HANDLE WITH CARE

After stealing $50 from the body I was in, I stayed in his bedroom out of sheer guilt.

Nah, I just didn't want to leave, that's all. It wasn't even difficult to accomplish either. Nobody went looking for me, I eventually adapted to the stench of dirty socks, and if my calculations were correct, school was not in my future.

The best thing about today was my lack of contact from other humans. Finally free from people asking me all sorts of questions, almost as if I was supposed to have studied for a body switching test, I entertained myself by reading books from the shelf in the bedroom.

Besides the books, there was nothing else to do besides people watching out the window. But that became weird fast when all I could see out the window was the neighbor's bathroom.

I wasn't trying to be a pervert, it's just that they didn't have curtains and they should get some, that's all, you know, for my rapidly deteriorating innocence.

But since I could see them, they could see me too. That's why I closed the curtains and opted to sit alone in the darkness.

I'd rather sit alone and wreck my eyes by reading in the dark than give up the small amount of privacy I had today. But then of course, there was a knock on the door.

Oh goddammit. Why couldn't I go one day with a little privacy?

In came a teenage boy with a bowl cut, and I had no idea what his relation to my body was. Brother? Cousin?

"Knock, knock," he sang.

"Great," I muttered under my breath. "Who the hell are you?"

His eyes narrowed and I felt a little bad. It wasn't intended to be so rude, but it was. You'd have to blame that on...I don't know, I guess you'd have to blame that on me.

But that didn't stop me from being even ruder. "Well? Are you gonna tell me who you are?"

"It's me, Kevin."

I raised my eyebrow. "That doesn't answer my question."

Bitchy move, but at that point, my bitchiness was becoming more instinctive. In a few days time, my transformation into a total bitch would be complete, and would resemble that of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

Kevin crossed his arms in front of his chest. "What's your deal? Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Um..."

"Um? Did you suddenly forget how to talk?

"No!"

"Then what's the issue? Do you hate me? Do you want to break up?"

"No." I ran my fingers through my short hair. "Wait, are we dating?"

"Yes," he said. "What did you think?"

"Well, I thought that..."

"Have my feelings been one sided this whole time?"

"No, I'm sure—"

"Then why are you acting so strange?"

"Because I'm not who you think I am! So please, just stop."

Kevin stepped closer to me and sat on the foot of the bed. "Then who are you?"

I had to applaud myself for how well I handled that. Now he for sure would think that I was a lunatic.

I stared at the floor. "I'm Sadie."

"So, you're not Mason anymore? Is that how you want to play it?"

"Mason? His name is Mason?"

"Are you sick or something? That's your name."

I curled up into a ball on the bed. "But I'm not Mason, I'm Sadie."

Kevin sighed. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

Now was my chance to release all that crazy I'd been holding inside for the past few days.

"My name is Sadie Arlo," I said.

"Yeah, you said that."

"Well, one day, I woke up in a new body. Her name was Tegan."

"Stop lying, you're not Sadie, you're Mason."

"I thought it was fake too," I said. "But it's all real. At first I even thought I was dreaming and jumped out of a window, so that girl might be dead now."

"How can you be sure about any of that though? You were probably on some crazy acid trip."

I scratched my head. "I guess I can't be completely sure. All I know is that I blacked out when I hit the ground, and later woke up in another body. That time, I was a boy named Clarke."

"When did you have time to make this all up?"

"Never, it's not made up."

"Then tell me, if you're switching bodies everyday like you claim you are, why? Why are you doing that?"

"I'm not doing it willingly! I actually have no idea why this happening, so it's not like I chose this. Don't you think I'd rather be home in Iowa, playing basketball or hanging out with Nell? Do you think I want to be...wherever I am?"

Kevin's forehead crinkled. He gave me nothing, exactly no mention of any sort of town, so I took that as my cue to keep talking and convince him that I was Sadie.

"Florida? Tennessee? You can tell me if I'm getting warmer or colder."

"Cold," he muttered. "But I don't want to hear you guess for ten minutes. Just tell me more of this stupid fairytale."

I clapped my hands together. "It's not a fairytale, okay?"

"I don't care. Just keep going on your weird tangent."

"Well, you should know that my life has totally gone down the crapper. I'm still Sadie on the inside, but not on the outside. Do you know what it's like to switch bodies with strangers everyday, or to wake up as a boy for no reason?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask that."

"Take it from me then. I mean, I'm possibly the only person in the entire world to go through this, and I say that it's pretty fucked up. A-"

"What did you just say?" Kevin interrupted.

"That it was fucked up."

He pointed at me weakly. "You just used the F-word."

"Indeed I did."

"Since when do you swear? I thought you hated it."

"Maybe Mason does, but Sadie doesn't."

Kevin scowled. "I don't like this."

I rolled my eyes. "I don't care. Now, before you interrupted me, I was just saying that this body switching stuff has been a real traumatic experience."

"I interrupted you because you don't usually act this way. And as for calling your 'body switching' traumatic, I'd say that it can't be that bad."

"It's for sure in my top five worst moments ever," I said.

"What are your other ones? Stubbing your toe?"

"No. Uh, once I watched the neighbor's cat get run over. He died."

"I wouldn't think that death would faze you," he said, leaning in closer. "You know, considering since you apparently ended someone's life by jumping out of a window, and don't seem to be bothered at all."

I tried to speak but just sat on the bed, all silent like a dumbass instead. But what I hated most about that moment was that Kevin was right...about everything.

For whatever reason, maybe because it still felt like I was dreaming, I just wasn't bothered over Tegan's death. In fact, I had even made jokes about it. If anything, that shifted the pie graph of my awfulness to 60/40.

"Yeah," I mustered out finally.

Kevin glared at me. "I can't do this."

"Neither can I."

He stood up and dug through Mason's closet, tossing clothes and boxes out of the way without a care in the world. Of course it wouldn't matter to him because he wasn't the one who had to clean it up, but I guess that I wouldn't be either.

It was weird to think that no matter what problems I stirred up, someone else would pay the price for them.

He emerged from the closet with a sombrero and a black scarf. "If you're not going to act like Mason, then you aren't going to dress like Mason."

Kevin put both on me and took several steps back, almost like he was admiring his work. Not that I was comparing myself to a piece of art or anything, because that ensemble was something that nobody could pull off.

"Great. Now it's easier to see you as this 'Sadie' and not as Mason." Instead of returning back to the bed where I was sitting, he stayed in place by the closet.

Why? Was it because he thought I was some sort of demon who's possessing his boyfriend?

Kevin eyed me up and down from his chair and I squirmed under the spotlight he suddenly put me under.

It was just a sombrero.

"What's that on your leg?" he asked.

I looked down and was met with a purple circle on my shin. "I don't know," I said and pushed it with my thumb.

"You don't know? It's a bruise. How could you not know what a bruise is?"

"I know what a bruise is."

Kevin crossed his arms in front of him. Great, I had poked the bear.

"Really? Because you acted like you didn't. A bruise is what happens when there are microscopic tears in blood vessels under the skin," he said. "You get a bruise after you hurt yourself," he added later in a baby tone, complete asshole style.

"I know, I know," I said.

"Then how did you get that bruise?" he asked back in his normal voice.

"I don't know, ask Mason tomorrow."

"You have to know!" A purple vein the color of my bruise popped out in his neck.

"I fell off the bed, okay? Are you happy?"

I expected to relax after yelling at Kevin, but couldn't because what I told him wasn't even true. I had no clue what happened and didn't even care, but had to shut him up somehow.

And besides, how was I supposed to know where a dumb bruise came from?

"No, I'm not happy. You wanna know why?"

"Why?" I mumbled just so he could prove his dumb point.

"Because you're not careful, Sadie!" he shouted. "These are real people and you don't even care. Use some caution once in a while. You've killed before!"

"That was an accident... " I tried to explain, but he and I both knew that wasn't a good enough excuse.

"Well, you're not hurting Mason," he said. "At least not anymore you're not."

"C'mon. Relax a little. I don't try to hurt people."

Kevin wouldn't even look me in the eye.

"Look, I'm sorry that I don't know where this bruise came from, but can't we just leave it at that and move on?"

"Fine,"  he said after a few silent moments where he probably imagined my death. I guessed that in his book, it was morally okay if you thought about killing someone, but never actually did it.  "But just remember that these people aren't yours for bruising. Someone is going to have to deal with the pain even if you don't, so be careful."

He made his way to the door. "I better not find any more bruises on Mason tomorrow."

"Or what?" I asked. "What will you do to me? I won't be here tomorrow."

Kevin's hand left the doorknob and he spun around to face me. He squatted down to my level and stared into my eyes. I should've kept my stupid mouth shut because the way he looked at me was enough to make my heart stop beating.

"I'll still find you," he said. "What? Sadie Arlo from Iowa? You don't think I can track you down? Well, I can and I will, so don't hurt Mason." He stuck his stupid finger in my stupid face and left it lingering for a few moments.

He stood up to his normal height and walked out of the room without another word. I sat still after he left, a little shook up.

Telling Kevin about my life might've felt therapeutic, but he was no therapist. Leaving in all those details about my life was possibly the worst mistake that I could've made.

He knew my name and he knew where I lived, that was enough to do something bad, wasn't it? I think the only thing he didn't know was what I looked like, and I was very grateful for that.

But oh boy, Kevin was a fucking nutcase. God bless, Mason.