onyx: poltergeist

nineteen

JAYDA

"A what?"

"Yes, Mr Jackson, a supernatural curse," Celine sounded confident in her words, even though I knew that Mr Jackson wasn't going to be so convinced by them.

"Look, Ms Gilbert," Mr Jackson shook his head in disagreement, "I'm going to be harsh with you, but this isn't Freaky Friday, it's not possible for two people to swap bodies in reality."

"But you can tell that both Mr Lambert and Jayda have very drastic behavioural changes," she continued, "take names and pronouns for one example, since three weeks ago the Mr Lambert you perceive is suddenly more comfortable being addressed as Jayda, and as a she or her. Same applies for the Jayda you perceive, she is suddenly more comfortable being called Adam or Mr Lambert, and as a he or him. Considering that both Mr Lambert and Jayda are cisgender, it's not possible that both of them would have a sudden change of heart on their gender identity within a day. Such feelings take time to transition, hence it's evident that the both of them had swapped bodies."

Celine has a point, even if I were stuck in Mr Lambert's body I wasn't that big of a fan of being called a he, or Adam, or Mr Lambert. Even showering at the end of the day was awkward. Acting was hard work as well, and I still really wanted to return to life being comfortable in my own skin, back to when everyone called me Jayda naturally, or Jay for short.

I turned my head slightly to my right to see Mr Lambert nodding along to her statement, before immediately turning back to face the front. I guess he felt the same too; it's not quite the ordinary day when a guy, let alone a male teacher, switches bodies with his female student. And I guess figuring my life out from scratch could be pretty complicated for someone who has ever switched bodies with me.

"Do you have any other observations that the 'body swap' you've been talking about could be possibly true, Ms Gilbert?" Mr Jackson probed, air quoting the phrase 'body swap' as if such a situation was nothing but a fantasy.

"I do, Mr Jackson," I turned around upon hearing the slightly accented voice from behind me, watching as Martin rose up from his seat against the wall, "Even if they share many similar personality traits, the body switch eventually resulted in quite a number of changes. According to Celine, who has been friends with Jayda and known her since freshman year, Jayda has a natural knack for solving Math problems, and her handwriting tends to be neater and more meticulous. But after the swap three weeks ago, we noticed the handwriting on her assignments were starting to get messier than usual, and that the both of us were starting to frequently receive text messages from her number asking how to solve trigonometry questions that she herself would usually be able to tackle."

Wow, both of my best friends really did devote some time into researching on my work.

"We have photographs of Jayda's Math assignments with us," Celine added on to Martin's statement, taking out her phone and scrolling through her album until she found a photo I sent her before summer break. It was my final Math exam paper from sophomore year, and back then I was comparing answers with her to teach her where she gone wrong. I'm actually quite surprised that she still had it with her till today.

"This is a photo of her last sophomore Math exam," she explained, showing the picture to Mr Jackson and pointing out my handwriting. Martin tapped on another photo on his phone and placed his phone on Mr Jackson's desk, but this one was a photograph of what was a far cry from my usual Math assignments. The entire paper was just filled with unruly cancellation strikethroughs and equally untidy statements, and I could tell whose handwriting it was the moment I saw it. The handwriting of the teacher sitting about two feet away from me, trapped inside my own body.