When Ellen Jackson arrived, she found her best friend sitting, slumped against the floor next to her front door, which was ajar. She frowned.
Karyn looked very different. Her red hair was shorter and messed up, and she was wearing a pair of scruffy old slacks and a worn old green jumper.
Ellen frowned. "You got a haircut?" She asked.
Karyn looked up, not even noticing Ellen had entered. That's how she recognized the voice. She didn't know Ellen very well. They'd been in classes together on and off since kindergarten, and were in Girl Scouts together for a while, but she'd been in girl scouts with several girls she rarely spoke to now, years later.
Ellen was very much a quiet girl next door type. She wasn't painfully shy, or awkward...she just wasn't loud. People were very comfortable with her for that reason. When she spoke, it was in a soft pleasant voice...Karyn remembered she'd seen her do a solo for the school choir at the Winter concert a few months earlier.
Ellen was always carrying a small notebook, separate from her schoolbooks, where she would write down things randomly.
Physically, she was pretty, but not gorgeous. She had shoulder length brown hair, a light blue shirt, and blue jeans. She had an average height and build. Ellen looked very wholesome, overall. Looking at her, Karyn thought she looked to be a bit more made up than the last time she'd seen her in the hall. It was subtle, but there.
"Umm...no," Karyn said. She'd had a short haircut since she was ten.
"Karyn, you've been wearing your hair long since I've known you," Ellen said, sounding legitimately confused. "Is something wrong?"
"I think so," Karyn admitted. She got up, and let Ellen come upstairs to her room. "Does this look any different to you?"
"No..." Ellen said, still confused.
"You've never been in my room before," Karyn insisted. "I barely know you."
"I'm your best friend," Ellen said, growing just as insistent, sounding just as certain of her facts. "If I'm not, and I've never been here, how do you explain that?" She pointed at a picture tucked in the corner of a mirror.
Karyn looked at it, frowning deeply. It was of her...but not her. The long haired version of her. The Karyn in the picture was wearing green, but it was loose dress with a long skirt. "My best friend is Jon Madison," she insisted.
"Who?" Ellen asked, blankly.
"Jon...he's our age."
"Madison...like Mallory Madison?"
It was Karyn's turn to look confused. "Who?"
"You know...our age, kind of a funky dresser. She has a sister in the school too...Zoe."
"That's Jon's..." She trailed off. The girl on the phone...someone else was in Jon's house, living his life...but not his life. She felt overwhelmed again.
