A Fair Deal

The divorce had been hard on my dad. Really hard; like, "cashed out all his vacation and sick days at work to wallow in sadness inside his new studio apartment for the next two months" hard. To be honest, I don’t understand why he was so dedicated to Mom, that woman is a huge bitch. I know I sound harsh, but she's just not a good person. The divorce could have been really good for Dad if he could just move on from her; but like I said, it didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon.

Dad was a good guy, and he really tried hard to put on a brave face on weekends when I slept at his place, but he was such a mess that there was no hiding it. I hated seeing him like that.

Late one Saturday, as we were getting back from grabbing takeout for dinner, he said he needed to talk to me. I thought, 'Oh good, you're finally ready to talk about the divorce!' and got some words of support ready for my old man. Instead, he told me some insane story about a homeless man, an old necklace, and something about him and Mom being together again. I asked him what he meant with all this, and he said he had a way to make us switch bodies.

He'd lost it. My father had finally lost his mind. 

"Dad, you sound crazy."
"I know I do, Jackson- but you have to believe me. I know how it sounds but you have to trust me. I’ve thought about it a lot, and listen! You'd get something out of it too! You’ve always been an independent kid and how much you like spending time by yourself, and I know how much you hate school."

I looked at him with skepticism, but let him keep talking.

"You could skip all that boring stuff, Jackson! You could have your own place, a car, a job that pays well and you don't have to talk to anyone… and you can buy beer and weed!" 
Oh wow, he really had spent a lot of time thinking about this. And he sounded so convinced, so... sincere. I decided to play along.
"Okay Dad, it still sounds crazy, but you don’t seem to think it’s crazy. So… I'll do it."
"Really? J-"
"But! If nothing happens, you have to get help and you have to promise to move on from Mom, okay?"
"Of course, Jackson! Whatever you say… thank you, son."

Dad got up and gave me a big hug. I hugged him back.

He left the table and came back with a small, wooden brown box. He opened the little box and pulled out a large, red, crystal pendant that was hung from two long, silver chains. My dad explained that we both had to wear the chains at the same time. I grabbed one of them and put it on over my head, I could feel the cold metal on my neck. Dad did the same and looked down at the pendant in his hand. A few seconds passed in silence.

"I’m sorry, Dad. But I told you, noth-"
"Wait! It's about to start."

I opened my mouth to protest, but suddenly I was hit with a strange sensation. The chain no longer felt cold, instead it was burning hot. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tear the chain off my neck. But I couldn't move! I was sweating profusely, and I could see Dad was in the same situation. The knuckles on his hand gripped around the pendant were white with stress.

Tears ran down my face and my sight started to fade to white. The pain was so intense that it was the only thing I could think about. I felt like I had stopped existing, there was only the hot, scathing, burning.

And then it stopped. It was an abrupt end to what had felt never-ending, and I became intensely aware of the cool, silver chain on my skin. I reached back and touched it; it wasn't even warm.

I looked up to ask Dad what the hell that had been about, but the words got stuck in my throat. Where Dad had just been standing, was an exact replica of myself. But that wasn't the only thing that had changed, I was on the wrong side of the room. I looked down and a sharp gasp escaped my mouth.

It was the necklace. I was holding the pendant, and my hands were large, with stubby nails and hairy knuckles.

"Jackson, how are you feeling?" my duplicate asked as he stood up and walked over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I cringed at the sound of my own voice.

"I feel-" I coughed. My voice rumbled out, resonating in my head, and my tongue and lips felt strange.
"Here, come with me." The other me said as he comforted me and took the necklace's chain off my neck. 

I stood up and my head spun. I was a shrimpy seventeen-year-old, and despite being halfway through my Junior year, I was still one of the shortest and scrawniest guys. Not just in my class, but in the whole school. Now, everything looked different. I couldn't have gained more than six inches, but the difference in perspective was enough to totally disorient me.

I followed behind the other me, my steps felt heavy, and I could feel my thighs and stomach jiggling with every lumbering step. He guided me into the bathroom and gestured at the mirror.

I was speechless.

In the mirror I could see me and my dad standing next to each other. But I wasn't me. I was my dad. I was looking into his green eyes, his dark, thinning hair, and his eye-bags, surely from sleepless nights spent crying over my mom. I reached up and felt the rough stubble on my cheeks. I looked down and flexed my hands. It was hard to believe that these paws were really mine I had to convince myself I wasn't dreaming.

I was shocked, confused, curious, and even excited. My dad repeated his story from earlier, but this time I actually listened to him. He said we should take it easy tonight, and that we would have a lot of things to discuss tomorrow. We put the necklace back in its box and put it away together and spent the rest of the night eating pizza on the couch and watching movies, but there was never a moment where I wasn't playing with my soft stomach, or my stubble, or the hair on my chest. We fell asleep on the sofa-bed in front of the tv.

The we spent the entirety of the following day going over details the other needed to live our life. It started getting dark and Mom, surprisingly, showed up on time to pick "me" up. I walked with Dad to the car and waved goodbye from the driveway. He had the biggest smile I'd ever seen on my face.

I hurried back into the apartment- my apartment, and locked the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and stripped down to my underwear as I threw myself onto the couch. I kicked my feet up on the coffee table and cracked open the beer can. I took a couple hearty swigs and sighed. It tasted… right. I would have never imagined for any of this to feel so right. I turned on the tv and looked for something to watch. I had a month and half left of Dad's vacation and I'm looking forward to make the most of them.