Unrequited

Hey, dude. It's me. Colin. Yeah, I know – I look… different. Don't stare at me like that, you're making this weirder than it already is. Yes, these are real. Yes, this is Abbie's voice coming out of Abbie's mouth. Sit down before you pass out, okay?

Remember when we were twelve and that bee got me at Tyler's barbecue? And you jammed that EpiPen into my thigh so hard I had a bruise for three weeks? You literally saved my life, man. I flatlined in the ambulance – did you know that? My heart stopped for eleven seconds. And when it started again, something… else started too. Something in my brain rewired. I didn't tell anyone for years because it sounds insane, but – I can swap bodies with people. Like, fully. My consciousness goes in, theirs comes out, and they're just… standing there in my body, dazed, confused, like waking up from anaesthesia. Totally suggestible. You can basically tell them anything and they'll believe it.

I know you love her. Don't – don't look at the floor, come on. I've watched you stare at Abbie Whitfield's bedroom window for five years. I've listened to you talk about the way she laughs, the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, the way she smells like vanilla and something floral you can never quite name. I've watched you write poems about her that you immediately delete. I've watched you buy her birthday presents you never deliver. I've seen you cross the street just to walk past her driveway.

And I've watched her look right through you. Every single time.

She called you a creep at Megan's party last month. You didn't tell me, but I heard. She said – and this is a direct quote, mate – "Ew, that weird little freak from next door is here? God, someone tell him I'd literally rather die than talk to him." You were standing twelve feet away. You heard every word. And you still went home and stared at her window.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm paying you back. The life-debt thing. I swapped with her this morning – caught her coming out of her house, just touched her arm, and pop. She's in my body right now, sitting in my bedroom, and I've already told her she's Colin Palmer, she's always been Colin Palmer, she has an allergy to bee stings and a level 40 Paladin and a mum who makes terrible lasagne. She nodded along like I was reading her a bedtime story. She'll be fine. She'll live my life and she won't question it.

And I'm going to be Abbie. For you.

I'm going to go on a date with you. A real one. Dinner, candles, the whole thing. You're going to sit across from the girl of your dreams and she's – I'm – going to look at you like you matter. Because you do matter. You saved my life and you've never once asked for anything in return and that's so fucking rare it makes my chest hurt.

So – Friday night? Pick me up at seven. And yeah… you can bring flowers.

---

Oh my God, your face when you opened the door. I wish I'd taken a picture. You were holding those white roses so tight your knuckles were literally bloodless, and you were wearing that blue button-down I helped you pick out for your cousin's wedding – the one that actually fits properly – and your hair was actually styled for once, and you looked at me and your mouth just… opened. Like a goldfish. A very sweet, very nervous goldfish.

"Hi, Abbie."

The way your voice cracked on the second syllable. God. You were shaking. Actually trembling. And I – okay, this is the part where it gets complicated, because I need to be honest with you.

I felt something.

Not as Colin. As… as her. When you looked at me with those huge brown eyes full of five years of hopeless devotion, something in this body responded. Something warm pooled in my stomach. My skin flushed – I felt it, this wave of heat rolling up my chest and throat. And I thought: Oh. So this is what it feels like to be desired.

Being Colin, nobody looked at me like that. Ever. Being Abbie… everyone does. But the way you look at her – at me – it's different. It's not hungry. It's reverent.

You held the car door open. You'd cleaned the inside of your shitty little Fiesta. I could smell the air freshener – that fake pine one – and there was a playlist queued up on your phone. You'd made a playlist. An actual playlist. And the first song was that one she – I – posted on Instagram stories three months ago with the caption "obsessed 💕" and you remembered that.

I ordered the pasta at Giovanni's because I know it's Abbie's favourite – I've been through her memories, her phone, everything, I know things about this girl you wouldn't believe – and you ordered the steak and then panicked about whether it was too expensive and tried to change it and I grabbed your hand across the table and said "Get the steak" and your entire cardiovascular system nearly shut down. I could see your pulse in your neck.

We talked for an hour. And the wild thing is – I wasn't even pretending that hard. Abbie's brain has these… pathways. Social grooves. She knows how to tilt her head when she's interested, how to do that breathy little laugh, how to touch her collarbone when she's being flirty. And it was so easy to slip into those grooves. Like putting on a perfectly worn pair of shoes. Her body wanted to perform. Wanted to be watched. Wanted to feel adored.

You told me I was the most beautiful person you'd ever seen and your eyes got wet and I thought: He really means it. He really, truly, on-his-life means it.

And then Chet fucking Bradshaw walked in.

You saw him before I did. I watched your whole body language change – shoulders up, eyes down, jaw tight. Like a dog that's been hit too many times. He was with his mates – big, loud, stinking of cologne and entitlement – and he spotted us immediately.

"No fucking way. Is that you, loser? On a date with Abbie Whitfield?"

He came to the table. Stood right over you. You didn't look up. He put his hand on the back of my chair and leaned down and I could smell his aftershave and – this is the part I need to tell you, and I'm sorry – something in Abbie's body responded to him. Not to his words. Not to his cruelty. To his… physicness. His size. The width of his shoulders. The deep bass of his voice vibrating through the chair. This body has its own memory and its own chemistry, and Chet Bradshaw registers in Abbie Whitfield's nervous system like a five-alarm fire.

"Abbie, babe, you slumming it tonight or what?"

I said something dismissive. Told him to fuck off. But my voice was higher than I intended, and there was this flutter in my – her – stomach that wasn't disgust. Not entirely.

You didn't say anything. You just stared at your steak and your hands were shaking and after he finally left you said "Sorry" like you were the one who'd done something wrong and I wanted to reach across the table and hold you but something stopped me and I'm not sure what it was.

I drove you home. You walked me to Abbie's front door – my front door now – and you stood there under the porch light with your hands in your pockets and you said "This was the best night of my life" and your voice was so small and so sincere and I should have kissed you.

I didn't kiss you.

I said "Goodnight" and went inside and leaned against the door and my heart was hammering and my thighs were pressed together and my whole body was buzzing with something electric and I wasn't sure – I'm still not sure – whose feelings those were.

---

Okay. So. I need to talk to you about something.

The thing is – and I'm saying this as your best friend, alright – I need a bit of time. Not because of you. Because of… this.

Being Abbie is… it's not what I expected.

I thought it'd be like wearing a costume. Like Method acting, you know? I go through her day, I smile at the right people, I post the right things, I maintain her life until – I don't know, until I figure out a good time to swap back. But it's not like that at all. It's…

Do you know what it feels like to walk into a room and have every single person look at you? Not glance – look. Like you're the sun and they're all just orbiting, helpless. I walked into Costa yesterday and the barista gave me my latte for free. Just looked at this face and said "On the house, gorgeous." And this rush of – I don't even know how to describe it – this power just flooded through me. Sweet and warm and addictive.

Abbie's wardrobe is insane, by the way. I spent three hours yesterday just trying things on. Standing in front of her full-length mirror in these tiny little outfits that cost more than my – more than Colin's – entire monthly budget, watching the way the fabric moved over these curves, and I was like… oh. Oh. So this is what it's like to be hot. To be genuinely, objectively, stop-traffic hot. To have tits that look like this in a push-up bra. To have an ass that makes men walk into lampposts.

I took about forty selfies. Posted the best one. Got 400 likes in an hour. Megan commented "QUEEN 👑🔥" and Sophie said "Obsessed with you" and I just lay on Abbie's bed – my bed – scrolling through the notifications and I felt this warmth spreading through me like honey.

Don't look at me like that. I'm still me. I'm still Colin. I just… I need a minute, okay?

---

Stop calling me Colin.

I'm serious. When you call me that, it's – it feels wrong now. Like hearing someone mispronounce your name. Like nails on a chalkboard. My name is Abbie. I look like Abbie. I sound like Abbie. I wake up in Abbie's bed in Abbie's silk pyjamas and I brush Abbie's long blonde hair and I do Abbie's skincare routine – which is like nine steps, by the way, and I know them all by heart now – and when I catch my reflection, I don't see Colin underneath anymore.

I just see her.

Me.

And honestly? That's… kind of a relief?

Being Colin was – let's be real – shit. I was invisible. I was a background character in everyone else's story. I had acne and bad posture and an allergy that could kill me and a mum who never stopped crying after Dad left and a best friend who was lovely but couldn't protect himself from his own shadow, let alone from people like Chet.

No offence.

Being Abbie is the opposite of all of that. Being Abbie is being the main character. The protagonist. The girl whose name people say with envy or desire or both. Do you know what I got invited to this week? Three parties, a yacht trip with Sophie's dad, a VIP table at that new club in town, and a bikini photoshoot for some influencer thing Megan's setting up. Three different men sent me flowers. A woman at the gym told me I had the best body she'd ever seen. A literal child pointed at me in Waitrose and said "Mummy, she looks like a princess."

I cried when she said that. Like, actually cried. Not because it was sad. Because it was the first time in my entire life someone looked at me and saw something beautiful.

You texted again about that second date. I know. I saw it. I just…

I don't think I can do that.

---

Okay, I know you're upset, and I know you're going to be more upset when I tell you this, but I'm telling you because I've always been honest with you and some part of me – the part that's still your friend – thinks you deserve to know.

Chet asked me out.

He DM'd me on Instagram. "Hey beautiful. Dinner Friday?" With that stupid confident energy that guys like him just… radiate. No hesitation. No fourteen deleted drafts. No stammering or sweating or apologising for existing. Just – hey beautiful, dinner Friday – like it was already decided. Like my answer was a formality.

And I know what you're thinking. Chet's a bully. Chet's an arsehole. Chet made your life miserable for years. Chet interrupted our date. I know all of that.

But.

But.

When I read his message, Abbie's body did something. My stomach dropped – not in a bad way. In a rollercoaster way. That swoop. That delicious, terrifying free-fall. My skin tingled. My nipples got hard – I'm sorry, that's probably too much information, but I need you to understand what I'm dealing with here. This body has opinions. Strong ones. And its opinion of Chet Bradshaw is –

Mmmmmh.

That's the only word for it. This deep, animal mmmm that starts in my belly and spreads everywhere.

I said yes.

I wore this tight black dress – Abbie has like ten of them, all slightly different, all devastating – and these heels that made my legs look eight feet long, and I did my makeup with this smoky eye that took forty-five minutes and when I looked in the mirror I actually whispered "God, I'm gorgeous" out loud to nobody and I meant it.

He picked me up in his BMW. He didn't open the door for me – not like you did – but when I slid into the passenger seat he looked at me and said "Fuck, Abbie" in this low, rough voice and I felt it everywhere. Between my legs, behind my ribs, in the tips of my fingers.

He took me to that expensive place on the waterfront. Ordered for both of us without asking. And I should have hated that – Colin would have hated that – but Abbie's body read it as confidence, as dominance, as I've got this, you just sit there and look beautiful, and something inside me purred.

We barely talked about anything real. He told me about his gym routine, his car, some holiday he's planning in Ibiza. Shallow stuff. Surface stuff. The kind of conversation that Colin would have found excruciating.

But Abbie's brain doesn't crave depth. It craves stimulus. Attention, admiration, the feeling of being wanted by someone everyone else wants too. And Chet is objectively – hate him all you like, but this is just true – he's six-two, broad shoulders, sharp jawline, these piercing green eyes, and when he smiles this cocky half-smile he does, my – this – body just…

I let him kiss me in the car afterwards. And it wasn't gentle. It was hard and claiming, his hand in my hair, tilting my head back, his tongue in my mouth, and I made this sound – this breathless, keening little moan – that I'd never made in my life. That no one has ever drawn out of me. Because Colin's body didn't make sounds like that. Colin's body was quiet and small and unremarkable.

Abbie's body is a fucking instrument. And Chet plays it like he was born to.

I'm sorry. I really am.

---

Hey babe – I just thought I'd take the time to let you know how fucking great it feels to have Chet's hands on me right now.

I'm kidding. Sort of. He's in the shower. I'm lying on his bed – huge bed, like obscenely huge, his parents are loaded – wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, and I'm texting you because… honestly? I don't totally know why. Maybe because some old, dusty, moth-eaten part of my brain still thinks of you as the person I tell things to.

We had sex last night. For the first time. And I know that's going to hurt you and I'm sorry but also – I'm kind of not sorry? Because oh my God.

Oh my God.

I can't even – okay. Let me try.

You know how when you're Colin – when you're a guy – sex is like… good? It's fun, it feels nice, you come and it's like a sneeze but better? That's what I always assumed it was for everyone.

It's not what it is for Abbie.

Sex in this body is – fuck, how do I even – it's like every nerve ending is dialled up to a thousand. When he touched my thigh, just touched it, my back arched off the bed like I'd been electrocuted. When he kissed my neck, I could feel it in my toes. When he put his mouth on my – sorry, this is – when he went down on me, I screamed. Like, actually screamed. I didn't decide to. This body just screamed because the pleasure was so overwhelming that there was no other possible response.

And then we actually fucked and –

Oooooh.

I'm getting wet just thinking about it. That's another thing, by the way. Abbie's arousal is so… present. It's not abstract. It's not just in your head. You literally feel yourself getting slick and hot and swollen and there's this ache, this deep, hollowing ache that isn't pain, it's – it's need. Your body needs to be filled. Needs it like oxygen. And when Chet finally pushed inside me – and he's big, by the way, like really properly big – it was like the entire universe contracted to a single point and that point was where our bodies met.

I came three times. Three. Colin's record was once, badly, to Abbie's Instagram bikini photos. Which is – God, that's so pathetic now. That's so hilariously pathetic it actually makes me cringe.

I don't mean you. I mean – the old me. That version of me. The one who existed in that body. He was pathetic too, let's be honest. We were both pathetic. Two little losers staring at things we could never have.

Except I have it now. I have all of it. This face. This body. This life. These friends. This bed. This man.

The shower just turned off. Chet's going to come out with a towel around his waist and his abs still wet and he's going to look at me in his shirt and he's going to pull it off me and fuck me again against the headboard and I'm going to let him because this body was made for it.

---

Can you stop coming over? Like, genuinely?

No – don't look at me with those sad puppy eyes. I know what you want. You want me to say "Alright, enough, let's swap back, it was fun while it lasted." But I can't do that. Not because I won't. Because I actually can't. I've tried reaching for it – that thing inside me, that swap ability – and it's like reaching for a muscle that's atrophied. It's been months now. The longer I stay in this body, the more Abbie I become and the less Colin there is to go back to.

And honestly? Even if I could swap back… I wouldn't.

Why would I? Go back to being invisible? Go back to spots and student debt and sleeping in a single bed in a box room? Give up this – give up being twenty-one and blonde and gorgeous and popular and having the most incredible sex of my life with a man who looks at me like I'm the only woman on Earth?

You're looking at me like I killed someone.

I didn't kill anyone. Colin Palmer is fine. He's over there living his little life, studying computer science, playing D&D on Saturdays. He doesn't even know he used to be Abbie Whitfield. He thinks he's always been Colin. He's happy enough. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

What? No, I don't miss him. I don't miss being him. Every single day in this body is a gift. I wake up and I see this face in the mirror and I feel – not just pretty. Powerful. Do you understand that? Do you understand what it's like to go from absolute zero to absolute maximum? To go from nobody to everybody's somebody?

Chet bought me a Tiffany bracelet yesterday. Just because. Not for my birthday. Not for an anniversary. Just because he saw it and thought of me and whipped out his credit card like it was nothing. And I put it on and held my wrist up to the light and the diamonds caught the sun and something inside me – something that might once have been Colin's conscience – just… dissolved. Like sugar in hot water. Gone.

I posted a selfie with the bracelet. Caption: "My man 🥰💎." Megan commented "Couple goals!!!!" Sophie said "Chet is SO fit, you're so lucky babe." And I looked at those comments and I didn't think about you at all.

That's what I need you to hear. I don't think about you.

When Chet's inside me – and he's inside me a lot, babe, that man's stamina is genuinely unbelievable – I don't close my eyes and see your face. I don't wish it was you. I don't miss our date at Giovanni's. I don't wonder what would have happened if Chet hadn't walked in. I grip the sheets and I arch my back and I scream his name – Chet, fuck, yes, Chet, harder – and I mean it. Every syllable. Every moan.

Being his girl feels good. Being this girl feels good. This life is sunshine and orgasms and Prosecco and shopping and beautiful friends who love me and a beautiful man who worships me and I get to be young and hot and desired every single second of every single day and it's – it's intoxicating. It's better than any drug. It's better than anything Colin ever had or could ever have and I'd have to be insane to give it up.

I'd have to be insane to give it up for you.

---

You're still hanging around, aren't you? I can see you from my bedroom window. Standing in your garden like a ghost. Looking up at my light.

Chet's here, by the way. In case you were wondering about the noise last night. And the night before. And basically every night this week. I know the walls are thin. I know you can hear me through the open window. I know you lie in your bed next door and you hear me moaning and gasping and crying out his name and I know – I know – it destroys you.

And I could close the window.

But I don't.

Isn't that awful? Isn't that just the most terrible thing? The old Colin would be horrified. The old Colin would never deliberately hurt you. But the old Colin is dead, sweetie. Buried under six months of blonde hair and lip gloss and La Perla lingerie and earth-shattering orgasms. What's left is me. Abbie. And Abbie is – well, let's not pretend. Abbie's kind of a bitch.

Chet's so good to me though. Mmmmm. He took me to Ibiza last week – did you see the photos? Course you did. You liked every single one. All thirty-seven of them. Me in that white bikini. Me on the yacht. Me dancing at the club in that barely-there dress with his hands on my hips. Me kissing him at sunset with the sea behind us. You liked them all in under four minutes, which means you were just sitting there, refreshing, waiting.

You're still in love with me. Or with her. With whatever you think I am. The fantasy version. The Abbie who might have been kind. The Abbie who might have seen past your weird intensity and your sad eyes and your trembling hands and loved you back.

She was never going to love you back, babe. That's what I need you to understand. Even if I hadn't swapped – even if the real Abbie was still in this body – she would never have given you a chance. You were beneath her. You've always been beneath her. And now you're beneath me too.

God, that felt good to say. Is that evil? That felt delicious. This rush of – like warmth and cruelty mixed together, fizzing in my chest. Colin never felt anything like this. Colin was soft. Abbie is – I am –

Oooh. I just caught my reflection in the mirror. Hair up in a messy bun. One of Chet's hoodies and these tiny little shorts that barely cover my ass. Bare legs, gold anklet, toenails painted baby pink. I look like every fantasy you've ever had.

And I belong to someone else.

Chet just called from downstairs. "Babe, come here, I wanna show you something." Which is code for he wants to bend me over the kitchen counter, and honestly – honestly – my pulse just spiked. My thighs pressed together. This Pavlovian wave of arousal just crashed through me because I know what's coming and it's going to be so good and I'm going to be so loud and you're going to hear every sound.

You saved Colin's life once. That EpiPen in the thigh. Eleven seconds of flatline. And he swore he'd pay you back, and he did – he gave you one perfect date with the girl of your dreams.

One.

And then he took everything else for himself. Took her body. Took her life. Took her pleasure. Became her so completely that the debt dissolved along with the last trace of who he used to be.

I'm Abbie now. I've always been Abbie. And you're just the weird little creep who lives next door.

Close your curtains, babe. The show's over.

…Actually, leave them open. I want you to watch the light go out when Chet takes me to bed.

Goodnight. 💋