The Other Side of Me – Chapter 15
by Limbo’s Mistress

I stared at my father, feeling even more confused than I was when I bounced across the dimensional divide to find myself in mid-coitus with Danny Morris. Not to mention twice as concerned.

My father’s hand remained firmly planted on my shoulder, and the look in his eyes seemed to suggest he was seriously contemplating physical violence. Which was as much a shock as anything else. I couldn’t remember a single time he’d ever lifted a hand against me.

Did the jump send me to another parallel universe? Rather than back home.

I shook my head, glancing over at the kitchen doorway where my mother stood, wearing an expression that was much more on the disappointed end of the spectrum. Rather than the fury being broadcast by her husband.

“I … well …” I stammered, scrambling to put together something that might be a flimsy, but believable, excuse. But how did I explain doing something I wasn’t even around to do? Just trying to come to terms with that question was enough to give someone a headache.

“I really don’t know what has gotten into you the past few days, Charles,” my father said, shaking his head. “However, your behavior tonight went beyond the pale.”

Fucking Christ on a cracker! What the hell had Charlene done now?

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting as much conviction into the two words as I could. Which wasn’t all that impossible. I did feel bad about whatever shit Charlene had done. You know, since I had a partial share in the blame that led to our swapping lives.

“You’re sorry?” Dad asked, still looking like he was a pissed-off dragon trying to decide if he was going to breathe fire on me or not. “Your sister is up in her room, probably bawling her eyes out thanks to you. And you’re just sorry?”

In a flash, I thought about Other-Katie and how desperate she seemed for me to stay her sister. Her asking me if being trapped as Charlene would really be that bad. Now, hearing my dad’s words, I feared all that would do is move whatever problem my doppelgänger had with her sister onto mine.

“We know that the two of you haven’t been as close since you moved out,” Mom said from her spot near the kitchen. “Since you both became teenagers, actually. But really, Charlie? Making fun of the dress she picked out for her first winter formal? Commenting on her weight? We expect better of you.” The disappointment in her voice affected me more than the anger in my father’s.

I blinked a few times, looking between the two of them. “I … did what?”

“Don’t give me that,” Dad said, finally choosing to release my shoulder. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You know damned well what you said. I don’t want to hear about how you didn’t mean it. It was deliberate and cruel.”

I didn’t have the slightest clue what sort of poisonous barb Charlene had launched at my little sister. All while I was off, busting my ass to keep her life from falling apart under her own self-sabotage. I should have known she was over here fucking up mine.

However, I had plenty of time to be mad at her later. Right now, I needed to fix the damage wrought in this universe, and try to heal whatever wound she’d inflicted on Katie.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, looking between the two of them. “It’s been a rough couple of days. With school and, uh, this one girl who’s driving me absolutely crazy.” They had no idea just how much. “I didn’t mean to take it out on Katie.” I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “I’ll go apologize for what I said.”

Dad frowned. “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t blame her. But I don’t want to go back to campus with her upset at me. I need to … make this right.”

Jackson really needed to get the dimensional window fixed. Before my female duplicate screwed up both our lives beyond recovery. Although I started to get the impression that someone would be required to make Charlene touch it.

“You can go up and see if she’s willing to talk to you, Charles,” Mom said. “However, if she doesn’t answer the door, or if she says no, then you just leave her alone for now. Understand?”

I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Completely.”

Turning around, I walked up the steps and down the hall to Katie’s room. I could hear music coming from inside, but there was no light peeking out from under the closed door. Which meant she was sitting in the dark, probably listening to depressing songs. I knocked softly, hoping it would be loud enough to be heard.

“Katie-Kat. It’s me. Can I come in?”

Silence.

I knocked again, a little harder this time. It didn’t take a lot of deductive skill to figure that my parents were probably at the bottom of the stairs, monitoring the events.

“I want to apologize,” I said a little louder, placing my mouth right next to the door. “Can I please come in and talk to you?”

Nothing.

I sighed and turned around to leave. After only a couple of steps from the door, however, I heard it open behind me. When I turned around, Katie stood just inside the threshold, mostly shadowed by the darkness behind her. There were streaks on her cheeks where her tears had dissolved her makeup, causing her to look as miserable as I felt.

“Why?” The word was barely a whisper.

“Why do I want to apologize?” I asked as I walked back toward her.

She shook her head. “Why were you so mean to me? Did I do something to make you hate me?”

My heart broke. It simply shattered right then and there. Charlene had been a complete and utter bitch to her, and she was concerned she’d brought it upon herself. Neither one of us deserved Katie as a sister.

Before I realized I was even doing it, I opened my arms and pulled her into a tight hug, squishing her against me.

“I’m sorry, Katie-Kat. If I’ve been a … bitch to you recently, I’m really sorry. You didn’t do anything. I promise. It’s all me. I’m, uh, going through some stuff.”

She hugged me back for a moment, then peeled herself away. There were fresh tears in her eyes but the hurt expression on her face hadn’t changed. I could tell that she might believe I was sorry right then, since it was me professing the apology and not Charlene. I could also tell she wasn’t going to be immediate with the forgiveness.

Which meant I was going to have to take a chance and bite the bullet. Other-Katie hadn’t had too hard a time believing in the body swap. Hopefully, my version was as equally open-minded.

“Can we talk. In your room?” I nodded my head back toward the stairs. “I’ll try to explain everything.”

She hesitated, then nodded. I stepped inside the door and flipped on the light.

I hadn’t been in her room in more than two years. Since long before I moved out. The similarity of it to her counterpart’s was eerily uncanny. Though some of the posters on the wall were different, the general layout and furniture seemed practically the same. The largest difference I noticed was that the vanity over in the corner resembled the one in Charlene’s room.

She closed the door and went over to the messy bed which was littered with a half-dozen articles of clothing. I stiffened inside as the first thought that went through my head was the fact none of those items seemed to belong together.

“So, spill,” she said, arching a brow at me. “Care to enlighten me as to why you practically avoided me the past three days? Or why you felt the need to dump all over me and my dress?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could respond, she continued.

“Don’t play stupid, bro,” she said, shaking her head. “I know I’m not as skinny as some of my friends. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll look like a ‘pale whale wrapped in dirty seaweed’ at the formal.” She used her hands to form finger quotes around the insult.

My brain reeled. Are you fucking kidding me?? Sure, my Katie might be a little bit bigger, a tiny bit softer, than Charlene’s sister. But she was nowhere near what would be considered fat. Or even ‘heavy’ for that matter. Of course, my sister also didn’t live with an overbearing sibling who insisted on getting up for an hour of exercise ever damned morning.

I was all to easy to imagine the horrid things Charlene had said to her sister over the years.

I closed my mouth, clenching my jaw tightly as a red wave of anger rolled through me. I guess the fury bled out through my eyes because Katie’s face went from pained to fearful. Which only served to fan the flames.

I’d never said anything deliberately hurtful to Katie my entire life. Now, in the span of three days, Charlene had breezed in and attempted to destroy her self-esteem. If she called her a whale in front of our parents, then what might she have possibly said to her in private?

My shoulders slumped as I walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge next to her.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve had to deal with lately. It’s not fair because you don’t know the reasons behind it.”

“Then tell me. I know you were seeing that one girl … Samantha?”

I nodded. “Yeah. She’s not the reason. It’s actually another girl that’s causing all these problems.”

“Oh.”

I sighed. “Katie, I’m going to tell you the truth, but you’re going to have to keep an open mind. Because it’s going to sound like I’ve gone bonkers otherwise. See, the me that’s been here the past couple of days isn’t really me. It’s actually a girl from another universe in my body.”
Katie leaned back, stared at me for a moment, then rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Jackson fucked something up again, didn’t he?”

My eyes widened, then a hearty laugh escaped from deep inside my chest. Why did I constantly forget that my family knew about my best friend’s insane experiments. The majority of the world at large might be ignorant, but my sister and parents had had to deal with some of the more interesting incidents.

“Yes. You could say that.”

“So, the brother that’s been around more in the past seventy-two hours than he has in the past seventy-two days is really a girl on the inside? Jackson swapped your mind with some random girl’s?”

I shook my head. “No. Not random. She’s me. From a different universe. One where I was born female, rather than male.”

I spent the next thirty minutes bringing my Katie up to speed on everything that transpired from the moment I touched the window and woke up as Charlene. I was tactful enough, though, to leave out how much Other-Katie wanted me to stay, or how close we were becoming. No need to rub salt into the wound.

“So, are you back permanently?” she asked, patting my leg. “Or is this another quick visit?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Jackson … uh, Other-Jackson that is, seems to think that we won’t be able to swap back for good until both versions of him get the machine back up and running. We’ll need to redo the events that caused me and Charlene to jump into each other in the first place.”

“Did our Jackson build one of those warning devices, too? Then at least we could get some kind of a warning. I don’t want to try talking to you and find out it’s actually Super Bitch.”

I sighed. “Katie … she’s not a Super Bitch. I think she’s just having trouble dealing with her loss. It’s causing her to act out of sorts.”

My little sister shook her head. “It’s not just that, Charlie. You said she’s been sleeping with her best friend’s boyfriend. Who happens to be your arch-enemy from childhood? That seems pretty deliberate to me.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Katie continued. “I can understand her being upset. I mean, I’d be a wreck if Mom died. Or Dad. Or you. But I would think that after a few years, I’d learn to move on.”

“So, you don’t think she’s moved on?”

“Yes and no. I think she’s still hurting inside. I mean, if I were her, I don’t think I would ever completely most past the feeling that the accident was my fault. That being said, I have to say I think she’s actually enjoying behaving irresponsibly, and she find using the fact that her mom died as a handy excuse for her behavior.”

“What do I do?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders.

“Well, if you don’t go back, it’s not your problem.” Katie said, waving her hand around in the air. “I mean, she’s the one digging her own hole.”

“But …”

Katie pointed at me. “You’re too damned nice to people, bro.”

“I’m not,” I protested.

“Have you not juggled a ton of shit you know nothing about, just to make sure this stupid girl doesn’t screw up her life?”

“Well, to be fair, the only thing she’s really screwing up is her friendship with Josie.”

“And her relationship with her family,” Katie added.

I sighed. “So, back to the question of what do I do? Do I keep busting my ass trying to keep things on track for her? Hope that once she’s back in her world for good she’ll appreciate what I’ve done to keep her life from crashing and burning?”

“I don’t think she’s in an appreciative mood right now. You’ve been really pissy lately.”

“Me and the Jacksons think she doesn’t want to go back, actually.”

Katie’s eyes widened. “Do you think she prefers being a guy?”

I shrugged. “I think she likes being around Mom again. Just not sure if that’s enough of a reason to abandon her whole life.”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like her life is busy and complicated. Maybe that’s what she’s trying to get away from.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “She didn’t need to jump across universes for that. She could have just quit.”

Katie stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“I guess three days wasn’t quite enough for you to really understand what it’s like to be a girl, Chuck. It’s not as easy for us to just walk away from things as it is for a guy.”

I opened my mouth, but some part of my brain suggested that my little sister might be right. Granted, I’d learned a lot about navigating through the day as a member of the fairer sex. However, that didn’t mean that I knew what it was like as well as someone who’d been a girl her whole life.

“So,” she continued. “She not only gets to have her mom back, alleviating some of the guilt she no doubt feels, but she also gets to do whatever she wants with almost zero pressure.”

I pouted, then sucked my lip back in when I realized that it was a very Charlene thing to do. “Zero pressure? I have a ton of pressure on me.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “Like what? You’re a jock who doesn’t fraternize with the rest of his team. The sport you chose deliberately allows you to avoid relying on anyone other than yourself. You have one friend, and that’s because you’re both a bit weird. Mom and Dad don’t come down on you for anything. Remember a couple of years ago? When you came home with that D on your math test?”

I shrugged. “Yeah?”

“Do you remember they just told you to, ‘do better next time.’? Well, I got a C-minus in that very same class and I got a two hour lecture about how I should spend less time at the mall with my friends and more time hitting the books. That’s just one example.” She patted my leg. “Face it, bro. Charles has it a lot easier than Charlene.”

We talked for another thirty minutes or so, until my young-but-wise sister started yawning. When I left her room, I spotted Mom coming up the stairs. She stopped and nodded her head at Katie’s door.

“I trust you made amends to your sister?”

I nodded. “I apologized and we talked about stuff. I think we’re okay now.”

For how long, though, I didn’t have the slightest clue. I could only hope that if Charlene came back, she would treat Katie better. Not that I expected such a miracle.

“Good. You know she idolizes you. She always has.”

I thought about Other-Katie and her sibling situation. “I know.”

“Heading back to campus?” She asked. “Or are you staying in the guest room again?”

“Heading back. I need to pop over to Jackson’s for a bit first.”

She walked over and put her hand on my shoulder, smiling up at me.

“Charlie, if you need to talk about whatever is bothering you, you know I am always here, right? No matter how big you get, I’ll always be around to help you when you need it.”

Maybe in this universe.

I gave her a hug, worried that it might be for the last time. Then I forced a smile on my face.

“I know. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow.”

She nodded, stifling a yawn. “Okay. Good-night, sweetie.”

I went downstairs, out the front door, and walked across the street to Jackson’s house. He answered the door after I knocked a couple of times.

“What?” He asked sharply, his eyes narrowing. “It’s late and I really don’t feel like …”

“Dude, it’s me.”

He paused, tilted his head to look at me for a moment, then sighed. He stepped back to allow me inside, then turned around to go downstairs. I followed along.

“I guess my other half has been a bitch to you, too?”

He shoved open the lab door and headed inside. I stepped in as well, closed the door behind me, and then turned around to see the dimensional window device lying in pieces around the room.

The control unit was stripped down to bare components, the metal struts bent at weird angles. The mirror on the wall had a huge crack running up the middle and several glimmering shards littered the floor beneath it. The power box, where the lose cable that started this whole nightmare resided, was bashed in, and barely attached to the brick façade.

I felt as if my soul had just fallen through a patch of thin ice and into a deep, freezing-cold lake.

“What happened?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Your highly emotional, slightly insane, counterpart has absolutely no intention of going home, Charles. She came in earlier today, supposedly to hang. Then, while I was in a virtual brainstorming session with some European friends, decided to do her best impression of Ty Cobb.”

My knees turned to jelly, and I grabbed the side of the worktable before I could fall to the floor.

“Can you …”

“Fix it?” he concluded. “Yes. But now we’re talking six months or so. Rather than three. That’s if the psychotic she-devil doesn’t come back to finish the job.”

“Don’t let her in,” I said, shaking my head.

“You think? I knew she wanted to stay, but I didn’t think she would go nuclear on the device. I guess I was lucky the VR booth is heavily armored. Or she might have beat on me a little, too. Just for insurance.”

I blinked a few times, pondering his statement. I didn't think Charlene was so far gone she'd actually injure anyone. Looking over at the cylindrical chamber in the far corner, I arched a brow.

“Why is it armored?”

“Titanium is the best conductor for photonic transmission. Keeps the signal from getting glitchy at, er, inopportune times.”

I shook my head, unable to not grin. “You’re using that thing for virtual sex, aren’t you?”

“How are things on the other side?” he asked, changing the subject as a bit of color crept on to his face. “I suppose the other me still trying to repair the window?”

I nodded. “He built an early warning device that can detect when Charlene and I are about to swap. He was able to give me about thirty seconds notice before it happened.”

“I thought about building something like that. However, considering the way she gets anytime I mention her universe, I figured she wouldn’t appreciate it.”

“Yeah, I doubt she would.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, dude. I promise that I’ll get you back to where you belong permanently. It just might take longer than we originally thought.”

“Thanks,” I said, hoping I sounded sufficiently grateful.

In my mind, though, I tried to ignore that little voice that wondered aloud about which side of the dimensional barrier I truly belonged.