Chapter 3 Under Currents
The shower water burned against my skin, but I barely felt it. Scrubbing Charlotte’s body clean after the disastrous rehearsal, I kept replaying Samantha’s words—*Who are you?*—and the way her nails had dug into my arm. She knew something was wrong. Worse, she seemed almost…expecting it.
I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around myself, catching sight of Charlotte’s face in the foggy mirror. Dark circles shadowed her—my—eyes. I opened the medicine cabinet, scanning for the "blue pills" Samantha had mentioned. Behind a box of tampons, I found them: a prescription bottle with a label that read *Lorazepam. Take as needed for anxiety.*
That wasn’t all.
Tucked further back were two other prescription bottles—*Sertraline* and *Trazodone*—both with Charlotte’s name. Antidepressants. Heavy ones.
My fingers tightened around the pills. Charlotte hadn’t just been stressed. She’d been *medicated.*
A knock at the door made me jump. "You alive in there?" Samantha’s voice carried through the wood.
I shoved the bottles back and yanked open the door. Samantha stood there, already dressed for the showcase in a sleek black dress, her gaze dropping to the medications I hadn’t fully hidden.
She arched a brow. "Forgetting your own prescriptions now too?"
I forced a laugh. "Just organizing."
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She held out a shot glass filled with something amber. "Drink this. You’ll need it for tonight."
I took it, pretending to sip as she turned away. The moment she was gone, I dumped it down the sink.
---
Meanwhile, across town, Charlotte was elbow-deep in my ruined racecar’s telemetry data.
*"This doesn’t make sense,"* my engineer, Raj, muttered, squinting at the screen. *"The throttle response cut out right before the spin, but the logs show no system failure."*
Charlotte—in my body—shifted uncomfortably. She’d been bluffing her way through the garage for hours, nodding along like she understood any of this. "Could someone have tampered with it?"
Raj hesitated. "You’re thinking Tyler?"
She shrugged, playing the part. "He’s been aggressive all season."
Raj lowered his voice. "If he messed with your car, he’s smarter than we thought. There’s no trace." He exhaled. "Let’s check the physical components. Maybe the throttle pedal was rigged."
As they worked, my phone buzzed in Charlotte’s pocket. A reminder notification: *Neurology follow-up - 10 AM tomorrow.*
She frowned. *Neurology?*
A text from me interrupted her thoughts: *Found your meds. You didn’t think to mention you’re on antidepressants?*
Her fingers hovered over the screen before typing back: *You didn’t think to mention your BRAIN SCAN?*
My stomach dropped. *What scan?*
Her reply came with a photo attachment—a CT scan report from my desk drawer. The words *"small abnormality, left temporal lobe"* glared back at me, followed by a doctor’s note: *Monitor for progression. Symptoms may include memory lapses, coordination issues.*
I stared at it. That was why my reaction times had been off this season. Why I’d been getting dizzy during races.
And Charlotte had just *found it.*
She texted again: *We need to talk. In person.*
---
We met at a dive bar far from either of our usual scenes. Charlotte hunched over a beer, looking absurdly out of place in my athletic frame, while I picked at a vodka soda I had no intention of drinking.
"You first," she said flatly.
I slid the pill bottles across the table. "You’ve been hiding this."
She didn’t flinch. "And you’ve been hiding *that.*" She tapped the CT scan photo on her phone. "Is it a tumor?"
The word sent a chill through me. "I don’t know. They said it might be nothing."
"Bullshit. You wouldn’t be hiding scans if it was *nothing.*"
I clenched Charlotte’s—my—jaw. "Why the antidepressants?"
She glared. "None of your business."
"It is now," I shot back. "Because I’m the one taking them until we fix this."
The silence between us thickened. Finally, Charlotte exhaled. "Fine. I’ve had episodes. Panic attacks. Sometimes worse." She hesitated. "Since my ex moved on. It’s… not great."
I recalled the hospital nurse mentioning Charlotte’s "episode" at the festival. Had she crashed over her breakup news?
Before I could ask, Charlotte leaned in. "Now you. What aren’t you saying about the scan?"
I hesitated. "I’ve been getting symptoms. Dizziness. Slowed reflexes." I met her eyes. "If it’s a tumor, and it’s growing… I might not race much longer."
Her expression softened, just slightly. "Shit."
"Yeah."
We sat in silence for a long moment. Then Charlotte surprised me by pushing the beer aside. "Okay. New rule. No more secrets. If we’re stuck like this, we can’t afford surprises."
I nodded. "Agreed."
She extended my hand—which felt bizarre—and I shook it with hers. A truce.
Charlotte’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then stiffened. "It’s my—your—team. They pulled the hospital security footage."
I straightened. "And?"
Her face paled. "They’re saying someone accessed your room the night we switched. But the cameras only caught their back. They were wearing a staff badge."
My mind raced. "Could it have been Samantha?"
Charlotte’s grip tightened on the phone. "I don’t know. But whoever it was, they knew what they were doing." She hesitated. "There’s more. The timestamp? It was exactly 3:03 AM."
My blood ran cold.
That was the *exact* time I’d woken up in her body.
