It's a cloudy Sunday. The light rain from the night before had coated the grass in a glowing dew. Your tiny shoes trample over the blades of grass as your mother scolds you for getting your nice shoes wet. She called them nice, but you only knew them as your church shoes—you'd only worn them during the wee hours of Sunday morning and nevermore.

Your father—faceless as any other—picks you up and places you around his shoulders, a smile covers his face and you both laugh. He suggests to your mother that they take a trip to the fair—that you would love to go see the petting zoo that they have.

“Well, I don't see a problem with it,” your mother says with a tone she said often when there was in fact a problem with something. What the problem was, you don't know, as the topic isn't touched again.

You're taken home and your mother helps you undress out of your nice clothes into something more fitting a young child. She picks you up and brings you to the mirror beside the bed. The only thing wrong is that you aren't looking at Alex Sharpe in the mirror, but instead Devon Campton.

What?

Your mother, her face begins filling in like an etch-a-sketch and you can see it isn't your mother, but actually Devon's mother, Clara Campton. Something must be wrong, maybe you're misremembering things. Then everything flashes in at once. All the memories you had seen up to this point have always featured Alex Sharpe and Devon Campton. Each and every single one. If you can make sense of this, you weren't able to follow yourself when you ran off in the mansion in that last memory because it hadn't been you running off.

All of this time you've gone off of the assumption that you were Alex Sharpe, best friend of Devon Campton, but what if the opposite were true? What if you were—the horrible realization sets in that all the things that you had been judging Devon for—joining the mad cult and acting so idiotic. Raping you for heaven's sakes. All of that-

No, that can't be. You would know if that's who you were, right? You knew right when you saw Alex that that had been you, right?! Doesn't that count for anything?! What if you were wrong? Oh gods what if you were wrong? There's a horrible feeling inside you that you can only give one meaning. Some part of you deep down understands it as the truth. You need to dive deeper, learn more.

The memory continues, the fair is set up with huge tents embellished with golden adornments that are tacky in any age. Stalls of various use and wonder line the street as people fill in and scatter amongst each other. You're led by your father's hand—your mother is nowhere in sight—and you stop by a balloon cart with a rather plump man with long blond hair standing beside it. He smiles down at you and hands you a smaller red balloon, causing you to shake your head. He exchanges it for a bright purple one that you seem satisfied with. You hold onto the string of the balloon tighter than you ever remember holding onto anything. You really liked that balloon, never wanting to ever let it go.

The two of you stop at a ring toss game, and standing beside your father is a face you didn't expect to see, it's your—you mean Alex's mom. Clutching her leg is the tiny figure you've come to expect as yourself, even if that is incorrect. There is no recognition on your face, this must be where you two met. You step up to the edge of the plate, eyeing a giant teddy bear that sits precariously on the top shelf of the prize wall. It's a stuffed brown thing that looks like it's seen better days, but you remember that inner desire burning inside you to win that bear.

It must be won.

In order to win the bear you earn a total of twenty one points. There are four rows of bottles lined up with four bottles in each column. The bottles closest to you are worth one point each, the next row up are three, then five, and finally seven points in the way back. You have five rings with which to make an even twenty-one. What seems like basic math to you now confuses you then, you look up to your father to ask which rings to throw. You seemed to have confused the bottles having different point values with the rings.

“It doesn't matter which ring you throw,” Alex speaks up, studying the rings in your hands.

“Hey now, that was rude-” Her mother says to her, then looking back up towards you and your father, “sorry about that.”

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Your father smiles a warm grin and chuckles, “Oh don't apologize. They're a treasure,” he says, ruffling your hair.

You don't like that he ignored your question, so you push one of the rings into his stomach quick. “Dad...”

“Try to aim for those back ones, Dev. They're worth the most points,” your father says before looking back over towards Alex's mother.

She's a young thing of twenty-nine, her dark hair is shoulder length just barely bouncing off of her sundress. She grants him a smile and then returns to Alex after she tugs on her dress. You hear a clank as your first ring smacks the bottle in front of you, falling to the ground below. The worker behind the stand holds back a laugh as you haphazardly toss the second ring. Your father intervenes, offering his hand. You give him one of your rings, “Don't mess it up, Dad,” you say.

You remember it being one of the first jokes you told. Granted, it wasn't really a joke more than a sarcastic remark, but your father would recant it to your mother as “the funniest damn thing he'd heard in a while.” He takes aim and tosses the ring back, it swirls around the rim of the bottle before falling to the ground senselessly. He shakes his head, “Damn thing's rigged,” he says under his breath. You toss the fourth ring just like he did, emulating his stance as you toss the ring across. Just like your fathers, it swishes around the rim before falling off.

You shake your head, “Damn things....rigged,” you say, finding the words. This makes Alex smile, and you're lucky that her mother didn't hear you cuss, that would have probably been the end of that. You extend your arm and hand her the last of your rings. “Here, try and win that big bear,” you say before walking off to join your father. The irony is lost on you that you handed her a losing game, there was absolutely no way for her to win that bear with the hand that you threw, but for all you knew you just gave up the winning throw.

The rest of your day seems to fly by, you come in focus as the sun begins to hang lower in the sky. You look positively exhausted from your long day. Your father looks beat as well as you both walk through the exit of the fair. You stop right by your car, a beat up old Volkswagen. There's a loud scream behind you sounding something like “HEEEEEEEY!”

You and your father stop in your tracks as you see Alex running towards you. She catches up with you and holds out her hand, breathing in heavy breaths.

“therewasanoldmanwhosaidto-”

“Hold up, you're that girl from before—where's your mother?” Your father asks. He doesn't wait for an answer. He makes a motion you only understand as “stay here.”

Alex looks like she's caught her breath, “You gave me that ring earlier,” she says, lowering her head. “I wanted to say thank you,” she says in a much quieter tone. This confuses you, by this point your father has explained to you in laughing tone that your actions were little more than sympathy.

“It wasn't anything,” you say.

“Oh, I know. I lost the throw like you did, but there was an old man who saw what you did. He came up to me while my mommy was somewheres else—told me that I should thank you, and then he gave me this,” she says, shaking her outstretched hand once more. In her palm you can see a glowing blue rock dangling by a taut cord like a necklace. The rock itself is oblong, no specific shape comes to your mind, but you know where you've seen this rock before.

“It's super shiny,” you say, reaching for it.

“Uh uh,” she says, pulling it back. “He also said that you had to be my friend,” she says.

“Oh, really? That doesn't sound like something an old man would say.”

A look of laughter runs across her face, “No, but I made you think so, right? Ha ha ha! All he said was that he was sorry, but I told him that he didn't have anything to apologize for!”

“That's strange,” you say “but I guess I'm okay with being your friend. Is that okay with you?”

“I mean, I guess. If I didn't come over here then I might have to go back and say sorry myself. I don't really want to do that soooooooo here you go,” she extends her arm again and you find yourself doing the same, and she lets loose the blue crystal and watches it slip into your fingers. You find yourself staring intently at it. It doesn't look as dull as it did in your previous memory, the luster is magnificent.

“There you are!” Alex's mother calls her as she approaches with your father. “Oh, sorry about this, uh-”

“Mark,” your father adds.

She nods, “She doesn't usually act up like this,” and then turning to her, “what were you thinking? You could have gotten lost...or worse!”

Alex looks to her mom with a shrug, “Sorry mommy, I was on a mission.”

“Well considering that the two have met...maybe we can schedule a play date at some point for them?

Their adult conversation loses your interest as you look at the crystal in between your fingers, its glow entertaining you. The world around you begins to fade as if smeared by a painter destroying their next work. You see cracks within the darkness and the only light that you see comes from the blue crystal between your fingertips. You walk up to the cracks, and all at once it shatters.