Chapter 4

The hunger doesn't stay quiet for long.

It's been four days since I put Chloe on like a second skin and decided not to take her off. Four days of classes and bookstore shifts and open mic nights. Four days of waking up to the weight of breasts on my chest and the smell of rosewater on my wrists. Four days of being her so completely that I almost forgot I was ever anyone else.

Almost.

But Ava is sitting across from me at the kitchen table, her chestnut hair falling out of its messy bun, her long fingers wrapped around a mug of black coffee, and I'm staring at her freckles. The dusting of them across her nose, the way they catch the morning light through the kitchen window. I've been looking at her for days—she's my sister, or Chloe's sister, or whatever the right word is when you're inhabiting someone's body and living their life—and every time I see her, the ache gets a little sharper.

She's beautiful. Not in the cute, huggable way Chloe is beautiful. Ava is understated. Natural. The kind of pretty that doesn't try, that just exists, like a photograph that didn't need editing. Her hazel eyes are half-lidded with morning tiredness, and she's wearing an oversized cream sweater that slips off one shoulder, and there's a smudge of something—maybe coffee grounds—on her wrist. She smells like laundry detergent and the vanilla candle she burns in her room while she edits photos.

"You're staring," she says without looking up from her phone.

"I'm—I'm thinking." Chloe's voice, that sweet, slightly high-pitched stammer, comes out before I can stop it.

"About what?" She looks up now, one eyebrow raised, her mouth quirking into that dry, fond smile she always gives Chloe when she's being weird.

"Your freckles," I say, because it's the first thing in my head and Chloe would probably say something like that anyway.

Ava laughs, her raspy, trailing-off laugh. "Oh, totally. My freckles. The great philosophical question of our time."

I stick out my tongue. It's a Chloe gesture, automatic, but behind it, my mind is racing.

I want her. I want to be inside her body the way I'm inside Chloe's. I want to know what it feels like to be tall and slender instead of short and soft. I want to hear that warm, raspy contralto come out of my own throat. I want to wear that cream sweater and those high-waisted trousers and that leather jacket that still smells like Austin.

And more than that—I want both of them. I want to be two girls at once. I want the thrill of multiplication, of expansion, of controlling not just one life but two. Sisters. Both of them mine.

The thought is so big it almost knocks the breath out of me. But I've been thinking it for days now, circling it, testing the edges. And I know how to do it. I've known since the first time I stepped into Chloe's shell and felt my male body become a dormant layer inside her. The cloning ability. Eject the male body. Let it inflate into a clone—a second me, an autonomous me, a me that can go out and possess someone else.

Ava gets up to rinse her mug. "I'm heading to the coffee shop in twenty. You need anything?"

"No," I say. "I'm good."

She disappears into her room, and I sit at the kitchen table for a long moment, my heart beating fast, fast, fast in my narrow chest. The hunger is a physical thing now, a pulling under my ribs, an ache that won't let go.

Tonight. When she's asleep. Or when she's out. I'll do it tonight.

The apartment is empty.

Ava is working the late shift at the coffee shop—she won't be back until after ten. The January dark has settled in early, the streetlights outside casting pale orange pools on the sidewalk. I'm in Chloe's room with the door closed, the fairy lights on, the familiar scent of paper and chai and rosewater wrapped around me like a blanket.

I've undressed completely. The cardigan, the blouse, the skirt, the tights, the bra, the panties—everything is folded on the bed. I'm naked in Chloe's body, and I've been in this body long enough that it doesn't feel strange anymore. The weight on my chest is normal. The narrowness of my shoulders is normal. The way the air comes into my lungs, high and light, is normal.

But I'm about to do something I've never done before.

I close my eyes and focus. Somewhere inside me—nested, dormant, waiting—is my original male body. The body I was born in. The body I used to hate without knowing why, the body that felt like a cage until I discovered what I could do. It's been inside me since the first possession, a silent passenger, and now I'm going to push it out.

The sensation starts as a pressure in my chest, just below my breasts. It builds slowly, a warmth that spreads outward through my torso, my limbs, my spine. I feel something shifting inside me—a dislodging, a separation—and then the seam along my spine begins to open.

Not the seam of Chloe's shell. A different seam. Deeper. The seam that separates my consciousness from the dormant male body nested inside her.

The male body emerges. It's a strange, disorienting sensation—like giving birth to myself, but in reverse, the male form sliding out through the opening along my spine. It steps out of me, naked, and stands in the middle of Chloe's room. It's empty. Just a shell, the same way Chloe was a shell before I stepped into her. My male face, slack and hollow. My broad shoulders, my flat chest, my rough hands. Waiting.

The seam along its spine is already there. I reach out and zip it closed—the same motion I've done twice now, pulling the seam up from the small of the back to the nape of the neck. As it seals, the male body inflates. The hollow eyes fill with awareness. The chest rises with a first breath. The face shifts from slack emptiness to alert, knowing presence.

The clone opens its eyes—my eyes—and looks at me.

"Hey," it says. My voice. My real voice, deep and rough, coming out of a mouth I haven't used in days.

"Hey," I say back. Chloe's voice. Sweet and high-pitched.

The clone grins. It's a grin I recognize—my grin, the one I used to make when something absurd and wonderful was happening. "This is insane," it says. "I'm you. But I'm—" it looks down at its hands, flexing them, "—I'm also not you. I'm separate."

"Yeah," I say. "That's how it works."

The clone's mind is my mind. I can feel it—a second consciousness, identical to mine, sharing every memory, every desire, every scrap of knowledge I've accumulated. But it's independent. It will think and act on its own, and I won't automatically know what it's feeling unless I shift my focus into its body. Right now, my main awareness is here, in Chloe. The clone is a separate instance of me.

"Get dressed," I tell it. "Your clothes are in the back of my closet. I stashed them there after the last time."

The clone nods and starts rummaging. Jeans. T-shirt. Sweatshirt. Sneakers. My male clothes, rough and heavy and gray, the same clothes I was wearing when I first possessed Chloe. The clone pulls them on efficiently, and when it's dressed, it looks exactly like I used to look before all of this started.

"Okay," the clone says. "Ava gets home at ten-fifteen. I'll wait in the hallway. She'll go to her room. I'll knock. She'll open the door. I'll touch her arm."

"Make sure the door is locked," I say. "Complete privacy."

The clone nods. "I know."

And it does know. It knows everything I know. It wants everything I want. It's me, just as hungry, just as determined, just as incapable of stopping.

At ten-twenty, I hear Ava's key in the lock.

I'm sitting on Chloe's bed, fully dressed again—a plum cardigan over a cream blouse, a corduroy skirt, brown tights. The clone is in the hallway, pressed against the wall near Ava's door, out of sight. My consciousness is here, in Chloe's body, but I can feel the clone's presence like a warmth at the edge of my awareness. I'm not in its head. I can't see what it sees. But I know it's there, alert, waiting.

Ava's footsteps move down the hall. Her door opens. Closes.

Silence.

I hold my breath. Chloe's breath. The fairy lights twinkle above my head. Somewhere in the apartment, the refrigerator hums. A car passes on the street below.

Then I hear the knock.

It's quiet. Just a tap of knuckles on wood. A pause. Ava's voice, muffled through the wall: "Yeah?"

The clone's voice, my voice: "Hey, can I—can I talk to you for a second?"

Another pause. Then the sound of a door opening.

I shift my focus. It's a deliberate act, like turning my attention toward a sound in another room. Suddenly I'm seeing through the clone's eyes. I'm standing in the doorway of Ava's room, looking at her. She's still in her work clothes—a soft linen button-down, high-waisted trousers, her barista apron slung over one shoulder. Her chestnut hair is escaping its messy bun, and she looks tired, but her eyes are warm.

"Oh, totally," she says, stepping back to let me in. "What's up?"

The clone steps into Ava's room. The door closes behind us. I hear the lock click.

"Ava," the clone says. My voice. Deep. Rough. "I need to show you something."

Ava's brow furrows. "What do you mean? Who are—"

The clone reaches out and touches her arm.

Ava's face slackens.

I'm watching through the clone's eyes, and I see it happen in real time. Her expression—that calm, dry, affectionate expression she always wears around Chloe—simply empties. Her hazel eyes go hollow, the warm brown-green irises becoming unfocused pockets in the softening skin of her face. Her mouth falls open slightly, and for a heartbeat—less than a heartbeat—there's something there. Confusion, maybe. The briefest flicker of Ava's consciousness before it's displaced, dormant, gone.

Then her body softens. Her shoulders slump, her arms drop, the apron slips from her shoulder and lands on the floor. Her clothes—the linen button-down, the high-waisted trousers—begin to sag on a frame that's no longer solid. She's taller than Chloe, and the shell takes longer to fully hollow, the structure of her surrendering by degrees.

The clone catches her before she falls and lowers her to the floor. Ava's bedroom is tidy but dusty—white walls, a queen bed with a pale grey duvet, a desk cluttered with camera gear and hard drives. The corkboard wall is covered in prints and Polaroids. The room smells like coffee and vanilla, exactly the way Chloe's memories said it would.

The clone undresses quickly. Jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt, sneakers, boxers—all in a heap on the floor. The clone is naked now, my male body standing over Ava's empty shell. The seam along her spine is already visible, a faint vertical line.

The clone kneels and pulls the seam apart. It opens soundlessly, from the nape of Ava's neck to the small of her back. The inside is dark and smooth. The clone takes a breath—my breath, in my male lungs, for what might be the last time for a while—and then steps in.

Right leg first. The clone's foot slides into Ava's hollow leg. She's 5'7", taller than Chloe, and the shell doesn't have to stretch as much to accommodate the clone's male frame. But it still resists—her hips are narrower than his, her legs slimmer—and the shell's skin pulls taut as the clone pushes deeper. The coolness of her skin warms around the clone's calf, his ankle, his foot. His toes press into her toes, and the shell's feet stretch, the skin going tight and then relaxing.

Left leg. The same elastic give, the same warming grip. The clone can see Ava's legs now, distended around his thicker thighs and calves, the skin smooth and tight.

The clone pulls the shell up over his hips. Her waist is narrower than his, and the shell strains, the skin pulling smooth and translucent across his broader pelvis. The pressure is intimate and strange—cool skin warming, conforming.

Arms. The clone works his hands into Ava's hollow arms, his fingers sliding into hers. Her fingers are long, a photographer's fingers, and they stretch around his thicker digits, the webbing pulling, the tips pressing against the ends of her fingertips.

Shoulders. The clone's broad shoulders push against the narrow frame of Ava's back, and the shell resists for a moment—a tight, elastic strain—and then yields, the skin going translucent for a heartbeat before relaxing. The clone's shoulders settle into hers, and the shell widens to accommodate him.

Chest. The clone's flat male chest presses into Ava's empty torso. Her breasts—moderate, teardrop-shaped, hanging loose and hollow—flatten against his pectorals, cool and weightless. The nipples are misplaced, not yet aligned, just empty shapes waiting to be filled. The clone can feel them moving as he breathes.

Head. The clone ducks and slides into Ava's head, and for a moment everything is dark and close, and then his eyes find the hollow sockets of her eyes, his mouth finds the inside of her mouth, and the world swims back. He's looking through Ava's eyes now, and the room is the same room, but everything is slightly different—the angle, the height, the way the light falls through the window.

He reaches back and pulls the seam closed.

The sealing shiver runs from nape to heels. Then the shell conforms.

The stretched skin contracts. The clone's shoulders narrow with a smooth, fluid compression. His spine shortens—Ava is 5'7", and the clone drops to her height, the world shifting around him. His hands contract, his fingers drawing back into Ava's long, elegant digits. His feet shrink inside her feet.

And his chest—the empty breast-forms begin to fill. Warmth spreads through the tissue, a gentle swelling, and the breasts lift and round and settle. Moderate. Teardrop-shaped. The nipples realign, become sensitive, and the clone feels them as his own.

His hips widen. His waist narrows. His thighs slim but curve. Every part of him is being remade, drawn into the template of Ava Vance's body.

The whole thing takes maybe five seconds. When it's done, the clone is kneeling in Ava's room, naked, in Ava's body. The male body he was wearing a moment ago is now a dormant inner layer inside her shell, nested and waiting.

He takes his first breath.

The air comes into his lungs differently. Deeper than Chloe's breath, but still lighter than his male breath. The taste is coffee and vanilla—the scent of Ava's room, the smell that clings to her skin. The chest rises, the breasts shifting with the movement, their weight a gentle, grounding presence on his ribs.

He lifts one hand—Ava's hand, slender and long, with a silver cuff bracelet on the wrist—and presses it to his chest. His heart is beating fast. His skin is smooth and warm. The freckles on his nose are barely visible in his peripheral vision.

"Ava," he says.

The voice is a warm, slightly raspy contralto. It resonates in a throat that's different from Chloe's—deeper, smoother, with a measured, thoughtful rhythm built into the very shape of it. The word hangs in the quiet air of the bedroom, and the clone feels it in his chest, in the bones of his face, in the roof of his mouth.

"Ava Vance," he says again, louder. The voice carries. It's a voice that sounds like it would trail off with a soft laugh. It's a voice I've heard across the breakfast table for four days, and now it's coming out of my throat—his throat. Ours.

The clone stands up. Everything is different from this height—taller than Chloe, the world arranged around a 5'7" frame instead of a 5'4" one. The breasts are smaller than Chloe's, higher-set, teardrop-shaped rather than full and round. The hips are narrower, the legs longer. The body is leaner, more athletic, a subtle hourglass instead of a soft pear.

The clone looks at the clothes on the floor. Ava's clothes. The soft linen button-down, the high-waisted trousers. And underneath them, a simple nude bra and matching panties, practical and comfortable.

He picks up the bra first. The fabric is smooth and cool, and he puts it on with Ava's practiced movements—reaching behind, hooking the clasp, settling the cups over his new breasts. The fit is perfect. The underwire presses gently against his ribs.

Panties. The nude fabric slides up his legs, settling into place with a soft whisper.

The high-waisted trousers. They're cream-colored, made of something soft and drapey, and they button at the side. The clone pulls them on and fastens them, the waistband settling against a stomach that's flat and smooth.

The linen button-down. Soft and slightly rumpled, the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He buttons it up, tucks it in, and the fabric is light against his skin.

No shoes—she's already kicked off her work flats by the door. The clone leaves the silver cuff bracelet on the desk for now.

He's dressed. He's Ava.

And on the other side of the apartment, in Chloe's body, I'm grinning like an idiot. I can feel the clone's presence at the edge of my awareness—a second warmth, a second heartbeat, a second consciousness that is also mine. I shift my focus, and suddenly I'm looking through Ava's eyes, standing in her room, dressed in her clothes. I shift back, and I'm Chloe again, sitting on her bed, my heart pounding with giddy, impossible joy.

Two bodies. Two lives. Both mine.

I stand up and walk to Chloe's door. I need to see this. I need to see her—me—both of us.

Ava's door opens. The clone steps out.

She's beautiful. Of course she is—I've been looking at her all week, aching for her without fully admitting it. But seeing her now, knowing that behind those hazel eyes is me, is something else entirely. She's wearing the cream trousers and the linen button-down, her chestnut hair still escaping its bun, her freckles catching the hallway light. She moves with Ava's easy, measured grace, and when she sees me—Chloe, standing in the hallway in her plum cardigan and corduroy skirt—she stops.

We stare at each other.

"Oh my god," I say, in Chloe's voice, and I hear the giddy, disbelieving laugh bubbling up before I can stop it. "Oh my god, it worked. You're—I'm—"

"You're both of us," the clone says. Ava's voice. Warm and raspy and trailing off at the end, the way Ava's always does. "This is insane. This is completely insane."

I reach out and touch her arm. The linen of her sleeve is soft under my fingers—Chloe's fingers—and underneath it, the warmth of her skin. Ava's skin. Our skin. I feel the touch in Chloe's body, the pressure of my fingertips, the texture of the fabric.

"Shift," I say. "Shift into Ava."

The clone closes her eyes for a moment, and I close mine, and when I open them again, I'm looking through Ava's eyes. I'm feeling Chloe's touch on my arm from the other side—the soft pressure of her small, warm hand. I look down at her—at me—and see Chloe's face, her dark curly hair, her dimples, her glasses slightly askew. She's grinning. We're both grinning.

"This is the weirdest thing that has ever happened," I say in Ava's voice.

"Wait," Chloe says—and I shift back into her, the world snapping into her perspective again—"wait, do it again. Touch my hand."

The clone reaches out and takes my hand. Ava's long, slender fingers wrap around Chloe's shorter, rounder ones. I feel the warmth of the touch in Chloe's body. Then I shift, and I feel it in Ava's body—Chloe's small hand in mine, the familiar texture of her skin, the way her dimples deepen when she smiles.

We're holding hands with ourselves.

I don't know which body I'm in anymore. I keep shifting back and forth, Chloe to Ava, Ava to Chloe, the world reconfiguring around me each time—different height, different weight, different voice in my throat. It's disorienting and exhilarating and so absurd that I start laughing, and then the clone starts laughing, and we're standing in the hallway, two sisters holding hands and cracking up like idiots, and no one in the world knows why.

"We need to—" I start, in Chloe's voice.

"Coordinate," the clone finishes, in Ava's voice. "Yeah. Okay. Let's go to Ava's room. More privacy."

I nod, and we walk down the hall together. The clone moves with Ava's stride—longer legs, a subtle sway of hips that's different from Chloe's more compact, bouncy step. I follow, watching her—watching myself—and the thrill of it is a warm hum under my skin.

Ava's room smells like coffee and vanilla and, now, the faint, clean scent of her laundry detergent. The fairy lights aren't on in here—Ava doesn't do fairy lights—but the desk lamp casts a warm glow across the camera gear and the corkboard wall full of prints. There's a photograph of Chloe on the corkboard, one Ava took last summer at the farmers' market. Chloe is laughing, her dimples deep, her hair wild, and the light is golden and perfect.

The clone sits on the edge of Ava's bed, and I sit next to her. Two bodies. Two sets of breasts rising and falling with breath. Two hearts beating. Both mine.

"Okay," I say. "We need to figure out how this works. The—the communication thing. I can't hear your thoughts."

"Right," the clone says. "You have to tell me things. Out loud. I'm independent."

"I know. But I can also—" I pause, focusing. The clone is subordinate to me. The main awareness—my awareness, here in Chloe—holds authority. I can send a directive silently, an act of will, and the clone should receive it as a clear impulse. I try it now: Stand up.

The clone blinks. Then she stands. "That was you," she says. "I felt that. It wasn't a voice in my head—more like a sudden, clear knowing that I should stand up."

"Orchestration," I say. "I can direct you silently. But you can't read my thoughts, and I can't automatically feel what you feel."

"I have to shift," the clone says, nodding. "If I want to know what you're sensing, I have to actively focus on your body." She pauses, her hazel eyes meeting mine—Chloe's dark brown ones. "So what now?"

"Now," I say, "you explore."

The clone stands and walks to Ava's closet. I stay on the bed, watching, but I shift my focus periodically—dipping into the clone's awareness to feel what she's feeling, then pulling back to my own.

The closet is small but well-organized, like everything Ava does. Neutral palette—cream, olive, charcoal, denim blue. The clone runs her fingers along the hanging garments, and I feel the textures through her: the soft wool of an oversized sweater, the smooth silk of a slip dress, the worn leather of the vintage jacket that's hung on the back of the door.

"This jacket," the clone says, pulling it down. The leather is buttery and old, creased at the elbows, smelling faintly of smoke and the road. Austin. The gap year. Ava bought this jacket for twenty dollars at a flea market when she was eighteen, and she's worn it to every shoot, every gallery opening, every significant moment of her adult life. The clone slides it on over the linen button-down, and the weight of it settles on her shoulders like a memory.

"There's a poem about that," I say, and immediately laugh at myself. "Wait, no. That's Chloe. I keep—the voices keep crossing."

"Tell me about it," the clone says. "I almost said 'oh, totally' when I was looking in the mirror."

She turns to the mirror—a full-length one on the back of Ava's closet door—and looks at herself. Ava's face stares back: hazel eyes, almond-shaped and calm. The dusting of freckles across the nose. The long chestnut hair, half-fallen from its bun. The clone touches her cheek, tracing the freckles with her fingertip.

"I've looked at this face every day for a week," she says quietly. "But I've never seen it like this. From the inside."

The memory surfaces without warning—triggered by the mirror, by the sight of Ava's reflection, by the particular angle of the light. It's a winter morning, four years ago, and Ava is eighteen. She's standing in front of a different mirror, in a different apartment, trying on the leather jacket for the first time. The flea market in Austin is hot and dusty, and her friend from the hostel—a girl named Robin with bright pink hair—is laughing at her because she's haggling with the vendor in terrible Spanish. But Ava doesn't care. She feels alive, untethered, like the world has just opened up and invited her in. She buys the jacket and wears it out of the market, the leather already warm from the sun, and she thinks: This is the start of something.

The memory fades, and the clone is standing in Ava's room, wearing the same jacket, twenty-two years old, her heart beating with someone else's longing.

"Her gap year," the clone says. "She bought this jacket in Austin. It was the first thing she ever owned that felt like her."

I know this memory. I have it too, through Chloe's memories of Ava telling her the story. But the clone experienced it firsthand, through Ava's own recollections, and the difference is stark. More vivid. More real.

"Keep going," I say. "The wardrobe."

The clone nods and returns to the closet. She pulls out a cream silk midi dress—Ava's favorite outfit, the one she wears to gallery openings and shoots and evenings out. The silk is liquid-soft and cool, and the clone holds it up against her body. "This is the one she wore to her first photography show," she says. "She was terrified. She drank three glasses of free wine and almost threw up in the bathroom, but everyone loved her work."

She lays the dress on the bed and keeps exploring. Oversized sweaters in cream and charcoal, soft linen button-downs in olive and white, high-waisted trousers in charcoal and denim blue. A few A-line minis in corduroy and linen. The beat-up white sneakers, the leather ankle boots. The vintage gold watch from her grandmother, still on the desk where she left it this morning.

The clone picks up the watch and fastens it around her wrist. The face is small and delicate, the band worn soft with age. "She's had this since she was sixteen," she says. "It was the last thing her grandmother gave her before she died."

I watch her—me—standing in Ava's room, wearing Ava's clothes and Ava's memories and Ava's life. And I realize, with a jolt of giddy wonder, that this is what I wanted. Not just to be one girl. To be two. To be sisters, two lives intertwined, both of them mine.

"Come here," I say.

The clone walks over and stands in front of me. I stand up, and we're face to face—Chloe and Ava, short and tall, dark and light, soft and lean. I reach out and take her hand again, and this time I don't shift. I stay in Chloe's body, feeling the clone's fingers in mine, and I look into her hazel eyes and see myself looking back.

"What do we do now?" the clone asks.

"Whatever we want," I say. "We're both her. We're both me."

We spend the next hour being two people.

The clone—Ava—sits at her desk and starts editing photos, because Ava has a gallery show in three months and she's behind, and the muscle memory is there, the eye for composition, the way her fingers know the keyboard shortcuts without thinking. I sit on her bed, cross-legged, watching her work, and it's like watching myself work in a mirror that shows a different body.

"Madison texted," the clone says, glancing at Ava's phone. "She wants to get coffee this weekend."

"Madison Brooks," I say. "Ava's best friend. Polished, ambitious, a little intimidating."

"Chloe's memories of her are different from Ava's," the clone says. "Ava admires her drive but envies her money. And Madison—" she pauses, reading the text. "Madison is stressed about some luxury listing that isn't moving. She wants to vent."

"Are you going to respond?"

The clone types something—"Let me think about that"—and hits send. "Ava always says that when she means yes."

I laugh, and it comes out in Chloe's voice, bright and stumbling. "Oh my god, okay, that's—that's so accurate."

The clone grins. "I know. I'm her."

The absurdity of it hits me again. Two bodies. Two lives. Two sets of memories, two social circles, two wardrobes. And behind both sets of eyes, the same consciousness. The same desires. The same hunger.

"There's something I want to try," I say.

The clone looks up. "What?"

I stand up and walk over to her. "Touch my face," I say. "With your hand."

The clone reaches up and cups my cheek. Her palm is warm and smooth—Ava's hand, a photographer's hand, callused slightly on the fingertips from years of gripping a camera. I feel the touch in Chloe's body: the warmth, the gentleness, the intimacy of it.

Then I shift.

Suddenly I'm feeling it from the other side. My hand—Ava's hand—is pressed against Chloe's soft, round cheek. I can feel the slight dampness of her skin, the curve of her jaw, the flutter of her pulse in her temple. Chloe's dark eyes are looking up at me, and I know—I know—that behind those eyes is me.

"Now shift back," I say, in Ava's voice.

The clone shifts, and I'm Chloe again, feeling Ava's hand on my face, and then I shift again, and I'm Ava, feeling Chloe's cheek under my palm. Back and forth, faster and faster, the world reconfiguring around me each time—different height, different weight, different skin—until I can't tell which body I started in, and it doesn't matter, because they're both mine, both me, both perfectly, impossibly real.

I stop shifting and settle in Chloe's body, slightly out of breath. The clone drops her hand.

"That," I say, "is the best thing I've ever felt."

"Yeah," the clone says. "Yeah, it is."

Around midnight, we both start getting tired.

The clone changes into Ava's sleepwear—a faded t-shirt from a photography conference and soft cotton shorts. I'm already in Chloe's oversized sleep shirt, the one with the college logo. We stand in the bathroom together, side by side, brushing our teeth. Ava's reflection and Chloe's reflection. Two sisters, same as always. Except nothing is the same.

I spit, rinse, and catch the clone's eye in the mirror. "I'm going to stay in Chloe tonight," I say. "My main awareness. You're independent—you can do whatever you want. But I'm holding authority."

"I know," the clone says. "I can feel it. It's not oppressive. It's just... there. A structure."

"Good." I hesitate. "If I give you a directive, you'll follow it."

"Yes."

"Okay. Then my directive is: live Ava's life. Go to her coffee shop shift tomorrow. Edit her photos. Text Madison back. Be her."

The clone nods. "That's what I want anyway."

We walk to our separate rooms. The clone pauses at Ava's door and looks back at me. "Hey," she says, in Ava's warm, raspy contralto. "This is going to be fun."

I grin, and my dimples show. "Oh, totally."

I lie in Chloe's bed, the fairy lights casting their golden glow across the quilt, the books, the cluttered desk. The apartment is quiet. Through the wall, I can hear the clone settling into Ava's bed—the creak of the mattress, the click of the lamp switching off. I don't shift into her awareness. I don't need to. I know she's there, a second warmth in the dark, a second heartbeat.

This is what I wanted. What I've always wanted. Not just one life. More. Expansion. Multiplication. The thrill of being not just a girl, but girls. A crowd of them, all me.

I close my eyes. My chest rises and falls. The weight of my breasts shifts with each breath, a comfort now, a home. In the other room, my other body is doing the same thing—breathing, settling, drifting toward sleep. Two sets of lungs. Two hearts. Both mine.

The hunger is quiet for now. Satisfied. But I know it won't stay that way. There are other girls out there—Maya, Madison, Jordan, Zoe, Mia, a whole constellation of lives waiting to be lived. And I can have all of them. I can be all of them.

But tonight, I'm Chloe. And Ava. And that's enough.

The fairy lights blur into a soft, golden haze. My breathing slows. The last thing I'm aware of, before sleep takes me, is the quiet, steady beat of my heart—and somewhere, at the edge of my awareness, the echo of another heart, beating in time with mine.