Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (32 page)

“I know it won’t work, Dillan,” I say, with more anger than I ever intended. Remember how I used to blame this whole thing on him? Well, I no longer believe that. We’re both stubborn. I may be more stubborn than he is. Dillan’s challenge is to get me to love him.
 

What more can he do to make me love him more than I already do? I don’t need overly romantic gestures. I don’t want him to sing to me or buy me expensive things.
 

I want to believe that if we are together, that he won’t be thinking about someone else or wishing I was more exciting, sophisticated, or exotic. As I think these things, Dillan gets up from the table and stands in front of me. I’m still near the sink. As he stares at me, I wonder what he’s thinking. My own brown eyes watch me intently, a small frown line etches in my forehead, and I resist the urge to fix a thick strand of hair that’s come undone.

Those are Dillan’s facial features upon my face.
 

“I understand your anger, Keira.” He takes my hands in his. I’m reminded just how small my hands are compared to his.

I’ve gotten over the weirdness of watching myself look at me, at my mannerisms played out right in front of me. But I’ve never really noticed that I’m beautiful. I’m slender, fit, athletic—if a bit on the too-slim side—and I carry my figure confidently. My skin is a lovely caramel hue, and my hair, which is mostly curly and almost always untamable, looks soft and touchable.

Did I need to realize that I’m beautiful? Or is it that I needed to understand that I am deserving of love, of affection, of someone’s time and attention? I don’t need a man to be complete. That’s not what I mean. Keira Holtslander is a complete person. She’s amazing. She’s wonderful. She’s smart, funny, and can hold her own in any situation.

If body-swapping into Dillan Pope’s body didn’t prove that, then I don’t know what can.

“Keira,” Dillan says, moving his hands up my arms to my shoulders. I have a feeling his next question is going to shatter me. “Why can’t you admit it?”

“Admit what?” I ask.

“That you’re in love with me.” Dillan says it simply, like there’s nowhere to hide anymore. Like he’s tired of playing this game.

My heart stops pumping oxygen to my brain. That must be the reason why I’m so light-headed.
 

“I’m not—” I start as a shadow passes over Dillan’s face. He doesn’t believe me.
 

“Be careful, Keira,” Dillan cuts in, then pauses, and he appears to be rethinking his statement. He’s silent for a very long moment and with each second my heart rate doubles. “Be careful of what you say, tomorrow, to the Joy Fromm siblings. I’d hate for you to lose your job.”

“What are you saying?” I pull away from him, away from Dillan’s comforting essence. He may be in my body, but it’s his pull that attracts me to him.

“I’m saying that none of this is ever going to work. If you cannot be honest with yourself, then I can never count on you being honest with me. Luckily, since I’m you—a soldier—I figure as long as I don’t murder anyone, I’ll have a job for a few more years. Maybe I’ll turn into the base slut or something.”

“That is completely uncalled for!” I reach out to slap him, but stop before I ever reach his face. His hand flies up and grips my wrist, immobilizing me.
 

“Oh, you’re offended? How about this one: as you, I have no interest in being lonely or growing old and not being able to tell someone ‘I love you’ without a petrified look on my face. I mean, it’s so unappealing, Keira. I don’t know what’s happened to you to make you so cold to me, to my touch, to my love.”

“Dillan, I…” I what?
I love you. I need you. I want you.

He pushes himself away from me, his stare as cold as an ice shower. “Don’t worry about it now. It’s too late. Do you know what the worst part is, Keira? I thought we would win. I thought that this might be the most interesting
how-we-met
story for our children and our grandchildren. When I’m near you, I’m short of breath, I get nervous, and I want to impress you to no end.” He punches his chest. “I don’t know what this feeling is right now, right here—” he pats over his—my—heart “—but I think you’ve broken my heart.”

He moves further away. I have to stop him. I can’t let him walk away from me, from us, from
this
.

“Dillan, please, let me explain,” I half-yell, half-whisper. Let me explain my fear of being hurt. Of rejection. Of opening up and allowing chaos to enter my life.

Dillan reaches his real bedroom before he turns. “Explain it to yourself, Keira. You know how I feel. Now it’s your turn to figure things out.”

Dillan

I
N
THE
MORNING
, I’
M
NO
closer to curbing my anger than I was last night, but at least I was able to destroy things privately. As I look around my bedroom, there’s nothing but disaster. Clothes are everywhere, the bed is in the middle of the room, its sheets torn from the mattress, and the nightstand is not only
not
standing, it’s on its side, the contents scattered throughout the room.

It felt good when I did that last night. Looking at it now, however, I’m not so sure it was the right thing to do. Yes, I released a ton of anger, but now I have to live with the fact that my bedroom is an utter wreck.

I don’t know how to get Keira to trust me. To love me and
admit
that she loves me. Getting mad at her last night will probably backfire and she’ll recede even further into her orderly and neatly squared-off cave.

She needs to realize that love, by its very definition, is chaotic and disorder and not neat. It’s messy, it’s fun, and sometimes, it’s a complete disaster. But you get up, dust off the dirt, and jump back into the sack.

My problem is that I used to equate sex with love. Now I understand the difference. If Keira and I never have sex but love each other, I think it will be enough for me. No, I don’t just
think
it, I
know
it. It would be incredibly difficult not touching her, but if I got to call her mine, I would learn to live that way.
 

I wonder if I’ve been giving her the impression that she needs to mold to
me
rather than the other way around. It’s my job to get her to fall for me. It’s my job to make her realize there’s nothing wrong with her, that I adore everything about her, even her crooked baby toes—because they are freakishly crooked.

Now I’m doubting everything I’ve said and done over the last few days. Did I seem too needy, too controlling, too stupid? Should I march over to Keira’s room and apologize until she lets me inside?

I leave my bedroom—I’m not sure what time it is since I yanked the alarm clock’s plug from the outlet early on last night—but I feel like she wouldn’t have left for work yet. Plus, she would have needed to come into my bedroom and sneak out some clothes.

Her bedroom door is wide open. And it’s empty. Of her. Of her possessions. However, her uniforms are still in the closet. I backtrack and spot the duffle bag and two suitcases near the door. But there’s no sign of Keira. I even check the bathroom. Nothing.
 

Then I find a slip of paper on the counter. When I read it, my heart skips a beat and a sense of dread builds up and spreads throughout my body.

“Dillan,” it reads, “I’m sorry about last night. Everything is my fault. You’ve been wonderful throughout this entire ordeal and I hope that one day you’ll forgive me. I’ve loved you since I was an eighteen-year-old girl. I thought I knew everything then. I thought I had it all figured out. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
 

“I knew nothing of myself, of love, of the world. As a young girl, I planned to join the military, travel the world, and become some sort of romantic heroine. I had it mapped out and everything. Sometimes dreams and reality don’t match up and I found myself more and more disillusioned with my choices.
 

“I thought I would be James Bond, tracking the bad guys and meeting others in secret hangouts. Stupid, yes. Maybe someone out there actually does those things, but not me. When I met you, some of my priorities changed. I wanted to impress you. I was willing to let go of my dreams to be with a man. Desperation clung to me. Do you know how wrong that is? To change everything about yourself to make someone else happy?
 

“I was disgusted with myself. I saw how happy my parents were—sometimes I didn’t know where one parent began and the other ended, they were so similar—but I also knew how conflicted and unhappy Jon was in love. Ever since then, I’ve always felt that to love someone meant you had to give up a piece of yourself in order to make it work. That wasn’t going to happen to me. No way. No how. It took me several years to realize that it wasn’t a physical thing that needed to be given up, but that I would need to make room in order to let someone in.
 

“Even that seemed like too much work. How does one do that? Make room? It didn’t even seem possible. Would I have to let go of something in order to gain something? Yes. I have to let go of my fear. My fear of you, of love, of rejection. Of finding out that I’ve lost myself in you and that one day I’ll wake up and not know who I am anymore.
 

“The joke’s on me. A few days ago, I woke up and I didn’t know who I was anymore. I
am
lost in you. I am you and I have no idea of how to remedy the situation. Will loving you fix it? I don’t think so, because I was in love with you before we swapped, and even as I live in your body, I’m still in love with you. I didn’t need to make room to love you. My ability to love grew. Throughout this ordeal, I came to the realization that I
was
worthy of love and that I
wouldn’t
lose myself in the process. You see, your Nine Year Crush wasn’t one-sided. I felt it, too. I’m too late in telling you this and if we don’t change back, it’s my fault. I’m sorry, Dillan. I really am. To make up for my stupidity, I have an idea to discuss with you tonight.

“I’ve already left for work—I snuck in earlier to get clothes out of your bedroom. I have to admit that it was a difficult task since nothing was where it was supposed to be, but I managed, and I’d like to point out that while you may have been snoring,
I
don’t actually snore. I plan a kick-ass meeting with the Joy Fromm siblings and I’ll meet you at Ellen’s tonight at six. I’ll fill you in on my crazy idea then.
Ardently Yours
, Keira.”

Keira

I
STEP
OUT
OF
THE
elevator and thrust a small bouquet of yellow and orange flowers at the receptionist, Sheila. The florist assured me that these colors were friendly and not romantic.
 

Sheila does a double take, drops the phone, and her glasses almost fly off her face. After writing my confession to Dillan this morning, I feel better. Freer. Happier, like I’m finally being who I’m supposed to be, which, all things considered, is sort of odd, given that I’m being myself in someone else’s body.

I chuckle when the receptionist refuses to take the flowers.

“Peace offering,” I say by way of an explanation. “I’m not sure why we got off on the wrong foot, but I’d like to formally apologize. The fault is surely mine and I could not go one more day without telling you.” She takes the flowers from me as if they are about to explode. “Perhaps you can enlighten me as to why I feel like I’ve been bitten by a snake every time I we come into contact?” I ask as politely as possible. “You know, so I don’t repeat the behavior.” I give her Dillan’s grin, hoping it’s enough to convince her, and surprisingly, she smiles.

“My dad warned me about you,” she says in a low voice, like maybe she doesn’t want others to overhear her.

“Your dad?”

“Yeah, you know,
my dad
. Your boss’s boss. I use my mother’s maiden name.”

No wonder. Dillan had no idea that Sheila was Johnson Brookshire’s daughter. Didn’t he date another one of the Brookshire’s daughters? Something about an office romance that turned serious, then weird, and then bad when Dillan’s boss found out.

Dillan had received the short end of the stick for that one and that was why, according to Dillan, Mr. Brookshire hated him.

“I see,” I say, for lack of a better statement. “I’m sorry that it’s taken us this long to clear the air. That thing that happened last year, well, that’s water under the bridge and all, and there’s no need to, ah, repeat history.”

Sheila rolls her eyes. “Not interested. I have a serious boyfriend, thank you very much. Listen,” she says, a little bit more friendly, “I’m not supposed to say anything, but if you screw up today, and trust me when I say that my dad is really hoping that you do, he’s going to fire you. You seem like an all right kind of guy and my sister confided in me not too long ago as to the real story behind
the-summer-that-shall-not-be-mentioned
in our household. Good luck. And,” she adds as an afterthought, “thanks for the flowers.”

“Mr. Pope,” a deep voice behind me says. I turn around. It’s Johnson Brookshire. He looks between me, his daughter, the flowers in her hand, and then back at me. “In my office. Now.”

Dillan

F
INDING
MY
WAY
INTO
THE
Pentagon and to my office is not any easier the second day around. If anything, I must have been so confident in my abilities to navigate the place they called the Puzzle Palace that I got lost.
Loster.
Is that even a word? Probably not, but I’m sticking with it. I have Keira’s letter on my mind and it’s difficult to actually pay attention.

When I step inside the big office, the one with the secretary and a multitude of desks, Nebraska’s sitting there like he’s in trouble for something. The black eye looks darker and I notice that he’s favoring his right arm for some reason. I’ve decided that if I don’t want to get involved, it’s best not to ask questions.

So I don’t.

“Hey Keira!” Nebraska’s face perks up like I’m some sort of salvation for him. I stop in my tracks and wait.