you don’t actually want to be in?’
I smiled. ‘No.’
‘Good. As much as I want you around so I can keep learning more about you, I want you to do it on your terms. Hearing you put yourself first… it’s a confidence I’ve never heard from you.’
‘The confidence of Corey Flemmington is still encased in this body, and I plan on keeping it.’
We walked back to his apartment leaving wet footprints behind. In the living room, we glanced at each other’s clothes now that we’d swapped. Corey’s grey pyjama shirt swamped my body like an oversized dress.
‘I might change, I’m starting to get a little cold from the rain,’ I said.
I raced to the bathroom and shut the door while my brain darted side to side in panic.
I couldn’t think properly. I stared into the mirror at my eyes and freckles.
I ran my fingers through my hair as tears built in my eyes before falling into a blubbering mess.
I’d been flooded with emotions before, but this time, they were all happy.
I was happier than I’d been in a long time.
In my rush, I hadn’t brought any clothes with me, so I wrapped the white towel around me and opened the door. Corey stood outside with his arm raised about to knock.
‘I was going to ask if you…’ He gulped as his gaze dropped to the cleavage above my towel.
An ache built between my legs, an ache I’d missed. When he looked back to my eyes, a fire burned through my body. He moved forward, and his fingers brushed my hair from my face, then slid around my neck and pulled me closer.
‘Is this okay?’ he whispered.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t, even if I tried. My throat wouldn’t work. Instead, I parted my lips and closed the distance between our mouths, allowing his soft lips to brush against mine. They were familiar and foreign all at once with a dizzying hint of relief.
When he pulled back, that annoyingly attractive smirk appeared as though summoned from my mind. ‘I wish I hadn’t waited so long to do that.’
‘So, I guess we won’t be friends then,’ I joked, because my heart would burst if I didn’t break the tension.
He shook his curly head. ‘I don’t want to be your friend.’
I’d been staring at that face every day for more than a week, but it became entirely his own again. From the slant in his lips to the crinkle in his eyes. Every tiny detail belonged to his soul, not just his body.
The rain eased, but his lips didn’t, and we soon found ourselves on the mattress on the floor of the living room.
With his Egyptian cotton sheets under my body, and his skin like a raging fire above me, I rolled my hips against him, desperate for any sense of friction to relieve the ache between my legs.
I reached my hand between our bodies and gripped his rock-solid length.
‘Fuck,’ he groaned as he buried his face in my neck.
Guiding him to me, he moved forward agonisingly slow, both of us moaning as he slid further inside.
My fingers gripped the sheets as our bodies moved, his thrusting hips building pressure inside me until my nails drew harsh, red lines down his side, and my eyes rolled back.
My whole body rippled in satisfaction, and a few moments later, Corey’s deep, rough sigh of relief followed.
By the time sunlight marked our mattress, my body had shuddered in pleasure two more times, and I’d slept for approximately three hours. A perfect mathematical combination to start our Sunday.