Opposite Day

The Choice You Make

The boardwalk was becoming emptier by the minute. It wasn't usually crowded for another month or two when the tourists would start to arrive, and weeknights weren't the busiest to begin with. 

This was how even from far away, I could tell that Ocean Space was closed. The door was shut, the lights were off, and no one was around. Still, I walked over, peering through the glass door to see if any employee happened to be inside. The dark and empty store caused me to slam a fist on the door in frustration, the metal gate behind it clattering in response. A groan left my throat, dread encompassing me— and then I heard the voice.

"Looking for someone?" 

My body snapped around to look at her. The psychic was standing a few feet away under one of the illuminated streetlights, looking casual in a white t-shirt and a long, vibrant skirt. She didn't look like the type of person to go around ruining people's lives, and yet here we were. She strolled over, meeting me in front of the store, her casual indifference irritating me even further.

"What the hell is happening to me?" I asked, unable to keep the harsh tone away from the question. 

She just gave a knowing smile, which only served to make me angrier. 

"So it was you? You gave me some sort of curse, cursed me into not being in control of myself half the time, right?" I ranted, the calm look on her face a sure contrast to my bewildered and ticked-off expression.

She nodded. "I suppose you could call it a curse. But really, Allison, I just gave you what you asked for."

"This," I said, gesturing to myself and everything around us, "This is not what I asked for. I asked to be the opposite of myself—"

"And for the important things, you were."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair and glancing at the darkening sky. Her serene demeanor was impenetrable, and she seemed to think she'd done me a favor.

"Tell me, Allison, why are you upset about today? I figure you should be happy. You told your friends how you really felt, you stood up to Mr. Brine, and you learned the truth about Kalvin."

I felt only mild surprise that she knew exactly what I'd gone through in the past fifteen hours. "Well... yeah, okay. Fine," I sighed, knowing she was right, "Those were good things. But I don't understand the point of making me say yes to Derek, and forcing me to go on this date, only to have me snub him at the end of the night! If you were trying to help me out, I think you screwed up at the end there."

"I wanted you to realize something," she explained. The breeze pulled a strand of curly hair from her bandanna and she tucked it behind her ear. "Allison, you didn't need this curse, as you put it, to do anything that you did today."

"But I wouldn't have," I argued, frowning at the truth. I wouldn't have ever done anything like the things I did today, because I wasn't Opposite Allison. I was just Allison, as regular and boring as she was.

"But you could have," she said sternly, looking at me with those piercing brown eyes. "And that is what you needed to learn."

"So what, I should just do everything the opposite of how I normally would? Just change myself completely? I thought you said I shouldn't try to change myself," I recalled, confused by the moral she was trying to teach me.

She held up a finger. "Not everything, Allison. As you told me, you learned just a few minutes ago that being the opposite isn't always better."

"So what is better?" I huffed, desperate for an answer.

"Choice," she said simply. "You can do the things you think you can't. But every time you don't, that's the choice you make. What happens tomorrow will be completely up to you, based on your choices— as of midnight, your free will will be back."

I swallowed, not sure what to say. It was true: I wasn't taking advantage of choice; I was sitting in the backseat of my own life, watching it go by. Everything was up to me, and of course I'd already known that, I was just too scared to do anything about it. I wondered if today's experience would finally push me into taking control, until I realized that that would be my choice as well.

"You should go home," she said, giving a single nod. It was as if she could tell I finally grasped what she was trying to teach me. "Get some rest."

I nodded, giving her a small smile of understanding before she began to walk away. Tomorrow, choice would be mine again. I would have to decide how to deal with the situation she'd left me in with Derek. Maybe he'd hate me, maybe he'd think I was insane— but I knew what I wanted to do. And for once, I was going to do it.