Flipped!

"Are you gonna finish that waffle?" Mark asks, eyeing my breakfast.

"No. You can have it."

I push my plate towards him. The hotel food is mediocre at best.

"So, did you and John get into a fight last night or something?"

I am John. He has no idea.

"No. Why?"

He shrugs.

"You guys have just been really weird all morning."

I don't know what to say. It's only 9:30 in the morning and the rest of the band already knows something is up. I can't tell him the truth. Even if I did, he wouldn't believe me.

Well, you caught us. We switched bodies somehow. I'm really John, I'm just in Adam's body. Could you please pass the sugar? My coffee is a tad too bitter.

I decide changing the subject altogether is my best bet.

"So were heading to Arkansas after this, right?" I ask.

"Yep."

The conversation ends there. I can't think of anything else to say. I need to talk to Adam. Fortunately, Mark gets up and leaves, muttering something about packing. I look around. Why can't he stay in one place for more than a few minutes at a time? I find him flirting with one of the hotel workers. She's grinning at him and giggling.

What is he doing? That's not something I would do. No wonder Mark thought we were acting odd. The least he could do is try to act like me.

"What are you doing?" I hiss, coming up behind him.

He jumps a little, obviously startled. The girl looks at me curiously. I don't think she knows who we are. That's good.

"We have to leave, right now." I explain, putting extra emphasis on "right now."

Adam gets up, apologizing to the girl for his "asshole friend."

I don't care.

He follows me until we're out of earshot of everyone else.

"We have a show tonight." I point out.

He gives me a blank look.

"I know."

I don't think he gets it.

"I have to be you on stage and you have to be me."

His face drops as he finally realizes the point I'm trying to make.

"I can play guitar pretty well." He offers.

"That's not the problem." I sit down on the floor. We're in the middle of the hallway. "The problem is, I can't act like you on stage. I'll probably knock myself out with the microphone."

At second thought, maybe that's not such a bad idea. Maybe I can "accidentally" knock myself unconscious so we could end the show early.

"Just get really drunk and wrap the microphone around your neck a couple of times. Oh! and fake a southern accent. The fans eat that shit up."

He makes it sound so easy. I wish it were.

"I don't know. Maybe we should just cancel the show."

I pick at my fingernails. I know canceling isn't really an option. A hotel maid stops near us in the hallway and asks, in broken English, if everything is okay. We both nod yes, hoping we sound the least bit convincing. I'm sure we probably don't.

"We can't cancel tonight's show. Think of all the fans we're gonna let down." Adam says, putting his hand on my shoulder. It's strangely comforting.

"It's Arkansas. There's probably gonna be like, ten people there, anyway."

He shrugs.

"That's still ten fans we need to put on a show for. Come on, let's get out of the damn hallway and get a cigarette."

Adam is right.

We walk out through the hotel entrance. An elderly couple is occupying the only bench, so, we stand. The cigarette calms the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I try my best to keep my hair out of my face. This is why I don't grow my hair out.

"Can I cut some of this hair off?" I ask, tucking it behind my ears.

"No. I like it long."

I don't argue. If I do something he doesn't like, he could do something ten times worse to me. It's almost like we're each other's puppets. I have complete control over everything he does. No one would know it was me and vice versa. It's a strange feeling.

The elderly couple goes back inside the hotel.

"We better go inside and pack our stuff." Adam says, after a few minutes of silence.

I flick my cigarette butt somewhere in the grass. I just have to make it through the rest of the day pretending to be Adam and then we can figure out how to switch back.

If we can.