Angel By Your Side

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

I wake up in my brother's room. There everything is, just as I know so well. The oak dresser in the corner with a lava lamp and his hot wheels collection arranged on top. The rustic clock on the wall, fading drapes on the window with a desk and swivel chair beside it. The model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, drawings on the walls, and that geeky Star Wars bedspread on top of me.

Wait... on top of me?

I've dreamed about visiting him in his room so many times. Once I even dreamed of splitting a room with him, but this right now isn't sharing... there's none of the stuff I like. I am in the only bed present, his bed... and he is simply not here. I realize this definitely not just a dream or my overactive imagination, but the strangest thing about all of this?

I am dead.

Let me explain. My name is Electra. My brother Alec and I are twins. I'm older by a couple of minutes, however, I died an hour after we were born. Our parents have always kinda skirted around the topic of Alec having a twin. They didn't hide the fact from him, he knows he was a twin, they just never talk about it. We're 15 now, and Alec is ending his freshman year of high school. I've watched him grow up this whole time, and kind of grown up with him. For some reason though, I can't think of why I'm here right now. Am I still an angel? Where is Alec? My thoughts are extremely foggy.

Maybe it'll be clearer after a shower.

I roll off his bed and head to the bathroom. Halfway to the bathroom, I realize I am wearing basketball shorts and a loose T-shirt. Not my typical nightgown and shorts, but I don't think much of it. I grab a towel and go hang it up, but then I'm REALLY awake when I see myself in the mirror. I mean, I see him, Alec, in the mirror. His mussed brown hair with the bleached blond tips and front, longer on top and trimmed on the sides. His nose and jaw and forehead, with a little acne. His beautiful green/brown eyes just like mine. I look down at my clothes and realized I have the physique of an active 15-year-old boy, not the bookish, developing 15-year-old girl that I am.

Is this Freaky Friday or something?

It all comes rushing back to memory.

***

I watched Alec's friends luring him into this cool "study help" medicine. "It really works!" they said. Then they told him he should take extra before the test, because he always got so worked up and never did well. So he was sitting in his room, taking way too much because he was nervous and they never told him "too much" was an option.

"NO!" I cry. 

"I miss him, but he has so much life to live! He can't come here now! Mom and dad would be devastated! Isn't there something I can do, God???"

"Well, Electra, you could trade places with him. Give him a break up here from the stresses of school and life on Earth. You're quite intelligent and have watched and learned alongside him all this time. You would do just fine."

"Then, once he's better, we could trade back?"

"Yes"

I took a deep breath. "Ok. I can do that."

***

So that's what had happened. Instead of switching bodies also, which would have been a huge deal, God had just taken Alec and put my mind and heart in his body. Alec would still look like himself Up There, everyone knew us and our situation anyways.

Ok. I can do this. I can be a boy while Alec is getting better. No problem. This will be an interesting adventure!

I had no idea what we were in for.