Your new life.

Breakfast at the family table managed to go by smoothly without incident. Neither of your parents noticed any odd behavior from you, and if they did, they didn't mention it.

Perhaps it was because you kept yourself quiet and only spoke when spoken to.

Your parents seem like nice people. It was nice to meet them.

You nodded to yourself, acknowledging the compliment.

Right now, you can't seem to concentrate on conversing with yourself, so you just did your best to pass the time until you can find a moment to yourself. At the very least, you're sort of getting the hang of being two people at once.

"So I heard you and Ashley are getting together for a party?" Your mom asked.

Swallowing down a piece of bacon, you raised an eyebrow in confusion, "Ashley?"

A familiar face flashes in your mind and a wave of memories come back to you.

A cheery red-headed girl who likes to get into trouble sometimes. You've known her since you were kids. She just recently landed a paid internship and was getting her first paycheck this month. You both agreed to go party to celebrate, although she was sort of vague on the details. You have a bad feeling it won't be "responsible" but you agreed to tagalong anyway if only to make sure she doesn't get into trouble and land in jail.

"Right! Ashley!" You exclaimed as you remembered, "Yeah, later this afternoon. We're celebrating her first paycheck as a paid intern at some company she's working at."

"That's nice." Your mom smiled.

"Where will you two be going? Not gonna sneak into a shady bar, are you?" Your dad teased.

"God, I hope not." You sighed, "I promise, if she takes me somewhere that even remotely looks like it might be illegal, I'll take her back home while she's kicking and screaming."

You seem like you have a sort of healthy relationship with her. Or at least, you're the only good influence on her life. You're jealous of your relationship.

You scratched your head modestly, thinking about how it's nothing that glamorous.

"Well, at least I know you'll be the one to keep both of you safe." Your dad nodded respectfully, downing his lemonade.

"Right."

Eventually, you finished your breakfast and finally managed to get some free time by yourself.

Back in your room, walked up to the mirror again with some hesitation. The weirdness of it all was sort of getting to you, and you weren't quite sure how to deal with it. This all felt like something that could only happen in a fantasy novel after all.

Still, just in case you weren't going crazy and hallucinated everything this morning, you reached your hand out and tried to communicate with yourself again.

Okay... concentrate...

You... you... you and me... I am me... you are you...

I am Alice.

You are Alex.

"Hello, Alex." I said slowly.

"Hey, Alice." You said casually.

"So I'm not crazy then." I blinked dumbfoundedly. "This actually is happening. There's someone else inside my head."

"You can hardly believe it either."

I started chuckling at the absurdity of the situation before it turned into a full-blown laugh.

In the middle of my laughing, you raised an eyebrow at me, "You know, I'm taking this far too well for a girl who's just discovered that a random stranger suddenly popped into my head. You thought that I would... I dunno, freak out more about this?"

"Oh, trust me! I'm freaking out bad right now, but only in a positive way." I giggled. "Oh man, nobody will ever believe me if I ever tell them about this..."

Calming myself down, I looked at my reflection inquisitively, "God, I don't even know where to begin with this... This is too surreal. Every thought you have, I experience it as if it was my own, and every time you speak and move, it's with my body and mouth. If I don't pay attention, I don't think I could tell which thoughts are mine and which are yours anymore." I put a hand over my mouth and smoothly grazed my lips to feel it. Or maybe it was you who did it, and I only think that it was me. "How is this even possible? Like, do you think this might be a mystical or paranormal situation? Are you a ghost, or maybe a wizard cursed you or something?" I asked.

You curled up your arms, humming to yourself in consideration...

"You might be a ghost. You're dead after all. You're not exactly sure how this works, but maybe you're experiencing some weird phenomenon with the afterlife." You shrugged apologetically, "Sorry if you can't provide any concrete answers about all this. You're at a loss just as much as I am."

"Aw." I mumbled disappointedly, "Then I guess all you and I can do is get to know each other a bit better until this... whole thing," I gestured wildly around me, "ends. Not sure how long you'll be here, or how long this will last, but I gotta admit, this is the most... interesting thing that's happened to me in a while."

I'm just lucky this didn't happen on a school day. Otherwise, I'd be seriously boned.

You chuckled, and for a brief moment, I think I found my own personality to be cute for some reason. "It's not like you have anything better to do, so yeah. Let's get to know each other while we still can."

Taken a bit aback from the sudden thought, I embarrassingly curled my hair around my finger and mumbled, "W-Well, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to do that later though."

I wasn't sure if you knew what was going on in my head or not. In all likely hood, you probably were aware of it.

No, you definitely were. You didn't mean to make me uncomfortable, you just couldn't help it. After all, I was actually kind of your type-

I slapped my mouth shut before that thought could finish. Or maybe it was you who did it.

Okay, this was getting a bit awkward now.

"Sorry." You mumbled nervously, slowly lowering your hand. My hand. Our hand. You don't even know anymore.

I cleared my throat and pretended none that even happened.

"Anyway, I have some things I need to do today." I continued on with gusto. "My friend Ashley is gonna be expecting me to call her soon. I gotta get dressed and ready for today before I meet up with her."

"Right, sure." You nodded. "Let's talk again later."

Well, it wasn't like either of us were gonna be separating anytime soon, so you're not sure if it was appropriate to say 'talk to you later' in this... unique situation.

I chuckled, "Yeah."

This was a very strange mystery, that's for sure. How this happened and why it did, neither you or I know. But it was definitely going to make life interesting.

Shaking your head clear, you loosened your concentration and stopped conversing with yourself. Hopefully, once you get more used to this, it'll slowly become less of a hassle to switch pronouns in your own head.

Heads?

No, just a head, you think. Only one head here. Sure, two minds, but still just one head physically.

Getting back on track, you walked over to your closet and began shifting around your clothes to see which you should wear for your get together with your best friend Ashley.

You raised an eyebrow at your own collection of clothing, as the closet was almost filled to the brim with fashionable designer brand clothing from various big names.

Despite the overwhelming amount of clothes however, you still have the contradicting feeling of having absolutely nothing inside your closet. This confused you greatly, as you can plainly see inside your closet containing clothes for days.

"Sorry, that's the girl in me. I'm always indecisive over what I should wear!" You giggled to yourself.

This must be what it feels like to be the opposite sex.

How complicated/easy-going.

You grabbed your head with a wince, "Ouch."

Seems like simultaneous thoughts that are too deviating from each other still disorient you for some reason. Not looking forward to overcoming that anytime soon.

"Sorry." You apologized.

"Oh, no, you don't have to apologize." You smiled back.

It's hard to tell whose word belonged to who at this point, at least not without a heavy amount of concentrating.

You decide to change subjects, hoping to distract yourself as you went to look for the perfect clothes for today. You're gonna need to hurry after all. Otherwise, Ashley's gonna chew you out.

"This Ashley girl, she seems like a fun person to be around." You commented.

"She can be a handful sometimes, but she's my best friend since we were in elementary school. We're practically sisters at this point." You cheerfully replied.

"That's... That's really sweet." You smiled back.

Pangs of jealousy and bittersweetness filled you heart for a moment, making you pause from your search.

Realizing your own emotions, you apologized again, "Shit, sorry."

You blinked a bit, before slowly coming to understand what kind of person Alex Grimshaw was like back when the man was alive. You had an entire existence filled with anxiety, depression, and loneliness. It seemed like nothing you ever did satisfied anyone, much less yourself.

Holding a hand to your heart, you whispered comfortingly, "Maybe this is Alex's second chance to experience a better life. Something you never had when you were alive. I wouldn't mind sharing this body with you, if it meant you could be at peace with yourself. If only just once."

You found yourself speechless at your declaration. That wasn't something you were expecting to hear someone else saying to you.

And now you felt the overwhelming feeling of guilt and gratitude, as well as feeling like you're a burden to this young high school girl who've you've barely known or met.

And yet since you've both become conjoined to the hip like this, it almost felt like you've known each other since forever, doesn't it?

"I really am sorry, again." You muttered with guilt.

"Please stop being sorry. It's making me depressed." You smiled back comfortedly.

"...sorry."

You laughed at yourself.