Chapter 3

"Wendy, are you up? Jordan's coming over for dinner tonight, so don't start throwing fits."

"A guy like Chester is fine for a fling. Are you really planning to break off your engagement for him?"

Just as I was about to reply, a semi-transparent screen suddenly opened up in front of me.

On the screen, Wendy—wearing my face—sat at my family's dining table.

She had clearly just woken up, and her face was still full of terror.

"Where is this?"

Mom set a bowl of oatmeal down in front of her.

"Are you still half asleep? Hurry up and eat, then get your bank card out."

Aiden, my older brother, was chewing on a hash brown, not even looking up.

"The company's still short three hundred thousand in working capital. Miss Pruitt's coming this afternoon, so don't let her think our family isn't sincere."

Wendy shot to her feet.

"Are you all insane? I'm Wendy!"

My sister burst out laughing.

"Last night you fought tooth and nail against letting Winnie move in, and now today you're pretending to be her?"

Wendy rushed to the mirror.

When she saw my face clearly, she let out a scream.

Mom slammed her hand down on the table.

"What are you screeching about!"

"Get your bank card out."

Wendy clutched her bag.

"The money in here is mine!"

Dad came out of the study.

"Since we don't agree, let's vote."

"Everyone who agrees to give Winifred's money to Aiden for working capital, raise your hand."

Four hands.

Neat and orderly.

Wendy trembled with rage. "I don't agree!"

Dad looked at her coldly.

"Four to one. Passed."

My brother stood up and grabbed her bag.

Wendy hung on and wouldn't let go, and they started wrestling over it in the living room.

"Let go of me!"

"That's my card!"

My brother shoved her down onto the sofa.

"What's this 'mine' and 'yours'? We're family—why draw such sharp lines?"

In front of the screen, my shoulders were shaking with laughter.

The system asked:

Host emotional state abnormal. Is a calming service required?

"No need."

"I've just realized for the first time how well breakfast goes down around here."

Wendy's bag was taken.

Her phone, ID, and bank cards were all confiscated.

She screamed my name toward the direction of the screen.

"Winifred Fox!"

"Get out here!"

"Switch us back right now!"

I picked up the coffee on the table and raised the cup to her.

"Miss Pruitt, that was only the first vote."

"And you already can't take it?"

"I've gone twenty-five years without a single day off."

But who could have guessed—Jordan arrived at noon.

He wore a black shirt, cuffs rolled up to his forearms. After stepping inside, he first glanced at the breakfast on the table.

"You eat cilantro?"

I looked down at my bowl.

A whole handful of cilantro, which I'd just tossed into my noodles.

"Am I not supposed to?"

"Wendy throws up at the smell of cilantro."

Then he looked at my hand.

Wendy likes long nails; normally she gets other people to twist bottle caps off for her.

The nails had been in my way earlier, so I'd already trimmed them all down to nothing.

Jordan sat down across from me.

"Who are you?"

The man was taking this better than I'd expected.

I played Chester's voice message for him.

"Your fiancée wants to borrow my boyfriend."

"There was nothing I could do, so I had to borrow her life for a while."

Jordan listened without any expression on his face.

He simply reached out, took my phone, and scrolled through dozens of chat logs.

In them, Chester called Wendy "baby."

Wendy called him "Chess."

The two of them had been carrying on together for three years.

Three years ago, I had only just said yes to Chester's confession.

He'd laid out nine hundred ninety-nine roses downstairs at my building, saying he'd had a crush on me for a full seven years.

Looking back now, I figure he must have found time to love quite a few other people during those seven years too.

Jordan set the phone down.

"I don't believe the body-swap thing for now."

"But I'm going to look into what's going on between Wendy and Chester."

"You're not angry?"

"Getting angry won't solve the problem."

I nodded.

"You're a cut above me."

"When I first found out, my first instinct was to find a recycling bin and stuff the two of them into it together."

Jordan looked at me for a few seconds, and the corner of his mouth seemed to move.

The system screen lit up again.

This time it was the afternoon family meeting.

My brother Aiden owed 1.2 million dollars.

The company had no investors at all.