The Other Side of Me – Part Three
by Limbo’s Mistress

By the time Katie had put on some clothes and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, I’d managed to recompose myself enough to have a couple of hot slices of reheated pizza plated up and sitting on the table waiting for consumption. The cans that had dropped to the floor were replaced with a couple of unshaken ones, each resting beside a plate.

My sister, now clad in a pair of yoga pants not too dissimilar from my own, bounced into the room and headed toward the table. Halfway there, she stopped and stared at me.

“Whoa,” she said, her grin falling off her face rapidly. “Are you okay? You look like you did the time you volunteered to try that anti-vertigo helmet and ended up tossing your cookies for almost two straight days.”

I made a face at the image her words formed in my mind. Luckily, my Jackson hadn’t ever subjected me to that particular experiment. The only time I’d been violently ill from being a Guinea pig was the time he thought he’d developed a healthier alternative to Yellow Dye Number 5. Unfortunately, once I’d ingested it, it made everything I ate or drank taste like a moldy tennis shoe freshly plucked from a sewer.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, moving over to sit at one of the spots at the table. “It’s just been a really long day.”

My younger sister took the seat across from me, poking at a chunk of pineapple with one pinky. “I didn’t expect you to be home this early. Weren’t you supposed to hang out with Michelle and Josie this evening?”

“I’ve got an exam to study for,” I answered quickly, picking up one of my own slices.

Not to mention, I had no idea who the hell Michelle and Josie even was. If I was going to have any hope of bluffing my way through Charlene’s life for the new little while, I was going to have to do some serious social media research after dinner. Even still, I had the sinking suspicion I could do it effectively.

“Especially if I keep hallucinating at odd moments,” I mumbled around a rather greasy bite.

“What?” Katie asked, looking up at me and arching a brow.

“Nothing,” I replied after swallowing. I set down the half-eaten slice. “So, what sort of trouble are you getting into tonight?”

She shrugged, plucking a chunk of fruit off the pie to pop into her mouth. “I really need to get started on my English paper, but I really, really don’t feel like torturing myself. So, I’ll probably just hang out online for a while and go to bed. Good grades don’t just jump in everyone’s lap, you know?”

I nodded, ignoring the subtle barb. Mainly because I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident that had taken place only ten minutes before. It was all too easy to say that the stress of being ripped across dimensions had joined forces with the shock of finding myself in my alternate universe’s female body and then teamed up with finding out my not-Mom had died years earlier to produce one hell of a vivid hallucination.

But it had felt so real. It felt like I was back in my own home. With my own mother. In my own body.

Unless Jackson had worked some kind of miracle to repair the broken machine about three months ahead of schedule, I couldn’t put much stock in the idea that I’d momentarily returned home for a second or two. Considering the amount of power and coincidence it had taken to achieve a cross-over the first time, the odd of spontaneously leaping between parallel worlds should have been practically nil.

Of course, when it came to Jackson’s experiments, all bets were off.

“Earth to Charlie,” Katie chirped, yanking my attention back to the present.

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re really spacing this evening.”

I nodded. “I’m perfectly fine,” I said, hoping I sounded more convinced than I felt.

Katie’s mouth twisted into a mask of skepticism. “Right. Well, I asked if I could borrow your new green cardigan to wear to school tomorrow?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. Sure.”

She immediately jumped to her feet, pointing one finger at me.

“I knew it!” She cried, waving that finger around like a fencing foil. “I knew it.” She looked me over slowly before bringing her gaze back to mine, narrowing her eyes. “What did he do this time?”

I stared up at her, feeling like I must have missed something important and not really liking the direction this conversation seemed to be going. Though I was fairly sure to whom she was referring, I decided that I would play dumb.

“What did who do when?”

“Your boyfriend,” she replied in a matter of fact tone. “The great inventor.” She tapped the finger against her lips. “Let’s see. Raise your left arm.”

Not sure of her train of thought, I played along. Hell, for all I knew, this could be a standard game played in the Other-Miller household. Slowly, I lifted my left arm until my fingers were pointing at the ceiling.

“A-ha!” Katie yelled, practically dancing around her chair with glee. “I have been waiting forever for something like this! This is going to be totally awesome!” She planted her hands on her hips and gave me a rather sassy, superior grin. “Charlie, go to your room and pull out all the outfits you refuse to let me borrow. Take them to my closet and hang them up neatly.”

I frowned as I lowered my arm. “I’m sorry?”

The smile on her face faltered just a bit. “Too much at once? Okay, let’s start simple. Stand up.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Stand up,” she commanded again.

“Again, why?”

She blinked, confusion swimming across her face. She walked around the table and leaned in closer, staring right into my eyes. “You aren’t, like, hypnotized or something?”

I leaned in myself, looking right back at her. Then I reached up and bopped the tip of her nose with my finger. She yelped and hopped back a step.

“No, I’m not hypnotized, you goof.” I snorted in amusement. “Why the hell would you think that?”

She sighed, plopping down in her chair with a defeated slump in her shoulders. “Because you’ve been acting a little out of it since you came home. Then you simply agree to let me borrow your new sweater without so much as a warning to not ruin it.”

I arched a brow. “So, I don’t normally let you borrow my things?” As far as I was concerned, it shouldn’t have been an issue. Didn’t sisters normally share clothes and other stuff like that? I mean, if my Katie had asked to borrow a shirt or a hat, I wouldn’t have refused. I would have given her a weird look, probably, but not made a deal about it.

She shook her head, rolling her eyes again. “Seriously? No, Charlie, you do not ‘normally’ let me borrow any of your clothes. I consider myself lucky if you give them to me after you’re tired of wearing them. Nine times out of ten, you hand them off to one of your friends instead.” She sighed, flopping down in her chair.

“Oh,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around the purpose in my alternate self’s motivation for being so stingy about something as base as clothing. “I guess I forgot.”

She nodded, giving me an inquisitive glance. “Jackson Swiss Cheesed your brain again, huh?” Her smirk was identical to that of my own version of Katie.

“What are you talking about?”

“Remember last summer? When your boyfriend tried to boost your memory so you could ace that hellacious Trig final? Afterwards, you could perfectly recall every math fact and formula you’d ever seen. It was the other stuff you couldn’t remember.”

I stared at her, almost afraid to ask. “What other stuff?”

“Let’s see. How to tie your shoes, the months of the year, or Dad’s middle name.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not all that bad.”

“You also couldn’t remember your entire freshman year of high school.” She giggled. “It was hilarious.”

I groaned, reaching up to rub my temples as I closed my eyes. “Dear God, I don’t know which of us has it worse,” I grumbled.

“So,” Katie asked, continuing to stare at me. “Did Jackson do something to you? Is that why you’re being all nice and weird?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, contemplating my answer. How close was Charlene with her sister? Back in my universe, Katie and I were sort of close. However, there was still a huge divide between us due to our opposite genders. If we’d grown up as sisters, though, perhaps that divide wouldn’t have existed.

For a second, I debated pretending that everything was fine. That there had been no mishap, and I hadn’t been an unlucky contestant winning yet another insane, reality-bending prize. We could just eat out dinner in peace and act like everything was completely normal.

Except …

The rational part of my brain, already working overtime to keep me from totally losing it over suddenly finding myself stuck in the completely wrong body, politely informed me that any hope of success in living my life as Charlene was going to require more help than her crazy genius of a boyfriend would be able to offer.

Jackson might know a ton of details about his girlfriend’s life, such as my … her class schedule, interests, and obvious habits. However, I somehow doubted he was as adept at the more … feminine aspects of her life. Aspects I needed to know in order to present a semi-convincing facsimile of the girl I currently appeared to be.

I was going to need an ally I could trust. One who would also believe my story and not immediately call in the guys with the straightjackets and padded cuffs. Someone who would be more than willing to show off being the smarter than me for once. A partner willing to walk me through how to be a proper big sister.

I looked at her without speaking for several long seconds, studying her anxious face. Finally, I gave my head a single nod. “There was an …incident in Jackson’s lab earlier this afternoon.”

She slapped her hands together and laughed. “I knew it! I just knew it! When you came into my room and stared at me, I knew something was up. So, Lover Boy screwed something up again. What happened?” Her eyes sparkled with a gleam that was pure joy. Apparently the Katie in this universe took great and perverse pleasure in the many accidents that happened in Jackson’s lab.

Just like mine did.

I sighed. “Okay. What I’m about to tell you is pretty, uh, fantastical. I’m sure your first instinct is to think I’ve gone bonkers or whatever is wrong is mental. So, let me assure you that nothing is wrong with my mind. No Swiss Cheese memories or anything of the sort. Got it?”

After a moment, she nodded once in agreement. “Got it. Of course, if your brain did have big gaping holes, you wouldn’t know it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Katie, there are no holes in my head.”

“Given the company you keep, that remains to be seen.” Then she held up her hands defensively. “Sorry. Sorry. Please, continue.”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs at the knee. I didn’t even realized I’d done it until I had. Kind of scary, actually. For a moment, I wondered if the subconscious actions would fade over time. Or would they simply increase? That, however, was a storm for another day.

“Do you remember that old sci-fi show ‘Sliders’?” I asked, hoping that the program was another constant between our worlds.

She gave me a quizzical look. “Not that I am aware. What does it have to do with what’s going on with you?”

Frowning, I held up my hand. “That would have made this so much easier to explain.”

However, before I could begin to explain the wacky story of how I actually belonged in a parallel dimension, that same impatience led her to leap back to her feet, covering her mouth with both hands. Then she lowered one to point at me. Or, more precisely, my mid-section.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

I blinked, mouth dropping open for a second before I snapped it shut. I narrowed my eyes and gave her the most disgusted glare I could summon.

“What? No. Absolutely not! Plus, totally eww!” I waved my hand in the air as a shudder passed through me at the, thankfully momentary, image of how such a situation might come about. Dis-gust-ing! “I can’t be pregnant, dummy. Jackson and Charlie have never had sex.”

She lowered her pointing arm and a frown danced across her face. Sighing she began to lower herself back into the seat, pausing a couple of inches before her bottom touched wood. A double-arched brow expression of utterly stunned confusion instantly replaced the frown.

“Hold up,” she said. “Why did you just refer to yourself in the third person?”

“I wasn’t referring to myself,” I said as deadpanningly serious as I could. “I was referring to Charlene.”

Her brow furrowed. “You were referring to Charlene. So, you’re saying that you’re not Charlie?”

I shook my head. “No. I am Charlie. Just not your Charlie.”

“Not my Charlie.”

“Exactly. I’m a Charlie from another dimension. A dimension that is a lot like this one, with some really big differences.”

“You’re an alien?” She shook her head. “Wow, Jackson really did a number on you.”

“I’m not an alien, Katie. I’m Charlie. Just not the Charlie that belongs in this universe.” Before she could parrot back my statement as a question, I stuck out my hand in her direction. “Perhaps I should clarify. Nice to meet you, Katie. My name is Charles.”

The teen stared at my offered hand. Then she looked from it to my face, her own lips partly hanging open in a mask of complete confusion. Which was understandable, actually. I had a lot more information about the situation and even I was still wrapping my mind around it.

“Charles?” She blinked, then ducked her head under the table for a second. When she came back up, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you saying you have a penis now? Jackson’s experiment turned you into a … guy?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Was Charlene going through the same thing with my Katie? Or was she still freaking out about her mom being alive? There was no way to tell.

“Well, to be exact, the experiment turned Charlene into a guy. As for me, I now have to deal with this.” I gestured at my larger than comfortable chest.

“Okay, so you’re saying that you were a guy named Charles and now you’re my sister, Charlene?”

I nodded.

“So … where is she?” Katie craned her head to peer around the room. “If she’s now a guy, where is she?”

“At my house,” I said. “In another dimension.”

She shook her head. “This is giving me a headache.”

I could see from the look on her face, I was losing her. Katie had a plethora of good qualities. Patience, though, wasn’t one of them.

“I’m sorry, Katie. You’re right, perhaps I was being deliberately obtuse because I didn’t want you to think I was completely crazy. However, I can tell you’re getting ready to get up and leave the room. Which means you’re probably going to avoid speaking to me for the rest of the night.” I leaned forward and put both hands on the table, palms down. “And I really cannot afford for you to do that.”

“Then tell me the whole story,” she said, glaring. “Start at the beginning and go through what happened over at Jackson’s. Or else I will leave.”

“Fine. But I need you to keep an open mind. What I’m going to tell you is going to seem way beyond belief.”

She snorted. “More beyond belief than the time your paramour aged you nearly two decades and you had to dig around in the back of our parents’ closet to find some ‘mom jeans’ that would fit your big ass?”

God, I really wanted to thump her on the head for that. However, I simply nodded.

“Yes, more fantastical than that.” I locked my eyes squarely on hers. “Earlier this evening, Jackson was showing me a device he’d built. It was a window that would allow you to look into a parallel universe. When he booted it up, it connected to a similar device in the lab of a Jackson from another dimension.”

“Two Jacksons?” A visible shudder swam through my little sister. “Color me terrified.”

I nodded, unable to disagree. My best friend he might be, but the thought of two of him, working together, was enough to give Chuck Norris nightmares.

To her credit, Katie remained in her seat, listening intently as I recounted the events that led to her sister and I swapping bodies and universes. I fully expected her to interrupt me several times, but she merely nodded along when she understood and gave me a confused look when she didn’t. Fortunately, those times were few and far between.

“Wait, so, just for the record, when you were standing in my doorway earlier bitching about me prancing around in my underwear …” Her eyes widened and a look of complete revulsion instantly appeared on her face. “Oh my god. This is totally gross.” She leaned forward, letting her forehead slam down on the top of the table as a shudder shook her small frame. “I can’t believe I was practically doing a striptease for my … brother? Do you peep on your little sister back home, you perv?”

I rolled my eyes. “First of all, I wasn’t peeping on you, dork. I heard the music and came to talk to you. The last thing I expected was to find you bouncing around like you were on the main stage at the Sin Den. My Katie doesn’t parade around in her panties.”

She lifted her head, glaring at me from beneath her golden bangs. “Still, you could have, I dunno, left the room or something.”

“I was trying to seem normal. Sorry.”

She let her head drop back down. “I should have just started my paper on Pride and Prejudice instead of being nosy about what you and Jackson had been up to. I mean, not even June Austen could produce this level of misery.”

“Jane,” I said quietly.

“Huh?” She lifted her head again. “Jane Who?”

“Jane Austen. The author of Pride and Prejudice? It’s Jane Austen.”

She stared at me for a second, then stuck out her tongue. “Not in this universe.”

I sighed. “Katie, please. I need your help. Like, really badly.”

“If Mister IQ Ten Thousand can’t help you get home,” she mumbled. “What makes you think I can do anything?”

“Jackson is working on swapping Charlene and I back to where we belong. However, he thinks it’s going to take a while before he can try it.”

That got her attention. “Define ‘a while’.”

“Months,” I said, frowning. “Two … at a minimum.”

“Wow. Two months of being a female version of yourself.” She sat up again. “How are you going to pull that off?”

“I need you to teach me how to be your sister. How to convincingly be Charlene.” I put on what I hoped was my most sincere and pleading face. Not that I could tell. Pouting and I really weren’t that well acquainted. “I need to be able to get by enough so that when Jackson does fix things, her life isn’t totally screwed up.”

“I see.” She slowly sat back up. As she did, I recognized the smirk that slowly spread across her youthful features. “Sure, I think I could definitely be of assistance with that.”

I sighed. “How much is this going to cost me? And don’t bother with pretending to be offended or shocked. I know that look, my own Katie wears it when she’s trying to either guilt me or blackmail me.”

She ignored my warning, placing one hand over her heart as her eyes widened in feigned indignation that I would dare suggest her help wouldn’t come free of charge. Then she simply smiled and held out her hand, lifting one finger.

“First, I want complete and unfettered access to your closet. Anything I want to be able to borrow anything at any time with no complaints.”

I’d already felt like this clothing thing was a non-issue. But, if it got me what I wanted, I was more than eager to agree.

“Done.” I started to rise.

A second finger joined the first.

“Secondly, you are going to be my personal chauffer. You can take me to school in the morning and pick me up in the afternoons. Plus, haul me and my friends around when we need it.”

“Don’t you drive?” I remember Katie forcing Dad to take her to the DMV super early on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. She had her brand new license in hand before breakfast time was over.

A dark cloud drifted across her face. “No. I … I just don’t, okay?”

I nodded, holding up my hands in supplication. “Fair enough. Is that all, or is there more to the extortion?”

She nodded. “Thirdly, you’re going to help me get on the cheer team.”

I snorted. “Just because this body is used to doing tumbles and splits, doesn’t mean I know how to. I was a cross-country runner in my more masculine life. I’m praying Jackson gets the machine repaired before basketball season starts.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need you to show me any moves, Einstein. I already know the squad’s routines by heart. But Maryanne Johnson is the captain and she’s the one who decides who gets a shot at trying out and who doesn’t. Problem is, she’s not exactly my greatest fan. Not since the Brad Smith incident.”

“Okay, then how exactly am I supposed to …”

“Maryanne’s big sister is named Tabitha.”

I shrugged. “That means absolutely nothing to me. I don’t even know anyone named …” I blinked. “Wait. Tabitha Johnson? As in Tabby Johnson?”

“That’s the one.”

Tabitha Johnson had been the head cheerleader when I was in high school. Beautiful would have been too blasé a word to describe the golden-haired vision goddess who ran through the fevered, adolescent dreams of practically the entire male student body. Probably most of the female students, too. In addition to being supermodel gorgeous, she had also been one of the nicest, sweetest girls. A complete opposite of the typical head cheerleader stereotype.

“I suppose Tabby and Charlene are friends? Despite being two years different in ages?”

Katie nodded. “When Charlie was trying out …” She paused, staring at me. “Oh, wait … about that …”

“Yeah. Jackson gave me the rundown about what happened to your mom. I’m sorry.”

She held up her hand. “Look, I know you’re not her. And that you’re that just expressing condolences or something. But please don’t apologize in regards to that. Charlie said it, like, a zillion times. So much that it nearly drove me insane.”

I nodded. “Sorr … uh, about Tabby?”

“Right. Well, after that thing happened, Charlie attempted to give up on being on the squad. Out of all the guilt she was feeling. Tabby was the one who talked her into accepting a position on the squad. She actually became sort of a surrogate big sister to my big sister.” She shrugged. “If you ask me, it was as much Charlie’s friendship with Tabby that helped her as anything else. Even Jackson thought so.”

“Funny, he didn’t mention Tabby earlier when I was grilling him about Charlene’s life.”

Another shrug. “Well, considering she’s in college on the other side of the country, I guess he figured she wasn’t going to be an issue.”

“I see. So you want Charlene to call Tabby and get her to convince her little sister to give you a spot on the cheer squad?”

“No,” Katie snapped, shaking her head. “I just want Tabby to talk Maryanne into agreeing to let me try out.” A smirk dripping with arrogance appeared. “Once I show the rest of the girls my skills, they’re sure to vote me onto the team. Even if Miss High-and-Mighty disagrees.”

I pondered her requests for a moment. None of them seemed to be too much. Sure, Charlene might be angry when she returned to her own life to find she’d been giving Katie total access to her wardrobe. Probably even angrier about the whole “chauffer” thing. However, hopefully she’d be smart enough to think of it as an acceptable trade-off for keeping her life mostly intact.

As for convincing Tabby to lean on her little sister. That was going to take some planning. If Charlene and Tabby hadn’t spoken in quite a while, the other girl might want to catch up. Of course, I couldn’t reminisce about things I hadn’t experienced. Still, I was pretty confident I’d be able to figure something out before then.

“Deal,” I said. “Your terms are acceptable.”

A grin broke out across her face. “Awesome!”

“Now,” I said, interrupting her excited celebration. “Where do we begin?”

She froze in mid-fist pump. “Huh?”

“I asked where you wanted to begin?”

“Oh. Well … I really don’t know.”

I gaped at her. “You really don’t know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where to begin. I mean, you asked me to help you be Charlie, but I didn’t bother to actually think about what that would entail.” She shrugged. “I was kind of hoping you’d, you know, ask me how Charlie did this. Or did that. You’d ask and I’d tell you.”

I sighed, slumping in my seat. “That might be great. If I was another girl who simply wanted to pretend to be Charlie. I don’t even know what to ask you.”

For a moment, we did nothing but stare at each other. Then, like a flash of inspiration, I hit upon a possible solution.

“Katie?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s pretend that one of your guy friends got, I don’t know, zapped by a ray that turned him into a girl. And he came to you to ask you how to blend in so that people would think that he’d always been a girl. Where would you start with him?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she turned around and walked across the room to the doorway. Then, before she passed through, she turned around and paced back.

“Okay, I think I get where you’re going with this. This hypothetical friend needs me to coach him on how to be a girl, right?”

“Right,” I said. I almost threw in the fact that I didn’t need to learn how to be just any girl. I needed to learn how to be Charlene.

She paced back and forth again. “So, here’s a guy. He’s been a guy his whole life. Now, he’s suddenly a member of the superior gender, and doesn’t know anything about living like that. Plus, he doesn’t have the decades required to learn like a normal person.”

“Misandry aside, pretty much.”

She stopped and looked at me, a single brow arching.

“Charles, what have you done since waking up as my sister? Have you done more than just glance in a mirror to confirm you weren’t in Nebraska anymore?”

“Nebraska?”

She shot me an annoyed look. “The Wizard of Oz? You’re not in Nebraska anymore, Toto.”

“It’s Kansas back on the other side.”

“Whatever. What I’m asking is, have you check out the goods since then.” She pointed her finger at me, moving it up and down as she pointed at the area of my body from my neck down to my feet.

“Check out the goods?” I shook my head vehemently. “No, Katie, I have most certainly not ‘checked out the goods’.”

She nodded. “Well, unless you’re planning on wearing those workout clothes until you finally go home, which I don’t recommend because they’re already starting to get ripe, you’re going to have to get to know the ins and outs of your new exterior.”

I felt my stomach drop. “No. Surely you don’t mean …”

Katie giggled as she bounced over and grabbed my hands, pulling me to my feet.

“Upstairs!” She barked. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to pull off being a girl if you don’t get over your hang-ups.”

“My hang-ups?”

“Yes. As long as you keep thinking about that being Charlene’s body, you’re never going to be comfortable in it. If you can’t be comfortable, you can’t move forward.”

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

She swooped around behind me and placed her hands on my back, pushing me toward the doorway.

“Buckle up, Chuck,” she tittered. “You’re about to get nekkid!”