Summary
The next day, A wakes up in the body of a girl named Surita. Luckily, Surita’s parents are out of town, and her 90-year-old grandmother does not seem to care what Surita does. Since Surita lives only an hour from Rhiannon’s town, Rhiannon and A decide to meet at Clover Bookstore after school. At the bookstore, Rhiannon says that she’s come up with a plan to spend the weekend with A. Happy with this plan, A agrees to go away with Rhiannon the following night. A and Rhiannon then head to the park, where they have a nice time in each other’s company. A notices that Rhiannon is less physically affectionate when A is occupies female host bodies, but A decides not to comment on this.
The next morning, A wakes up in the body of Xavier Adams. Xavier has been cast as Laertes in his school’s production of Hamlet, and he is supposed to spend the day at rehearsal. A calls in sick and immediately leaves to meet Rhiannon. A follows Rhiannon’s directions and ends up at a cabin in the woods. Rhiannon meets A in the doorway and explains that the cabin belongs to her uncle. Finally alone together, Rhiannon and A kiss. When Rhiannon attempts to take things further, A surprisingly asks to stop. Rhiannon, who is a bit confused at A’s hesitation, asks why. A explains that any physical interaction would not just be between A and Rhiannon; it would also involve Xavier, the true owner of the body A is inhabiting. A tells Rhiannon that this would not be fair to Xavier, as he has never slept with someone before. This explanation satisfies Rhiannon. This is not the full truth, however, and A does not access Xavier’s memories to find out. The real reason A turns down Rhiannon’s advances is concern over the future. There are no guarantees that A will be able to continue seeing Rhiannon, and this uncertainty gives A pause. Instead of any further physicality, A and Rhiannon take a nap together. For the first time, A feels entirely safe and connected to someone else. Rhiannon sets an alarm to signal when it is time for A to leave, and as the hour draws closer, A becomes more and more despondent over the impending parting.
At one point, Rhiannon asks which body has been A’s favorite to inhabit. A then tells Rhiannon about inhabiting the body of a blind girl several years prior. Experiencing the world from the blind girl’s point of view was an incredible learning experience, and A says that it illuminated “how arbitrary and individual” each person's perspective is. For A, a day of being blind was an incredible challenge, but for the host, it was simply life, which deeply resonated with A. Finally, the time comes for A to head back to Xavier’s house, and Rhiannon says she will wait for A to return the next day.
A wakes up the next morning in the body of a girl named Dana, experiencing great pain. Slowly, A realizes that Dana’s body is suffering through the ramifications of a night of heavy drinking. A is nauseous, sensitive to light, and incredibly groggy. Even with various attempts to access Dana’s memories, A cannot recall what happened the previous night. Dana’s mother then enters the room, and she is clearly upset. A can tell that Dana is in serious trouble, but A still cannot successfully access her memories to figure out why. Dana’s mother tells A that a physician named Dr. P will be arriving shortly, so A gets dressed. When Dr. P arrives, he slowly reveals information to A, explaining that Dana snuck out the previous night and stole her father’s car to go to a party. At the party, Dana drank excessively, to the point of worrying her friends. Finally, when Dana attempted to drive home drunk, Dana’s friends called her parents and asked them to intervene. Dana did not relent when her father arrived, instead attempting to drive the car away. After almost running over her father, Dana crashed into a pole, but, luckily, no one was injured.
Dr. P asks for an explanation, but A still feels too groggy to access Dana’s memories for an answer. Dr. P then says that Dana’s parents are rightfully furious, due to what happened with Anthony. At the mention of Anthony’s name, A immediately experiences a memory of Dana’s brother. A realizes that Anthony died in the passenger seat of a car that Dana crashed. Horrified, A begins to scream and cry out. Dr. P then gives A a sedative. For the rest of the day, A remains locked in Dana’s room. Dana’s parents have taken her phone away, and they closely monitor the computer when A asks to use it for “homework.” With no way to contact Rhiannon, A begins to feel immense guilt. A knows that Rhiannon is waiting alone at the cabin, slowly realizing that A will not be able to return. A feels deep regret, worrying that Rhiannon will decide it is too risky to trust A’s word.
The next day, A plans to wake up around 6 A.M. to explain everything to Rhiannon, but someone wakes A up slightly before 5 A.M., instead. A is inhabiting the body of a heavy metal fan named Michael, who is supposed to be leaving for a family vacation to Hawaii that morning. Realizing that the trip would essentially trap A in Hawaii, A frantically tries to come up with a plan. Throughout the years, A has always woken up in the bodies of people that live within a certain local radius. Because of this, A has determined that the switch can only occur over short distances. If A travels to Hawaii with Michael’s family, they could be stuck hopping from body to body in Hawaii for an extended period of time. It could take years for A to wake up in the body of someone who happens to be returning to Maryland, or it may never happen. Internally apologizing to Michael for the trouble he is about to be in, A runs away from the house to avoid the trip. A still has not been able to contact Rhiannon to explain the situation from the day before, so A decides to go to Rhiannon’s school. Because of the way the bus routes are arranged, it takes A seven hours to get there.
A arrives and sees Rhiannon on the field for gym class. After catching Rhiannon’s attention from afar, A goes back inside the school and waits for her. When Rhiannon arrives, she is incredibly upset that A did not make it back to the cabin the previous day. Rhiannon tells A that a friend of her uncle’s arrived at the cabin with a dead deer, shocking and scaring her. The hunter then explained that a bunch of men were coming over to skin the deer, a gruesome sight that Rhiannon did not want to experience. Rhiannon stayed at the cabin, however, as she believed A would still arrive. A apologizes and explains the intense situation with Dana’s family. Rhiannon still seems upset, but she says she understands. As A and Rhiannon embrace, a door opens in the hallway, and Justin emerges. Immediately, Justin begins to berate Rhiannon for her infidelity, calling her derogatory names and insulting her. When A speaks up, Justin throws a punch. The two then engage in a physical fight as onlookers gather. A does not want the teachers to find “Michael” at a school he doesn’t attend, so A runs away. Before leaving, A asks Rhiannon to meet at the Starbucks in town.
At the Starbucks, A orders a coffee and waits for Rhiannon. It takes her a long time to arrive, but she eventually shows up. Rhiannon’s relationship with Justin has just ended, but this does not mean Rhiannon’s relationship with A has become any easier. Things are tense between them, but both A and Rhiannon affirm that they want to be together. A and Rhiannon want to see each other the next day, but the disastrous events of the weekend keep them from making any promises. When A finally returns to Michael’s house around 10 P.M., Michael’s father is waiting. A comes up with a lie to explain why “Michael” ran away, saying that there was a concert Michael couldn’t miss. Seeing the bruises from A’s fight with Justin, Michael’s father eventually softens. Before bed, A conjures up a memory of an incredible concert to leave Michael with, hoping that this will offset some of the consequences Michael will face for running away.
Analysis
In these chapters, the unavoidable obstacles plaguing A's relationship with Rhiannon become more apparent. Up until this point, A has blocked out concerns about the practicality—or even the possibility—of a relationship with Rhiannon, but as things intensify, these fissures become harder to ignore. For example, when the moment A has been desperately hoping for finally arrives—a night alone with Rhiannon—several concerns unexpectedly come crashing down on A. For one, A feels like a "pretender" as Rhiannon shows attraction to the host body, which is truly Xavier's body, not A's. Furthermore, A cannot enjoy being alone with Rhiannon without thinking about the fact that the moment isn't permanent, that circumstance can rip A away from Rhiannon at any moment. Finally, and most importantly, A realizes that a romantic relationship with Rhiannon always affects a third, uninvolved party—the host. Because of this, physical intimacy would never be justifiable, as the host is unable to consent. These issues are all major, insurmountable obstacles to A's relationship with Rhiannon, but, at this point, A is not ready to let Rhiannon go.
In the chapter A spends inhabiting Dana's body, Levithan uses figurative language to illustrate the extreme physical effects of Dana's hangover. Levithan most heavily utilizes hyperbole and simile to accentuate the intensity of Dana's symptoms, including statements such as "the light nearly kills me," and "it's as if my synapses have been dipped in tar" (234). These descriptions convey A's disorientation and discomfort, dramatically preparing the reader for the slow revelation of information about Dana's rough night. Statements like "the bedroom light feels like it has the same wattage as the sun," and "it feels like I am trapped twenty miles underwater" heighten the anxious tone of the chapter until A finally realizes the shocking tragedy Dana has been blocking out with alcohol: the fact that she crashed her car with her brother in the passenger seat, killing him.
Michael's planned family trip to Hawaii serves as a dramatic representation of A's worst fear: being permanently separated from Rhiannon. To avoid this, A makes yet another decision to put a host in precarious situation by running away from Michael's family and missing his flight. This represents an intensifying divergence from the rules to which A previously adhered. In the past, A acknowledged that the weight of responsibility toward hosts made A "slower, heavier," but it also kept A "from floating away into meaninglessness" (208). Without this moral responsibility grounding A, the situation begins to feel chaotic and out of control.
Although A has a very good reason for not being able to return to the cabin, A's absence causes all of the tensions that have been building up to boil over. When A and Rhiannon fight, their conflict is about much more than A's inability to follow through on a promise. As things begin to unravel, Rhiannon's concerns about A's limitations rise to the surface, forcing both of them to confront the realities of these obstacles. The moment also serves as a parallel to A's anxieties on the night at the cabin.
