Will Slater wants to be as popular as his older brother John, the high school’s star quarterback. He thinks he’s found a way to make his dreams come true. The trouble with dreams is that they tend to go off in directions you'd least expect — and for most folks, trying to steer a dream can turn it into a nightmare, or take you places you'd never thought you'd go.

 

by Randalynn

 

 

The boy sat in the back seat, halfway between frustrated and disappointed. The family went to all of John's games every week, even the away games like this one. It made sense. After all, his older brother was the quarterback, and of course they’d want to cheer him on.

But weeks after the tryouts, it still hurt that Will couldn't be a part of it, no matter how hard he tried.

John wasn't mean about it or anything. He loved his brother very much, even if they didn't move in the same circles at school. But the younger boy was just too small and skinny to ever make the team. Will knew it, but had to try out anyway. He was persistent to a fault, although the word stubborn was also perfectly acceptable. He thought that his desire to make the team would overcome any obstacle.

Of course, he was wrong. But hopefully, with a little luck and a lot of thought, being wrong — and being the Will he’d always been — would both wind up as nothing more than unpleasant memories.

Will Slater had been doing research on philosophy for a school project, and discovered solipsism, the belief that there is no proof anything exists except for the contents of an individual's mind -- his or her thoughts, feelings, perceptions, whatever.

Will knew that the concept was rubbish, since what there was of the world outside of his head kept reminding him where he stood, sometimes forcibly. But hidden away in the back of the thirty-year-old text he had found in the library was a reference to a breakaway movement from solipsism -- a splinter group that believed perception did more than just validate existence. In fact, with determined effort, they believed it could reinvent reality.

They believed a person could remake the universe with the power of his mind.

The idea gripped Will almost immediately. He had always been intelligent and thoughtful, to the point where he often spent entire afternoons in his room, just thinking about the world and his place in it. He envied John, with his circle of friends and his busy life. Will had few friends, since he had always been awkward socially, and so he spent most of his time alone, wishing there was more to his world than books and solitude. But perhaps, with a bit of thought, he could change things for the better, and wind up out on the football field with his brother.

After all, if there was one thing Will was good at, it was thinking.

Stubborn as he was, Will spent days pouring through little-known texts in distant libraries through the Internet, trying to learn as much as he could about a group most modern historians discounted as “clearly insane.”After he had assembled an “instruction manual”of sorts, he had worked every minute he could spare on achieving that state of mental clarity they insisted he needed — the first step towards the all-encompassing vision he could use to make what was into what Will wanted it to be.

Now, at last, two days after another lonely Halloween watching horror movies all night in his room, Will was ready to try again, and hopefully succeed.

The boy closed his eyes and focused his mind, pushing all other sensations away and opening himself wide. The noise of the engine, the tires on the road, the music from the radio ... all faded as Will launched himself into the unknown. After a few moments of drifting, he suddenly felt the entire universe unfold before him. Totality rushed through him like a cold wind, taking him by surprise.

It was working!

He tried desperately to reach out and hold everything as it shot past him. At the same time, he fought to remember his goal, and bent his mind to changing his world, his life ... to becoming the person he wanted to be.

The person he should have been.

Will imagined becoming taller, stronger, more athletic, more popular. He thought about walking down the halls in school, running onto the football field with the team, listening to the crowds cheer. He smiled, thinking about the new Will, admired and loved, with pretty girls rushing into his arms instead of running away . . . someone to love . . . and be loved in return . . .

Mmmmm, girls. His mind drifted to thoughts of his brother's girlfriend, and he sighed with longing. She was so nice, so pretty . . . those deep blue eyes . . . that warm smile. And so sweet and kind . . . everybody loved her . . . what must it be like to be so beautiful . . .

"Wake up, Will! We're almost there!"

He awoke with a jerk, panicking as a wave of long brunette hair swung to cover his face. Clawing it aside, he looked down at the round firm breasts that pushed out the front of his red cheerleader sweater as it clung to his tiny frame like a second skin. His eyes traveled to the narrowness of his waist, then followed downward to his wide full hips. They were wrapped in a pleated white skirt that covered the tops of smooth athletic legs -- and then he felt the absence of anything tucked between them.

"Shit!" She yelled, shocked and frightened. Her clear soprano voice shook her to the core.

"Willow Ann Slater!" The woman in the passenger seat turned and snapped. "You watch your language, young lady, or you'll spend the game in this car instead of on the field, cheering for your brother!"

She looked down, her face red. "Yes, Mom," she whispered, her voice shaking. "I'm sorry."

The mother looked at her daughter, suddenly concerned. She reached out a hand and touched the girl's shoulder softly. "Is something wrong, honey? You look . . . so sad."

The cheerleader shook her head, still not looking up. "No, ma'am. It was just . . . a dream I had, that's all. A silly dream ... that turned bad."

A single tear fell.

###

Willow bit her lip as the car took the exit off of the interstate. She looked at her shadowy reflection in the car window, her sadness becoming anger so quickly it almost took her by surprise.

'It was all right there!' She glared at her reflection, hating herself for her failure at something this important. 'How could I have screwed up so badly? And more important, how did I wind up a she?'

Instead of looking angry, the girl in the car window looked like she might start crying again. In an instant, Willow pulled up short and looked at what she'd been doing. Making herself feel worse certainly wasn't going to help the situation, and she apologized to her reflection with a small smile. The girl smiled back, and Willow shook her head.

'Silly game,' she thought, her smile growing wider. 'It's almost like I’m flirting with myself.

Willow lowered her chin and looked up through her eyelashes, watching her reflection do the same. Still, it's not so bad, she mused. At least I'm a pretty girl. But why I ended up a girl at all is still a mystery.'

'In the end, it doesn't really matter,' she realized suddenly. 'The point is, it WORKED! I actually changed reality! And if I did it once, I can do it again. I can fix this!'

Suddenly happy, Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to center herself and let the world around her slip away, just as she had a few moments before. Unfortunately, a series of unexpected distractions made concentration impossible. Her long thick brown hair fell over her shoulders in soft curls, tickling the back of her neck. The cool breeze from her father's open window swept over her bare legs, caressing them and ruffling the edge of her skirt. Every breath raised her chest, making her aware of the not-quite-tight sports bra she wore under her bright red sweater.

Willow sighed and opened her eyes. Her mind was so caught up in her girl she'd become that she couldn't even begin to reach for the all-encompassing vision that brought her to this body in the first place. Just being was enough to throw her off. She would just have to get a little more comfortable with who she was now, before she could tune out the distractions and make things right.

‘But I will get what I want,’ she thought, her determination causing her to throw her shoulders back and lift her chin.

Pulling a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, Willow looked out the window and tried to settle in her new skin, not realizing how quickly and easily her body and mind leaped to comply.

The car pulled into the parking lot of the school where the team was playing today. Without a thought, she popped the door and slid out, being careful to make sure her skirt fell properly. Even though she wore a thick panty that matched the color of her sweater over her real underwear, old habits Willow didn't even know she had made her smooth her skirt all around. Without thinking, she stood straight, shoulders back and chest out, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe for Willow, it was. The thought made the new girl shiver.

She noticed with a shock that she was a few inches taller than Will, around 5’6”in her sneakers, and realized that she had asked to be taller a few minutes (and a lifetime) ago. She sighed.

"Hey, princess!" Willow turned and looked at her dad. "Don't forget your kit." He smiled and pointed at the back seat.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said, smiling back and reaching in for the lavender gym bag. 'Daddy? What's up with that? I haven't called him Daddy since I was six. And why am I smiling?'

The answer came even before she finished asking herself the question. 'Because he smiled at me first. Dad never smiles at me — well, the me I used to be. Not anymore. It's like I'm more of a problem than I am a son. I'm the one who hides and thinks too much. I know he loves Will. I'm just not sure he likes him much.'

As she closed the door and turned, she thought, 'He really does seem to like Willow, though.'

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement that was almost too quick to follow. But by the time she managed to look where she thought something had been, there was nothing.

Willow felt someone touch on her arm.

"Are you okay, honey?" She turned to see the concern in her mother's eyes, and the fact that she was actually worried for Willow made her all warm inside. All she wanted to do was make her feel better.

"I'm fine, Mom," she replied with a smile. "It was just a bad dream, that's all."

"Really? You seemed so upset!" Her mother stared into her eyes, as if searching for something she could fix.

"Really!" Willow laughed, and without thinking about it at all, she reached out and hugged her mother. Surprised, her Mom hugged her back, and Willow realized that the older woman needed reassurance because she loved her children and wanted everything to be perfect for them. She blinked away a tear or two, then slipped a smile onto her face as she pulled back to look into her mother’s eyes.

"Don’t worry, Mom," the teenager said softly, with a gentle squeeze. "It's a beautiful day for a game, and I’m not going to let something as silly as a bad dream keep me and my team from cheering up a storm!"

"Rats!" Her Dad said, closing his door. "And I forgot to bring an umbrella!"

Both Willow and her Mom groaned as her father grinned. Then they all started walking towards the school, mother and daughter arm in arm.

###

It took only a few steps before Willow realized that moving in her new body felt completely normal, even as the boy she used to be noticed that the concept of normal had changed. She felt strong and healthy -- full of energy, with a surprising bounce in her step. The slight shifting of her chest and the swaying of her hips as she crossed the parking lot felt perfectly natural, and she loved the way her hair felt when it brushed her shoulders, and the swish of the skirt against her thighs.

In fact, everything felt exactly as it should ... which seemed extremely odd to Willow, since everything has changed so radically only a short while ago. She started thinking about it, but wasn’t able to get far.

"Willow!" A shout came from the direction of the gym. Will turned to see three girls dressed in cheerleader uniforms running across the lawn. “We need you! Amber twisted her ankle getting off of the bus! There’s no way she can lead us today!”

Willow felt a flash of concern. She was worried about Amber ... and the Will she was barely knew the girl! Just how far did this change go?

“Is she okay?”she asked as the other girls reached her.

“She’s in pain, and royally pissed that she can’t cheer today,”Wendy said, then lowered her head for a second. “Sorry, Mister and Miz Slater.”

“It’s all right, dear,”Willow’s Mom said, “I’d be royally pissed, too.”

Wendy looked up and saw Mrs. Slater smile. She blushed and smiled back, then turned back to Willow.

“She wants you to lead the squad today.”

“Me?”The whole weight of her new world seemed to drop on her shoulders in an instant. She’d never led anyone in ANYTHING, back when she was Will. No one ever wanted her to, before.

“Yes, you!”Deborah (never Debbie, Will/Willow remembered) stepped forward and put her arm around her teammate. “Come on, girl. You’re the one who put most of the routines together and worked with Amber and the squad for hours to make them perfect. You’re the natural choice to take over.”

“Yeah, Will!”Lisa said, grabbing Willow’s hand. “It’s only a few minutes before game time. We need to get out there and get the crowd going!”

Will looked helplessly over at his parents, even as memories began rising to the surface — memories she shouldn’t have. The details for all the cheers began filtering into her brain, along with which girl did what, and a possible order for the cheers. She could almost feel her own body moving in her spot in the squad, as if muscle memory was thrown into the mix.

‘I guess this is what happens when you change reality,’ she thought, her mind spinning. ‘It winds up changing you, too.’

“Better get going, Willow,”Dad said with a smile. “Your team needs you. Time to be a hero!”

Will threw a reluctant smile back at her father and let the other girls pull her back towards the gym at a run. None of this was as it should have been, but that didn’t matter now.

They needed her ... and they were her friends.

###

“Give ‘em a yell, now, Bulldogs!”

“BULL-DOGS!”

‘Let’s give ‘em hell now, Bulldogs!”

“BULL-DOGS!”

The cheerleaders moved in unison, the initial line spreading wider as they did synchronized jumps, with Willow at the center. When they were far enough apart, they alternated high kicks with hand claps and called out together.

“Show ‘em you love ‘em!”kick, clap, clapclapclap
“No one can defeat ‘em!”kick, clap, clapclapclap
“The Tigers can’t beat ‘em!”kick, clap, clapclapclap
“Bulldogs!!”

And the crowd stood up and roared again.

“BULL-DOGS!!”

They burst into applause and the cheerleaders broke formation and ran back to the bench to catch their breath.

Amber was sitting there, her ankle elevated and wrapped.

“You girls are hot tonight! Terrific job, Willow!”she said, smiling.

“I’m just doing what you’d be doing if your ankle wasn’t hurt,”Willow replied, patting at her face with a towel so as not to mess her make-up. “Except I’m scared half to death I’m going to make a mistake.”

“And you think I’m not?”Amber laughed. “Girl, it comes with being the leader. But you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re doing great!”

“Yeah, Will, you totally rock!”Lisa hugged her from behind, and the other girls all came over and wrapped around her in a big group hug. This much positive emotion all at once (and all aimed at her) had Willow almost in tears.

‘These girls love me,’ she thought, hugging anyone within reach. ‘Why did I have to become a girl to have someone feel this way about me?’

And why did the thought of leaving them all when the night was through ... make her feel so sad?

“Come on, team, back to work!”Amber called from over on the bench. “The ‘dogs can’t win without us!”

“You got that right!”Deborah responded. “Come on, Will! Which cheer do we do next?”

As the hug broke up, Willow caught another flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look, but it was gone.

###

“That was totally awesome!”Amber hobbled into the girl’s locker room, smiling and hugging everyone she could reach. “Bulldogs still rule! And if we didn’t put ‘em on the throne, we did our best to make sure they stayed there tonight!”

“And we owe it all to Willow!”Deborah said, pulling off her sweater and dropping it on the bench beside her. “Thanks for stepping up and stepping in, girl.”

“We were lucky she was able to take my place.”Amber moved towards the center of the room. “There was always a chance something like tonight could happen, but we didn’t have a plan for when it DID happen, and that was a mistake. But I’m going to fix that right now.”

“Everybody agrees that Willow did a great job tonight, right?”

She looked around, and all the girls shouted “Yeah!”

“And she’s always been a great team member, right?”

“Yeah!”

“All in favor of making Willow co-captain of the cheerleader team?”

A chorus of happy sounds drowned out Willow’s surprised “Hey!”as the bulk of the team in various stages of undress hugged her in twos and threes. Willow looked over and Amber, and the team captain shook her head.

“Motion carried, girl.”Amber grinned. “You can’t back out now. Besides, you deserve it!”

Willow felt tears in her eyes, and blinked them back.

‘I’m not going to cry,’ she thought, even as her lip started to quiver. ‘It’s not real, after all. Well, it IS real, but once I get back to the totality, all this will be gone, replaced with what I wanted in the first place.’

As another few girls hugged her fiercely, she felt her resolve melt.

‘But that doesn’t make this any less real now,’ she realized, ‘and I was a good co-captain. I might as well enjoy my new position while it lasts.’

###

After showering and changing (which turned out to be a surprisingly innocent time for a boy who had never seen a naked girl before, let alone been one), Willow stepped out of the locker room dressed in a charcoal tube top with a thin white blouse over it, a white grey stripe ruffle mini skirt, and white ankle boots with a low heel.

She felt both pretty and embarrassed at the same time, since there was a lot more of her bare than the Will she was felt comfortable with. But all the other girls on the team said she looked hot, and who was she to disagree? After all, she’d only been a girl for a few hours. Still, Willow had packed this outfit before they’d left home — in the weird “never was”before everything changed.

She was doing her best not to think about how there could be a never-Willow who actually existed before Will created her. So she was surprised when a muscular arm slipped around her waist and held her gently. As she turned towards the arm’s owner, a combination of sense memory and a familiar smell washed over her and made her whole body feel like jelly. A warmth Will had never felt before spread through Willow’s insides an instant before she felt his lips on hers.

It was Will’s first kiss, but obviously not Willow’s, as she eagerly returned the loving attention of her boyfriend (boyfriend???). A century or two later, she pulled back to look into the eyes of her Jimmy, the boy Willow knew she just couldn’t live without. After a few seconds, she realized the whole team had stopped and watched.

“Damn, girl,”Amy said, a touch of jealousy in her voice. “Where can I get me one of those?”

“I don’t know,”Willow replied, the WiIl in her still overwhelmed by emotion, “but you can’t have this one. He’s so taken.”

She melted into him, and he just held her for a few second. She heard his reply rumbling through his chest.

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”She felt him kiss the top of her head. “Now, we have a party to go to, right? Go Bulldogs!”

###

Willow opened her eyes slowly, thinking about everything that had happened last night. The kissing, the dancing, the partying, the hanging out ... the making out. She rolled over on her back and sighed. Damn, that boy was wonderful. John was at the victory party, too, watching everything Jimmy did to make sure he didn’t cross any lines with John’s little sister.

‘He didn’t have to cross any lines to make me feel ... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.’ Willow felt her whole body warming up, and her nipples growing hard against her pajama top. ’I shouldn’t have done it, though. The more comfortable I feel here, the less easy it’s going to be to fix things. And I really can’t stay like this.’

“Why not?” A boy’s voice. In her room!

She sat up quickly, holding the blanket up over her chest and looked around. It took a few tries, but in the morning light, she saw a wavering outline of a human form sitting on the window bench. It cast a faint shadow, and had just enough substance for her to recognize who it was. Or rather, who it couldn’t possibly be.

“W...Will? Is that you?”

The figure cocked its head, as if thinking about its reply.

"Sort of,”it said. “I’m still me, but at the same time, I’m not. Not anymore. It’s kinda ... well, complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not exactly real anymore, not since that stunt we pulled in the car. Truth is, I think I'm what's left of the you YOU used to be — the you we were yesterday morning. I guess you’d call me a quantum ghost ... an echo of a might-have-been. "

"How did we get from philosophy to physics? There should be only ONE me. How are you even possible?" Willow looked at the boy, confused. "I'M me. I mean, THIS me is me, isn't it? I mean ... oh, I don't know what I mean anymore.”

"I don't know, either." The boy sighed. "It doesn’t matter. All of this ... it’s supposed to be way over our heads. We just turned fifteen! Where do we get off thinking we can rewrite everything and change the world? Hell, I was surprised it actually worked at all!"

"I’m not sure worked is the right word,”the girl said, grabbing her bear and holding it against her breasts. "After all, I wound up like this.”

“It’s not too bad from where I’m sitting,”the ghost Will smiled. “Nice going, us!”

The girl in the bed pouted briefly, then sighed. “To be honest, it really hasn’t been all that bad from where I’m sitting. Being Willow, I mean.”

She shrugged. “But we both know this isn’t what we wanted when we started out, and I think I’m ready to try again. Now that I've finally relaxed into being Willow, I think I can almost reach out and touch the totality again. I can rewrite this world the way it should have been. The way I ... we should have been."

She closed her eyes and began to reach, feeling the edge of her earlier vision begin to swim into focus.

"NO!" The word broke her concentration enough that she opened her eyes in frustration and stared at the offending ghost. He had risen and taken a few steps towards her.

"No what?"

"You can't ... you shouldn't.”

"Why not?"

"Because ... because this ..." Will reached out a hand Willow barely felt as it brushed her own. "This is really what you wanted all along. What we wanted. I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday. If you go back in and try to change things, I know you'll just get another variation of this.”

"What are you talking about? I ... you ... we WANTED to be a girl?" Willow looked shocked. "I never wanted . . . where do you get off ... I'm a GUY, damn it! WE were a guy!"

"But we were never very good at it, were we?" The ghost sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, as if worried he would slip through it and wind up on the floor ... or worse, embedded in the mattress. "We always sucked at sports, and we never got along with the other guys. We never really got what it meant to be a guy, Willow, not once. And our best friends were always girls -- never girlfriends, just girl friends."

"You're crazy!" Willow scooted back on the bed, clutching at her bear.

"I'm YOU," Will countered snarkily, a grin creeping onto his face. "That means you're crazy too."

"I've got to be crazy to listen to you," she hissed. "All I ever wanted was to be like John. Popular, wanted, loved."

"That's just what you are now, isn't it?" Will said, the grin disappearing. "Besides, if that's what you truly wanted, why didn't you get it last night when you tapped the totality? Why did you wind up Willow instead of John II, the sequel?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, I do." The ghost stood up and walked to the window, then looked out onto the street. "I've been watching you since yesterday. I've seen you smile more in half a day than we smiled in all the time since grade school. I've had nothing to do but watch you be happy and think about what happened in the car earlier."

He faced the girl on the bed. "When we entered that solipsistic state, we wished for all the things we consciously wanted, and we got them, just as we asked. But subconsciously, we also wanted to be Willow. We didn't know it up here." He tapped his forehead. "But deep down, in our soul, a part of us always knew what was missing. Since the Universe doesn't care that our conscious mind and our subconscious mind had different agendas, you wound up Willow."

He reached forward and tried to touch her hand. “Think, Willow. That’s something we’ve always been good at, right? Just think about what I’m saying, and you’ll see I’m right.”

Willow looked at her old self, and realized that Will had no reason to lie. So she closed her eyes and thought about everything her other self had said. Could this really be what she wanted? To be a cheerleader surrounded by friends? With a boy who loves her? And Mom and Dad able to show her how they feel instead of awkwardly wondering how to treat her?

After a moment, she shook her head and sighed. She was happier, damn it. No matter how she tried to deny it, her other self was right. She wanted to be Willow. She needed to be Willow.

And so she released her hold on her old life, and admitted the truth.

She was Willow. She always had been, and now, she always would be.

Will saw the realization and smiled.

"Good girl," he said, and watched her smile back. "Go and be happy. We both know you've earned it."

"But what about you?"

He shook his head. "I'm not really here, remember? I'm just an echo. The minute you let go of that vision of totality that brought us here, and fully accept that Willow is who you are and will be, I'll go back to being a never-was -- a might-have-been that didn't make the cut. I'm pretty sure that's what's been keeping me here -- because you never fully accepted what happened."

"But I have, now."

"Yes, you have. But you're still holding onto the totality — to that vision of EVERYTHING that brought us both here. That means the potential for you to go back to being me still exists. That’s all I am — potential. You need to let that go, so you can let me go, and get on with your life.”

Willow looked at the boy she used to be.

"You wanted to be Willow, too," she said softly. "Even if you didn’t know it, you do now. You wanted this life, just as much as I did.”

“And I got it," Will replied, a wistful smile playing on his lips. "We got it, through you. I'm just an unhappy memory now."

"No! You're real!" The words escaped before she could stop them.

"No, I’m not," he whispered. "I'm already fading. I'm Heisenberg's uncertainty, a figment of probability. Schrodinger’s cat played by Casper the Friendly Ghost. Face the truth, Willow. I’m just a possibility that neither of us wants to ever come true again. You can't save me."

She watched him start to disappear, and tears began to fill her eyes. But somewhere inside her, the sadness flashed into anger. The anger struck a few sparks, and an idea was born. And the part of Will where his stubborn had always come from shifted into overdrive.

"I can't?" She grinned at her old self, then leaned back and closed her eyes. "Just watch me."

With a mind-numbing click, the totality returned to wrap itself around her and rush through her as it did before. Once again she reached for it all and focused. This time, everything bent and twisted, but she’d been here once before, and experience is a great teacher. She hung on to her vision of what could be, then reached out and dragged her quantum ghost into the mix, tying it to a single probability she wanted more than anything. She felt it coming ... coming ... and

... gone. The vision faded so quickly, it took her breath away.

But a startled gasp from a few feet away made her smile, and she opened her eyes and looked across the room to see ... herself.

The other girl was touching herself all over, not really believing it was true. She was Willow’s twin, except Willow’s pajamas were yellow, and the new girl’s PJs were pink.

"How ... how did you do that?"

Willow stood up and walked over to her other self.

"Like you said, I had the totality right there, just waiting for me to use it. I never completely let it go, even when I knew you were right about being Willow. But I realized one thing was missing, and this time, when I went in, I had a different goal in mind. Not to change who I was, but to save who I used to be. So I told the universe in no uncertain terms that what I wanted more than anything was a twin sister ... and I made sure that sister was you."

“Welcome home.”Willow gave her new sister a hug, and after a few seconds, her twin hugged her back. The sensation of two sets of breasts pressed together made her gasp.

"Whoa. That's going to take some getting used to." She wandered over, slightly dazed, and sat on the bed she was sure wasn’t there a few moments ago — a twin to Willow’s bed where a bookcase once stood.

"You'd be surprised how normal it’s going to feel," Willow said with a smile. "After the third or fourth hug yesterday, it was just the way things were ... and now I know it was the way they were always supposed to be."

A woman’s voice called up from below.

“Willow! Wynona! Breakfast is ready!”

“Okay, Mom,”Willow replied with a grin.

The new girl cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Wynona? Is that the best you could do?”

“Don’t blame me,”Willow replied, putting both hands in the air. “I didn’t pick anything. I left that part to the totality — I was too busy trying to keep you around. Besides, I think it’s a pretty name. You might have wound up Whitney. Or Wilma. Or Winifred. But I think Wynona is perfect. After all, it means ‘eldest daughter’ in Dakota, and you did come first.”

Wynona thought about it for a second, then smiled. “Well, heck ... it beats being a might-have-been.”She looked down at her feet. “Thanks ... for bringing me back.”

“I had to,”Willow said, touching her chin with a finger. Wynona looked up. “After all, I couldn’t possibly let you go. You’re the best part of me, Win. You convinced me that this was the life I wanted, even though you knew that you would die if you succeeded. You tried to sacrifice yourself to save me. I owe you so much. Thanks to you, we’re both here, and happy.”

She put her hand out, and pulled Wynona to her feet. “Before yesterday afternoon, there was only one true constant in the universe for both of us, and that was loneliness.”

Winona looked into her eyes. “And now?”

“Now, thanks to you, I’ve got friends, a boyfriend, and a twin sister I love.”She broke into a smile and gave herself another hug. “As far as I’m concerned, the possibilities are endless!”

© 2010, all rights reserved. Posted with permission of the author.