I felt like each atom of my body was pulling apart. I opened my mouth to yell something, but I soon realized that I had no mouth. I rushed through the void, being tugged by an unseen force. Then my atoms pulled themselves back together, and I found myself standing in an upstairs bathroom identical to mine and the other Taylor’s.

I saw her appear beside me. She coughed, then began to speak rapidly. “What are you doing here? Who put a mirror here?”

She reached out to touch my face, and I flinched away. The dirty little liar! She seemed so helpful all evening, but her niceness turned out to be a facade.

“Not a mirror, I guess. I must be hallucinating. Is this because I didn’t sleep well last night, or because I haven’t eaten yet?” She muttered something about Peter Pan and his shadow.

I decided to speak up. “So you don’t remember what happened today? With Dad’s notebook? Or when you brought me to your dimension?”

“My dimension? Dad’s notebook? Since when does he have a journal? Who are you, actually? Are you my clone or something?”

I grew afraid. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“I remember running away from home, and a family that I hate. I remember… I remember my real family. I recall a weird feeling, and a void. You were there, too. I remember getting mad at you, but not what for.”

This turned out better than I expected. Now we had a clean slate together. She would believe anything I said.

“You and I are identical twins. We are traveling to other dimensions for a project. This is the first one we are visiting.” I spoke slowly and clearly. “This should be the one… oh, where Taylor is a boy. This should be just great (sarcastic mode on). I cannot wait to meet a disgusting version of ourselves. I mean, me.”

“Where’s the boy version of me?” she asked.

“Um, there isn’t one. At least, that’s what’s in the notes.”

“That’s weird. Let’s go meetBoy Taylor.”

As she opened the door, an ear splitting burp echoed upstairs. “Whoo! Pardon my Sprite!”

“That would be me,” I told Taylor. I peeked over the landing. “Look.”

He had medium-length brown hair brushed forward almost to his thick eyebrows. Kinda messy, barely parted. Hazel eyes, same as me. Same height, our lean frame identical. He wore rectangular-frame glasses, and peered up at us through them, holding a can of Sprite.

He looked concerned. “Are you two lost? Or twins, or something? Are we related? We look a lot alike.”

“No, yes, sort of, and I agree,” I answered smoothly. “We’re from… another dimension. It’s true.” I chuckled, and touched my tangled hair. “You wanna see my portal?”

“Oh my gosh the ITU! Daaad!”

Dad strolled purposefully out of his office. “What is it this time?”

I got the impression that my other self disturbed the peace fairly often. I certainly didn’t. Must be a guy thing.

Then his dad saw us. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”

He didn’t seem threatened, just tired. “We are from another dimension. We are from Dimension 1. We are visiting the Third Dimension because we are on our way back to ours, and the portals only go forward. So we will be here for four days as we wait.”

“It will be four days until you two can go back to your dimensions, and I guess we will be your host. You two are both Taylors, correct?”

“No, we’re twins. My name is Taylor, and hers is… ” here I paused for a minute, unsure of what to say. “Zoe. Her name is Zoe.”

“Nice to meet you two. I suppose you two will be with us for four days. This is my son, Taylor, as you could probably tell. Tanner and Thomas are in the living room playing Madden. Just do whatever, I suppose. It’s nearly bedtime, so don’t get too distracted.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Where’s Mom?” The other Taylor (Zoe, to avoid confusion) asked, a sad look on her face.

“Evening shopping, while no one is at the store. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

I felt bad lying to my own dad, but I had to. I had no choice. I needed a good relationship, even if based upon lies, with Taylor/Zoe right now until I could send her back to her own dimension.

I maneuvered to get Taylor by himself, so I could tell him, at least, the truth. I told him everything that had happened to me, and he agreed with my course of action.

“This day seemed to go on forever! First one dimension, then another. And in four days, it’ll happen again. And four days after that, I’ll be home. Four days later, we’ll send her home, and everything will go back to normal. Aw, then we’ll never get to see each other again. We should plan an interdimensional family reunion!”

“Very funny,” he rolled his eyes.

“No, I’m serious! That would be so cool! And weird, too, I guess. But mostly cool. Is there a pillow and blanket I can borrow?”

He tossed me his extra pillow, got a blanket out of the linen closet, and escorted me to the couch. “G’night.”

I yawned again. “G’night.”

Taylor/Zoe appeared, holding her own linens. “Scoot over, Taylor. Other people need to sleep, too.”

I groaned and rolled over, moving closer to the cushions. Boy Taylor retreated back to his room, but returned soon enough with two pairs of his own pajama pants. “Sorry, I would’ve gotten some of Mom’s, but I figured they would be too big. Anyway, good night again.”

“Thanks anyway. These are clean?”

“Wouldn’t have given them to you if they weren’t. I’m not that much grosser than you think.”

I slipped on the sweatpants in the bathroom and returned to my cozy side of the couch, sandwiched between the cushions and my other self.

I thoroughly enjoyed my 96 hours hanging out with my selves. Boy Taylor had to go to school, of course. By the fourth day, I almost wanted to stay there. This dimension had balmier weather than mine, and, since I am always cold, I didn’t have to wear so many layers. We played outside with Zeke, their West Highland terrier. I disliked small dogs as a rule, but Zeke’s personality and expressions made him seem almost human.

I also enjoyed, believe it or not, seeing my family again. I had not seen them in more than a week, and although it isn’t quite the same, it fueled me and prepared me to go back to my own dimension.

Every night, before I fell asleep, I thought about the other Taylor. I felt bad at lying to her, but my motives weren’t so bad, right? The end justifies the means, and I knew that I would not have had such a good time if I’d told her the truth.

Boy Taylor knew the truth, of course, and I trusted that he would keep it a secret. However, his/our prevailing sense of justice won out, presenting my with the following scene on the morning of the fourth day:

“Taylor!” Girl Taylor shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“What?” Boy Taylor and I chorused back. We were in his room; I read on the bean bag and he was at his desk doing homework.

“Girl Taylor, I need to speak with you.” Her serious tone shocked me. The last few days were the polar opposite.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked Boy Taylor.

He shrugged, but I saw his conflicting emotions play out on his face. I knew something was up.

I trooped downstairs, wary of what would happen. The Other Taylor led me to the kitchen, where she promptly slapped me fully across the face.

“Wha - what was that for?!” I held my burning cheek gingerly. My temper flared. This was completely uncalled for. I wanted to slap her back, but I didn’t want to deal with the consequences.

“For lying to me. Boy Taylor told me everything. How you knew I had lost my memory, and lied to me and everyone, saying we were twins!”

“I had a good reason! You want to hear it? If I had told you the truth, I would’ve had to deal with a whiny version of myself that I hate, which would’ve completely ruined my stay here!”

“You mean you lied to me so that you could enjoy hanging out with another one of your selves! For a selfish reason!” Her eyebrow arched, hands on hips, we both knew she was right.

“That’s not what I said.”

“True, but that’s what you meant.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I knew that it was wrong, but I had to do it. You’re the one who tricked me into going here, anyway. It should’ve been just me, but you had your own selfish agenda and brought yourself here, too. It’s not just me who messed up here, you know.” I felt just as mad and defensive as she looked now. “I just wanted for us to start on a clean slate. We’re going to be stuck together for at least another eight days, so we’d better keep it together.”

“Fine. I’m not going to forgive you, and I doubt you’ll forgive me, but I don’t want to make our time miserable. It’s been interesting to meet my other selves, and I don’t want to look back and think, ‘Wow, I wish I’d been nicer to them.’”

“Same here. I’m going to go back upstairs and read now. You want to come with?” I changed the topic; I felt so done with this conversation.

“Sounds good.”