The box felt heavier than it should have.
Karyn sat cross-legged on the bare mattress, the cardboard pressed against her thighs. She could hear the ocean outside—the steady rhythm of waves breaking against the shore—but inside her chest, her heartbeat drowned everything else out.
Mikey was watching her, chin propped on his hands, curiosity flickering in his brown eyes. “Go on. Open it. It’s just… you know, Jon’s stuff. Thought you’d the one od thing it neat the bottom with if keeps falling down to the bottom.”
Her fingers trembled as she slid the lid open. Photographs. A folded clothes that still faintly smelled like detergent. sorts trading card she did not recognize. And at the bottom, nestled in a nest of crumpled paper—
The rock.
Her breath caught.
Not a normal rock, though to anyone else it looked like one: dull gray, rough edges, ordinary. But she knew it. She knew every contour, every chipped edge. The wishing stone.
The one that had ruined everything.
The one that had made her Karyn.
The tears came before she could stop them. Hot, stinging, streaking down her face as her chest heaved with the weight of recognition. Her whole body trembled as she picked it up, her fingers curling tight around its cool, unassuming surface.
It was real. It hadn’t been a dream. It hadn’t been a delusion. All those weeks of wondering if she was crazy, if she was clinging to a fantasy inside padded white walls—it was all real.
She was Jon.
Her memories weren’t lies. She had been a geeky, awkward boy with a best friend named Karyn. And now she was her. Or rather, a version of her. A version who had lived, loved, carried a child, and lost it all.
The stone lay heavy in her palm, a reminder, a curse, and maybe—just maybe—a temptation.
“Oh—uh, Karyn?” Mikey’s voice broke the silence, hesitant, confused. He shifted on the mattress, leaning closer. “You okay? I didn’t think it would make you… I mean, I thought it was, like, a keepsake. From the beach or something. You and Jon had it all the time at the end. Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Karyn snapped her gaze up to him, her tears blurring his outline. He looked worried, like a kid who’d accidentally broken a toy. She wanted to scream at him—Don’t you understand? This rock is everything! it mean this whole life would is not real!—but she couldn’t. He didn’t know. How could he?
Instead, he gave her a small, tentative smile and scooted closer, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in an awkward but warm hug. “I’m glad you remember it, though. Means… means you’re remembering him. Jon loved you so much. And I’ll be here. Okay? To keep you safe. Always.”
She leaned into him, too exhausted to resist, clutching the stone so tightly her knuckles whitened. He thought she was mourning her dead husband. That the tears were for Jon, the boy she had supposedly loved.
But the truth was worse.
She was Jon.
Jon, trapped in the body of his best friend. Jon, who had become the girl he once loved, who had lived out her life, married her, carried his child. Jon, who now lived under her name, wore her face, spoke with her voice.
And Jon… who didn’t want to go back now.
She stayed in his embrace, the salt of her tears mixing with the faint scent of soap clinging to his hoodie. Mikey’s arms were skinny, his body still boyish, but his warmth felt grounding.
Her thoughts spun like a hurricane. She could:
Pretend. Pretend this was only a keepsake, a stone from the sea. Smile, nod, agree with Mikey’s story. Keep living as Karyn, and bury Jon for good.
Confess. Tell Mikey the truth. That she wasn’t just his sister-in-law. That she was Jon. That the stone had rewritten reality. Would he believe her? Could she make him believe—if she placed it in his hands, whispered a wish, showed him?
Wish. Wish it all undone. Wish to go back to before. Before the accident, before the grief, before the transformation. Back to being Jon. Back to the life she remembered. But… could she? Did she even want to?
Her eyes dropped to the stone again, glinting faintly in the dim light. So small. So harmless-looking. And yet it had rewritten reality itself.
If it could do that once, what else could it do?
She imagined herself standing on the cliffs outside, hurling it into the sea, watching it vanish beneath the waves. Gone forever. No more temptation, no more torment. Just Karyn—only Karyn—moving forward with her new life, no thinking of her self as jon, just Karyn with this life now.
But even as the thought formed, her grip tightened. She couldn’t let it go. Not yet.
Because even if it had cursed her, it was also proof. Proof she hadn’t lost her mind. Proof that Jon had been real.
Proof that she or he her jon self inside her had been real.
Mikey pulled back from the hug, studying her face with a softness that broke her heart. “Hey. It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I get it. You’re hurting. But… you’re strong, Karyn. You always were. And I’ll be here, like Jon would’ve wanted.”
She swallowed hard, nodding. Her voice came out hoarse. “Thanks, Mikey. That… that means a lot.”
He smiled, lopsided and boyish, before flopping back onto the mattress beside her. “Good. Now, uh, you wanna order pizza? Moving day tradition, right?”
She forced a laugh, brushing her tears away with the back of her hand. “Yeah. Pizza sounds good.”
But her other hand never loosened around the stone.
That night, long after Mikey had fallen asleep on the mattress across the room, Karyn lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The house creaked in the wind, the sea whispered beyond the windows, and the stone sat cold in her hand.
She turned it over and over, its rough surface biting into her skin.
A thousand possibilities ran through her head. Tell Mikey. Test it. Wish for something small—something harmless—just to see if it still worked. Wish for his glasses to change color. Wish for the lights to flicker. Wish for something undeniable.
Or wish for something bigger. Wish for him to remember who she really was. To share the burden.
Or—
Her breath hitched—
Wish for it all to end. To rewind. To undo.
But then she thought of the new house. The sea. The laughter she and Mikey had shared unpacking boxes. Her parents’ tears when she had hugged them goodbye. The photographs in the box, of a life she had never lived but had been loved in all the same.
This wasn’t just a lie. It was a life.
My life.
And even if it wasn’t the one she had chosen, it was hers now.
Her grip tightened around the stone, nails digging into her palm, until her hand ached.
She had a choice. She had power.
But what would she do with it?
Karyn—Jon—closed her eyes, the stone pressed against her chest, and whispered into the darkness knowing she had to deside:
