“Fuck. Wait a fucking moment,” Alyssa suddenly declared.

Andrew almost responded, before remembering the silent treatment.

Alyssa continued. “So I was thinking. Andrew, what a little shit. Was I really that bad? And I realized something. You know what? No. No, I wasn’t. I definitely remember being in favor of trans rights even before I realized I was trans. I didn’t do this gatekeeping bullshit. I mean, I also didn’t really realize nonbinary existed, but I don’t think I would have had such a godawful take. And so, you know what? Why the hell did I take you at your word? Some kind of fuckin’ supernatural being shows up and I just assume it’s being honest? For all I know you’re the devil and this is hell or something. Maybe you were sent to torment me. So, uh, fuck this. I’m not playing along any longer.”

Andrew sighed and finally responded. “I assure you I am not Satan, or any other demonic or diabolical entity. But I have been considering the matter, and a suspicion has arisen in my mind.”

Alyssa pretended she couldn’t hear him, obtrusively looking at her phone as if no one was talking to her. Andrew continued to speak anyway.

“There are… large gaps in my memory. I recall spending many hours browsing the internet as a teen, but I cannot recall what content I looked at. If I am merely your past self as a phantom, these gaps would make little sense, Instead, I have hit upon an alternate theory.”

Alyssa scrunched up her face, grimacing, before saying, “Fine. I’ll listen to this one thing. But it better be good. God, I’m probably stupid to be listening to this. Maybe I’m just insane. Maybe you’re just a hallucination.”

“I will disregard those remarks and continue elaborating upon my theory,” Andrew said. “Ahem. So, yes, it seems clear to me that I possess some aspects of your past self, but lack others. I believe in some sense, I am a part of you that died. Perhaps you could say that Andrew was never a full person, at least not without Alyssa. I wonder: are there any of your memories that are mysteriously missing?”

Alyssa thought for a moment. “Well, uh… I mean, I forget lots of stuff. I don’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, or most of what I learned in high school calculus.”

“Hmm. Perhaps the question was too broad,” Andrew said. “Here. I will attempt to describe a memory I possess to see whether you share the same memory.”

“So you’re trying to see if your memories are, like, a disjoint set with mine, or if they’re just a subset?”

“Precisely,” Andrew said. “Do you recall in middle school, when you did not get to the bathroom on time and–”

“GOD! Yes, I will never forget that as long as I live. Yikes. Yeah, that was, uh, not a fun one. But yeah, I for sure remember that. Oof.”

“Interesting,” Andrew said. “Perhaps my memories and even my knowledge, skills, and personality are a subset of your own, while you retain the full complement.” His usually unreadable expression looked distinctly sad. “I’m not a real person.”

“Don’t say that!” Alyssa said. “You sure seem like a person, honestly. Kind of an annoying person, but that’s most people probably. I mean, I can try to fill you in on what you’ve forgotten, if you want. If that would help.”

“I don’t know if that would change the fundamentals of my situation,” Andrew said. He buried his face in his hands, inadvertently pushing up his ghostly rimless glasses. 

Alyssa instinctively went to pat his shoulder, and experienced a sudden shock as her hand passed through it. It felt like when you aren’t paying attention and you think there’s one more step left in the stairs but there isn’t. 

As Alyssa’s hand poked into his back, Andrew felt a sudden flood of vitality. Emotions, sensations, thoughts, memories, all came flooding in. For a moment, he felt whole.

Then the hand was gone again.

“I felt something!” Andrew said. “When we touch… it feels like being alive again. Or more than that. Everything just feels… more than any of my memories.”

“Huh,” Alyssa said. “I wonder…”

“Yes?” Andrew said expectantly.

“Well, if you are a part of me… maybe we don’t need to get you to the afterlife. If that even exists. Maybe… we just need to reintegrate you.”

“How do you propose we do that? Shall I simply fly into you?”

Alyssa shuddered. “I’d prefer to avoid that, if possible? Last time you did it, I felt like I was having flashbacks to some of the worst times of my life. I don’t think about high school much for a reason. It was like getting suddenly dragged back to a class reunion on campus and realizing that actually, everyone else is doing better than you while you’ve barely changed at all.”

“Perhaps you should move into me, then?” Andrew said.

“Might as well try,” Alyssa said, and shrugged. “No time like the present, I guess.”

She walked forward and into Andrew.

Once again, Andrew was flooded by all these feelings. He suddenly remembered so many things.

Looking at weird gender fiction on the internet.

Playing a girl in his high school D&D game.

Tearing up over a Taylor Swift song about being a girl who goes unnoticed.

How had he–no, she–possibly thought she was a guy?

Inside Alyssa’s mind, something suddenly clicked.

“I’ve been so busy trying to forget parts of my past and disowning my past actions… to the extent that I treated it like another person. Like ‘Andrew’. But there is no Andrew.”

“There’s just me.”