...said "I wish you remembered being Jennifer."
And at that moment, a flood of memories rushed into my mind.
I remembered my childhood as a little girl. Liz and I had been friends even back then. We were practically sisters. I remembered my little brother Steven, who was always annoying me. I remembered my school dance recital, my first date, my boyfriend Charlie.
And I remembered the hike. Liz and I lived in California, and one day we were hiking through the woods, when we discovered a strange box with a note and a stone inside. The note claimed that the stone was the creation of some powerful sorcerer or sorceress and that it would make wishes come true, as long as it didn't go against the previous wish.
We made a number of experimental wishes there in the woods, changing various trees, branches, and animals. We found that we couldn't directly reverse any of the wishes, as the note had said. A branch that we had wished into a tree remained a tree after we tried to wish it into a branch again.
We spent so long experimenting with the wishing stone that we were still in the woods after dark. That's when Liz made that wish that we would never lose track of one another.
After that day, we took turns with the stone. We tried as best we could not to make any really drastic wishes, so as much as we were tempted to, we didn't turn Cindy Carlson, our high school's equivalent to Jon and Karyn's Sarah McMillan, into an ugly braces-wearing dweeb or anything. We just used it to get tickets to rock concerts, alter a few of our school records so that our parents wouldn't know about our fights with Cindy...that sort of thing.
Of course, one time we were caught trying to alter our school's records, and we had to make the principal forget that he saw us. Liz was a little creeped out when I did this, and asked me to hand her the stone. She then wished that her memories could not be altered by any wishes from the stone. I don't know why I didn't wish the same for myself.
Soon after came the prom...and it was soon after that my boyfriend Charlie said he was breaking up with me. He had found a new girlfriend, one who had more money than my poor family, who wouldn't be able to afford to send me to college, did. At the height of my despair, I had the stone with me, and I said "I wish things were different". I turned to Liz in horror, realizing that I had accidentally made a wish...and an incredibly vague one at that.
And then...I remembered being transported all the way to Illinois. I remembered being tranformed into a boy. I lost all my memories of being Jennifer as the memories of a lifetime as a boy named Jon replaced them.
All that was several months ago. So all my memories of my parents, of knowing Karyn for years...all of those had been given me by the wish. But Liz remembered the way things were before, and now, so did I.
I found myself crying. I wanted my life back, but Karyn had been such a good friend to me as Jon. I hoped Liz was wrong and that Karyn HAD existed before I had become Jon.
"Okay." I said. "I want to be Jennifer again. Do you think the stone will change me back? All I did was wish things were different. I mean, it changed so much that turning me back into Jennifer won't undo EVERYTHING it did. Some things will remain different."
"I don't know." said Liz thoughtfully. "It depends on how we word the wish."
Liz paused for a moment. And then...
