The Switch [COMPLETED]

Chapter 24

Paisley Monroe:

Thirty minutes later, Asher and I were back in the backseat of the black SUV, pulling away from the only home I had ever known. I could feel a little lump of tears threatening to form in the back of my throat, but I quickly swallowed them back down when I remembered the way my mom had looked at me in Asher's body. No one deserved to be so hated for no reason. Not even Asher, as annoying as he could be. 

With my thoughts having been turned to Asher, I glanced over at him to see him looking out of the window with the duffel bag we had packed for him laying across his lap. He had changed into a more comfortable outfit before we left the house, and he now looked like a more familiar version of "me" in ripped jeans and a baggy t-shirt. I had helped him pile my hair into a messy bun to stop him complaining about how ticklish and annoying it was all wrapped around his neck. The LAST thing I needed was for Asher to throw a fit and cut all of my hair off. 

"Are you okay?" I asked after a few moments of watching him chew on his thumbnail. 

He turned to look at me with a startled expression, almost as if he had forgotten I was there. 

"I'm the one that should be asking YOU that question, don't you think?" he asked with a small smile. 

I smiled sadly back and shrugged.

"It's for the best," I answered truthfully. "Honestly, I don't know how long it would have taken for me to finally leave if you hadn't entered the picture." I shuddered at the idea of a 35-year-old Paisley still living with her overbearing parents, wearing coordinated floral outfits and watching talk shows on TV in the evenings. "I wish the circumstances had been a little different, of course..." I added, gesturing pointedly between Asher and I's clearly mixed up bodies. 

"Yeah..." he agreed, taking his bottom lip between his teeth as he thought. "What are we going to do? We have absolutely no leads on what happened to us."

I sighed and ran a hand through my unfamiliarly short hair. 

"Let's just start at the beginning," I ordered in a rational tone, angling my body slightly so that I was facing Asher better on the leather bench seat. "What exactly do you remember from last night?"

Asher thought for a moment, speaking slowly as he retraced he steps from the day before. 

"I...did the concert, and then the meet and greet, and that's when you showed up..." his eyes flickered to mine, and I caught a hint of a cheeky smile hidden in them. "Looking quite hot, I might add."

I rolled my eyes and gestured for him to continue, refusing to acknowledge the slight thrill that his compliment had sent through my body. 

"Then we took a picture, and that blonde chick from your school went all psycho on you, and-"

"Mackenzie!" I shouted. "Do you think she could possibly have anything to do with this?"

Asher looked at me like I was insane.

"Are you implying that Mackenzie is a witch?"

I blushed and looked down at my hands. "I mean...no. I guess not. At least not in the traditional sense..."

Asher chuckled at my weak insinuation and continued recapping his night. 

"Then I went back to the trailer, and I was in a really bad mood so I decided to go to bed early, and...that's it," he concluded glumly, looking at me in defeat. "Not much out of the ordinary, I'm afraid."

I thought for a second, picking at the cuticle of one of my nails. 

"That's ALL?" I asked forcefully. "Nothing weird happened? Nothing at all?"

Asher shrugged and shook his head for a moment before pausing, his brow suddenly crinkling over his eyes. 

"Well, there WAS something a little strange," he admitted. 

I scooted closer to him, leaning forward eagerly. 

"There was this really weird commercial on the TV right before I fell asleep," he said. "Some fat guy with a beard talking about changing your life or whatever. I dunno. It's stupid, but...it sounded like he was talking directly to me."

By the end of his sentence, my heart was pounding at a hundred miles an hour. I knew EXACTLY what commercial he was talking about. I had seen it, too, right before going to sleep...

"I saw it, too," I whispered. "The commercial. The guy...he asked if I wanted the chance to have it all."

Asher inhaled sharply and leaned closer to me, his eyes wide with panic.

"And what did you say?" he asked urgently.

I swallowed uncomfortably, already knowing where this conversation was leading but afraid to admit it.

"I said yes."

Asher looked at me with pure terror in his eyes. He swallowed once and blinked before softly saying, "Me, too."

It seemed like all of the air had been sucked out of the backseat as we stared at each other in horror. 

"We got voodoo'ed by a bald guy in a self-help commercial?" I asked, giggling a little bit to diffuse the tension. It came out sounding a bit too high and hysterical to be convincing. 

"Okay, let's just stay calm," Asher said, although the paleness in his cheeks and the way he was nervously playing with his hands betrayed the fact that he was anything but. "We'll track him down. It can't be TOO hard, right? We'll find the guy from the commercial and we'll...we'll make him change us back!"

I highly doubted that it was going to be that easy, but there was no way I could tell Asher that without freaking him out even more. So, instead, I smiled and placed my hand over his to stop him from fidgeting.

"Yeah, you're right," I said casually, trying my best to disguise the slight tremor in my voice. "It'll be totally fine. We'll find him. Have your people call someone or something," I said, nodding reassuringly as I squeezed Asher's hand. "And then: bippity-boppity-boo - we get our bodies back and we part ways as unlikely friends," I said, smiling in what I hoped was an easy-breezy manner. 

Asher's face dipped into a slight frown at my words, but he quickly shook it off before I had time to read too much into it. 

"Yeah," he agreed, looking at me with a small smile. "One more night, tops."

I smiled back at him and nodded in determination. 

"Good, cuz I don't think I can stand to be around you for much longer," Asher teased, poking me in the ribs.

"Right back at ya, Halen," I scoffed, rolling my eyes and pushing his hand away before turning away from him to stare out the window. 

I heard him laugh quietly before feeling the shift in the seats telling me that he had done the same. As I watched the familiar desert landscape roll by outside the window on the way back to the bus, I thought back over Asher's words.

Just one more night, tops...

Why did that thought somehow leave me feeling disappointed?