Between the Lives

Between the Lives - By Jessica Shirvington

PREFACE

I am a liar.

Not compulsive.

Simply required.

I am two people. Neither better than the other, no superpowers, no mystical destinies, no two-places-in-one-time mechanism – but two people. Different in ways fundamental, even though at the most basic level I look the same. My physical attributes, my memory and my name follow me. For the past eighteen years, everything else, everything, about me is different. Twenty-four hours as the first of me. And in the blink of an eye, twenty-four hours as the second of me. Every day, without fail, it goes on …

I’ve never told anyone. By the time I was old enough to figure out everyone didn’t have two lives – by the time that little shock settled in – I didn’t know where to begin. How to begin. And society, both of them, didn’t want to know.

When I was a child, I didn’t realise I was different from everyone else. But I’m pretty sure I’ve always been this way – this two-lives way – which means I was probably born twice, was a baby twice. No surprise I’m glad I can’t remember that. Being torn from one set of arms and thrust into another every twenty-four hours? Well, it doesn’t matter how much they love you … Can anyone say, issues?

Practice makes perfect though, and I like to think of myself as a pro. I’ve ironed out the kinks; identified the major pitfalls and how to avoid them. I manage. I know who I need to be in each of my lives, and I try not to confuse my brain with the ‘infinity questions’ anymore.

I’ve learned to accept that in one life I love strawberries, while in the other my taste buds cringe at the flavour. I know that in one life I can speak fluent French, but even though the memory of the language comes with me, in my other life I must not. Then there are easier things to remember, like Maddie, my gorgeous little sister in one life, and my not-so-great big brothers in my other.

Above all else – though I try not to think about it – I know which life I prefer. And every night when I Cinderella myself from one life to the next a very small, but definite, piece of me dies. The hardest part is that nothing about my situation has ever changed – the only thing I can be certain of is the fact that my body clock is different from everyone else’s. There is no loophole.

Until now, that is.