Between the Lives - By Jessica Shirvington Page 0,4

boring brown, never giving it the kind of style either of my worlds would really approve of. Hovering somewhere in between. Safe. That’s where I stayed, all the time. Safe. Prepared. Alone.

I have two lives and yet I’m a ghost.

In less than two hours I’d be in my other life and I’d have three very big problems. One, I’m not supposed to have a broken arm there and have no reason to have broken it. Two, the cast won’t come with me; it’s a material object. And three, it’s my belated eighteenth birthday party tomorrow night and a broken arm will not go with my dress. At. All.

I lay back, stared at the paint peeling off the ceiling and tried to figure out a solution. The only one that made any sense was going to hurt. A lot. But throwing myself down the stairs when I woke up was the only way I could be sure to convincingly fake the same injury.

About half an hour before the Shift I changed out of my clothes, shimmying my fitted mini off with one hand and wriggling into my oversized T-shirt nightie. I ditched the sling; it was more hindrance than help. I left my black Doc Martens until last, wincing as I gave a one-handed pull to loosen the laces before using my feet to kick them off.

I relied on rituals. Found comfort in the patterns I’d developed over the years. I settled into bed, ignoring the sheen of sweat on my forehead and the sick feeling in my gut as I arranged myself against the pillows as usual, making sure there would be nothing out of the ordinary to return to tomorrow night.

I almost made it too.

But with only minutes to go, my mouth started its tell-tale watering. I had to bolt to the bathroom to throw up before hurrying back to bed before midnight struck.

The last thoughts that slipped into my mind marked the beginning of the change in my worlds. How could this have happened? How has nothing like this happened to me before?

CHAPTER TWO

Wellesley, Friday

I knew the Shift had happened.

I’d been asleep in this life, so it took me a while to rouse my body, despite my livewire mind. It’s an awful, drugged feeling, willing your eyes to open.

The second lucidity took hold, I sat bolt upright in bed and felt the panic flood my chest. I should have known better. Eighteen years of going through the Shift, I shouldn’t have been so frightened … but I was. Every. Single. Time. It petrified me.

I concentrated on taking slow deep breaths. My good hand slid out over warm silk sheets that exposed no signs I’d been somewhere else for the past twenty-four hours. Nothing about this world was aware I’d been cheating on it, living another life. Without looking, I knew it was the exact same time it had been when I left.

My eternal enemy … midnight.

I’d done all sorts of things to prove it, to document the truth. When I was fifteen, I filmed myself through the midnight minutes. Not so much as a Blair Witch moment. One second I was there, the next I had a confused look on my face. I could tell something about me was different in that blink of an eye, but there was nothing that would prove it to anyone else.

Then there was the time I lit a match a couple of seconds before midnight to see what would happen. That was not a good idea. My bed – with me in it – almost went up in smoke. I just wasn’t quick enough to pull myself together after the Shift and blow it out before it touched my fingers. Hey, you live and learn.

I slipped out of bed and made my way to the bathroom to wash my face. But with still-sleepy legs my judgment was off and klutz mode set in. I staggered into the doorframe, my bad arm taking the brunt of the impact.

I froze, dreading the shooting pain that would follow. But after a few stunned seconds I was still waiting for the agony to set in.

‘No way,’ I gasped, slowly letting my not-so-broken – actually not hurt at all – arm straighten and move about. I fisted my fingers over and over.

‘No. Way.’

I wanted to spiral.

I wanted to press all internal panic buttons and scream for help.

I wanted to understand for once.

No, that wasn’t it. What I wanted … it was the same thing I’d always wanted,