One Past Midnight

For Haz:

I am so lucky to have such
an incredible friend

Preface

Chapter One: Roxbury, Friday

Chapter Two: Wellesley, Friday

Chapter Three: Wellesley, Friday

Chapter Four: Wellesley, Friday

Chapter Five: Roxbury, Saturday

Chapter Six: Roxbury, Saturday

Chapter Seven: Wellesley, Saturday

Chapter Eight: Wellesley, Saturday/Roxbury, Sunday

Chapter Nine: Roxbury, Sunday

Chapter Ten: Roxbury, Sunday

Chapter Eleven: Wellesley, Sunday

Chapter Twelve: Wellesley, Sunday/Roxbury, Monday

Chapter Thirteen: Roxbury, Monday

Chapter Fourteen: Roxbury, Monday

Chapter Fifteen: Wellesley, Monday

Chapter Sixteen: Roxbury, Tuesday

Chapter Seventeen: Roxbury, Tuesday

Chapter Eighteen: Wellesley, Tuesday

Chapter Nineteen: Wellesley, Tuesday

Chapter Twenty: Wellesley, Tuesday/Roxbury, Wednesday

Chapter Twenty-One: Roxbury, Wednesday-Saturday

Chapter Twenty-Two: Roxbury, Saturday-Sunday/Wellesley, Saturday-Sunday

Chapter Twenty-Three: Roxbury, Monday

Chapter Twenty-Four: Wellesley, Monday—Graduation Day

Chapter Twenty-Five: Wellesley, Monday—Graduation Night

Chapter Twenty-Six: Roxbury, Tuesday

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Wellesley, Tuesday

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Roxbury, Wednesday

Chapter Twenty-Nine: After Ethan

Chapter Thirty

Acknowledgments

I am a liar.

Not compulsive.

Simply required.

I am two people. Neither better than the other, no superpowers, no mystical destinies, no two-places-at-one-time mechanism—but two people. My physical attributes, my memory, and my name follow me. For the past eighteen years, everything else,
everything
, about me is different. Twenty-four hours as the first version of me. And in the blink of an eye, twenty-four hours as the second. Every day, without fail, it goes on . . .

I've never told anyone. By the time I was old enough to figure out no one else had two lives—by the time
that
little shock settled in—I didn't know where to begin.
How
to begin. And society, both of them, didn't want to know.

When I was a child, I didn't realize I was different from
everyone else. But I'm pretty sure I've always been this way—this two-lives way—which means I was probably born twice, was a baby twice. No surprise I'm glad I can't remember that. Being torn from one set of arms and thrust into another every twenty-four hours? Well, it doesn't matter how much they love you . . . Can anyone say, issues?

Practice makes perfect though, and I like to think of myself as a pro. I've ironed out the kinks; identified the major pitfalls and how to avoid them. I manage. I know who I need to be in each of my lives, and I try not to confuse my brain with the “infinity questions” anymore.

I've learned to accept that in one life I love strawberries, while in the other my taste buds cringe at the flavor. I know that in one life I can speak fluent French, but, even though the memory of the language comes with me, in my other life I must not. Then there are easier things to remember, like Maddie, my gorgeous little sister in one life, and my not-so-great big brothers in my other.

Above all else—though I try not to think about it—I know which life I prefer. And every night when I Cinderella myself from one life to the next, a very small but definite piece of me dies. The hardest part is that nothing about my situation has ever changed—the only thing I can be certain of is that my body clock is different from everyone else's. There is no loophole.

Until now, that is.

I broke my wrist today.

Capri and I were heading for the subway. I had a soda can at my feet, soccering it along the pavement, flashing sweet and mostly sour smiles to the suits who gave us “hooligan” looks as we passed. We attracted that kind of attention. Funny how clothes and generous use of eyeliner can do that. In my other life, no one would dare give me that kind of look. But there was something satisfying about it. My faded black mini and lace-up Doc Martens helped give me what I needed.

My identity.

Capri skipped ahead, her black hair bobbing, halfway between dreads and undecided. “I bet the guys are already there,” she said over her shoulder, speeding up.

I suppressed a groan, hoisted the soda can onto the tip of my toe, kicked it into my hand, and picked up the pace. At
the top of the stairs I paused to toss the can in the trash, and then . . . un-paused. I don't know if it would've happened anyway. But right at that moment, one foot in the air about to step down onto the first of fifty-odd steps, I saw him.

Well, I think I saw him.

A round-bellied, middle-aged man. Dressed in a dated taupe suit and scuffed red-brown shoes. He was thinning badly up top and sweating either because of excess fabric or body weight. He looked different than usual, but in that moment I was certain.
Fruit-stand guy
, my mind whispered.

It was a glitch.

They happened every now and then, and they always threw me.

My foot never found sure landing. Instead, it missed the step and caught the edge. I fell forward, propelled toward the bottom, making a fool of myself the entire way. Legs over ass, I flashed a good few dozen people on the way down, showing them pretty much all I had to offer.

Capri, great friend that she is, was laughing before I even came to a stop. And not just a private little chuckle behind her hand before she could pull herself together. No, she all but wet herself, sliding down beside me as I tried to cradle my wrist and an arm that felt like it could, at any second, fall off my shoulder.

Eventually, and mostly because of commuters grunting about having to go around us, I pulled myself to my feet.
Capri was still laughing, pausing every now and then before obviously replaying the moment in her mind and cracking up yet again.

Jesus. I wished I was in my other life at that moment. This was not the type of thing to let happen in this one.

“I think I'll need to go to the medical center,” I told Capri, who was only just beginning to realize I'd genuinely hurt myself.

“Oh, shit. Sorry, Sabine. I thought you were okay.”

I shrugged, instantly regretting it when a searing pain shot up my arm. “Probably just a sprain.”

Luckily the medical center wasn't far and we could walk. The idea of being crammed into a train with a funky arm didn't work for me at all. Capri sent Angus, her sort-of boyfriend, a text to let him know we wouldn't be meeting up at our usual after-school caffeine haunt. If it weren't for the throbbing pain in my arm, I'd almost have been relieved. Capri and Angus had been trying to set me up with Davis for the past month. Nice guy, no spark.

“It
was
pretty funny, though,” Capri said as we walked, still slipping into bouts of memory giggles. She could be a bitch sometimes, but ever since we were thrown together in junior high by our similar “freak” labels—thanks to Capri's in-your-face individuality and my attempts at the time to simply ignore one of my two lives and everything in it—that particular trait had mostly worked in my favor. And she was
the only friend in this life I'd managed to keep hold of, mostly because she didn't care that I seemed . . . well, to put it in her words,
like I was somewhere else half the time.

I flashed her a smile. “Lucky I was wearing hot underwear!”

Which I hadn't been, of course. And thanks to my ass-in-the-sky display, she and more than a handful of Boston commuters knew it.

Capri laughed so hard she snorted. “Yeah. Floral print is making a comeback.”

And then my arm hurt, because I was laughing too. Even while dreading that some bastard with an iPhone might have already uploaded footage of my floral booty to YouTube.

Broken.

At least it was only my wrist. But I'd be plastered up like a disaster zone for the next six weeks. Capri had already drawn some weird, screwed-up bat image on it. She was currently into Goth. On top of the half dreadlocks, she'd dyed her beautiful blond hair black and persisted with floor-length skirts even on the hottest days.

I was happy sticking with my streetwise look. I wasn't as fanatical about it as Capri; I just made sure I perfected the don't-mess-with-me part. It was important, especially around
Roxbury—which was still categorized as one of Boston's “due for gentrification” areas. And although Mom and Dad would have preferred an extra five inches on my skirts, my look didn't send them into complete freak-out mode.

By the time I got home it was after 9:00 p.m. As soon as I opened the front door, I could hear Maddie bounding from her room toward the stairs. The door was barely closed behind me when she came barreling down the steps three at a time.

“Binie! Binie!” She was just about to launch herself from the bottom step into my arms—one of her signature moves—when she saw the sling covering my arm.

“What happened?” she asked, coming to an abrupt halt.

To Maddie, I was invincible. Probably because half the time when I was sick I pretended not to be, always worried about unintentionally overdosing if I took medication in both worlds. It wasn't easy when I had tonsillitis, but I couldn't very well have
that
operation twice. And I'd certainly never broken anything before. ”It's okay, Mads. I just broke my wrist when I fell over.”

She looked worried, the corners of her mouth trembling. Having a six-year-old kid who worships me look so grave caused me the worst pain of the day.

I smiled one of my goofy numbers for her. “Hey, kiddo, check it out!” I pulled my arm out of the sling, revealing the cast and Capri's bat drawing. I twisted my arm to show
her an untouched expanse of white. “I saved this whole area for you. You think you can draw something on it tomorrow for me?”