Seize the Parallel: Parallelogram, Book 3

Chapter 4

4

Halli rose at dawn and went for a long run. It was Sunday, the day after my miraculous and all-too-brief visit, and Halli needed to mull over everything she had learned. She always did her best thinking when she was on the move.

Over the past week she’d gone running at least twice a day: in the morning, as soon as my mom left for work, and again in the afternoon before my mom came home. In between, Halli spent hours cooped up in my room, talking to Professor Whitfield and his lab assistant Albert, alternating between trying to bring me back and learning everything she could about how to pretend to be me.

And part of that involved pretending to be sick.

My mother understood immediately. She had been expecting it for weeks. She kept warning me I was pushing myself too hard, not getting enough sleep, never taking a break from obsessing over getting accepted into Columbia University. My application was due November 1, and I kept promising her I’d relax after that. But she knew in her heart that it would all finally catch up to me, and when it did I would crash hard.

So when she came home from her business trip and found Halli—theoretically, me—coughing and sniffling and dragging herself out of bed, my mother declared that school and my job were off-limits for a few days, and I was to stay home and do nothing but rest. Halli nodded meekly, let my mother heat up cans of soup for her and fuss over her a little, and then leapt out of bed as soon as the coast was clear and took off running every chance she could get.

And it was fine for that one week. Halli figured it was temporary. She would work with Professor Whitfield to find me and reverse what had happened, and then she’d be back to her old life in no time.

Meanwhile, it was interesting to learn about this other universe she’d dropped into: how the technology worked, how the people lived, what everything looked like. It wasn’t so different from experiences she’d had many times before, visiting new countries and learning the language and the customs.

But mostly Halli was interested in the terrain. Ginny had taught her that was the first and best way of getting grounded in a new place: find out where you are and where everything else is around you.

“I need maps,” Halli told the professor.

“Maps of what?” he asked.

“Everything.”

“Halli, we need to keep working—”

“I need maps.”

She was so insistent, he finally gave in. Showed her how to access maps on my computer. “But don’t do it now,” he told her. “We have to keep working. Come on, Halli, we need your complete focus.”

Reluctantly, she agreed. And returned to the more tedious business of mapping out my life.

“See if you can find any identification numbers,” Professor Whitfield and Albert suggested. “Passwords...her driver’s license...bank information...notes...e-mails...pictures...” Anything and everything that would let Halli slip into my life and pretend to know what I should know.

Albert had the bright idea of using my social security number and student ID to hack into my school records. That way they could find out what classes I was taking, what rooms they were in, and what my teachers’ names were, in case Halli had to take it all a step further and go to school as if she were me. She couldn’t just stand there in the hall and ask someone passing by, “Excuse me? Do you know me? Where do I go?”

Halli took one look at my class schedule and didn’t like what she saw.

“Physics? World History? English Literature?” she said. “I won’t know any of those. Don’t you think people will notice?”

“We’ll coach you through it,” Professor Whitfield promised. “And maybe it won’t come to that. Let’s keep working.”

The problem wasn’t just that Halli had never been to school in my universe, it’s that she’d never been to any school, period. Ginny taught her everything she needed to know: foreign languages, navigation, survival skills. Halli never spent a day of her life sitting in some classroom taking quizzes or writing essays. And the only thing she knew about physics was what little I’d taught her so far. That wouldn’t help if Mr. Dobosh called on her and asked her to explain some esoteric principle that I would clearly understand. Halli was right—people would be suspicious.

With all the work involved trying to learn to be me, it’s no wonder Halli had to take as many breaks as she could to go out running. I’ll be the first to agree that having to cram in someone’s life in just a few days—not to mention having to learn as much as you can about how to function in a strange place in general, with technology you’ve never seen, around people who expect you to know who they are—can be totally mentally exhausting.

On the other hand—and I don’t say this just because I’m jealous—it was pretty convenient for Halli to have a team like the professor and Albert helping her through all that. Even little things like suggesting she carry my laptop all around the house so they could see our appliances on the screen and explain how they all worked.

I understand that was best for everybody since it meant fewer things for my mother to get suspicious about, but don’t you think I would have loved some help like that when I suddenly had to start pretending to be Halli? I was thrown into her life as abruptly as she was thrown into mine, and I didn’t even have time to properly freak out before there was a knock on her door and some guy standing there who looked exactly like the one I’ve been in love with most of my life, telling me his name was Jake instead of Will, and that he was there to fly me back by private jet to Halli’s parents’ private island, where I was supposed to be the star attraction at a company board meeting I knew nothing about.

Not to mention that Halli’s parents are horrible, her world is confusing, and I never once, no matter how many times I tried, managed to figure out how to work the holographic tablets they have over there. So yeah, I would have appreciated a little help.

I’m not saying Halli had it easy, just in some ways easier.

While she sorted through all my stuff those first few days, searching for clues about how to be me, Halli couldn’t resist cleaning up a little as she went.

I’ve never really minded living in chaos. I know where everything is in every pile in my room, so it’s never seemed important enough for me to take the time to clean. If I’m in there I’d rather be studying or sleeping. But I can understand someone else coming in and needing to bring some order to the place, to sort out what’s useful and necessary from what’s not.

Halli brought that kind of cold calculation to my closet one afternoon. She was sick of having to sort through all the clothes I crammed in there, just to find things that fit. I still had a lot of clothes from back in junior high, and maybe even a few from elementary school. What can I say? I’ve been busy the last few years.

But Ginny never would have let me get away with something like that.

“If you have something, use it,” she used to tell Halli. “If you don’t use it, don’t have it.” That applied to clothing, gear, equipment—everything. Despite all her wealth, Ginny liked to live very simply. She could fit all the essentials of her life into a duffel or two, and be on the move at a moment’s notice. Halli developed that same skill.

By the time she was done cleaning my closet and my room, Halli had filled five garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, odds and ends—anything she couldn’t see an immediate use for and that didn’t suit her regular style.

Gone were some of the pants and shirts I let my best friend, Lydia, talk me into getting over the years, but that never really fit me right. Gone were the flowery skirts my mother always gave me for my birthday. Gone were all the beat-up, worn-out flats and sandals I’ve worn for years because my shoe size hasn’t really changed.

But Halli kept any T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, all my jeans, my shorts, my sneakers—any kind of clothing a person could run in or hike in or generally not have to fuss with. And she especially loved my cargo pants: comfortable, sturdy, practical with all their pockets—just the kind of thing she liked.

She stowed all the bags in our storage shed. She wasn’t about to permanently throw out anything of mine that I might come back and want. Then she settled back into a bedroom that looked more like her clean, sparse house than the place I had left behind.

It looked nice. I’ll admit I was shocked—and maybe even a little hurt—the first time I saw it. But the truth is everything Halli did needed to be done. Nobody can be as ruthless about purging your stuff as somebody else who’s never been attached to any of it. I’m actually grateful that she did it.

And my mom was absolutely stunned.

“Audie, what...?” My mom stood in the doorway of my bedroom, staring around her in shock. I doubt she had ever seen it that clean since the day we first moved into the house.

Halli glanced up from where she sat on my bed, back propped against the wall, my laptop balanced on my legs. She gave my mom a shrug. “I felt a little better this afternoon. Thought I’d do some cleaning up.”

“But...” My mom just shook her head. “Wow.”

Halli smiled politely, then went back to studying the map currently up on my screen.

And even without meaning to, just by that small act of cleaning up my room, Halli already set the stage for everything else to come.