The days flew by. It was both a relief and a surprise at how well the medications were working. Melvin had heard how sometimes it could take several rounds of trying one medication after another until they found what worked, but it seemed they’d gotten it right on the first try. What was more, the scent trick with the soap was working as well. Perhaps a little too well. Where before switching was an unpleasant and drawn out experience, Melvin would would now switch to Chuck in a smooth, almost unnoticeable shift. However, where once they were switching three or four times a month, now they were switching three or four times a week.

Most of the time, switching didn’t cause any problems. Both Melvin and Chuck were pretty good about keeping notes in their phone so if they switched the other one would know what was going on at work or whatever. It was rare for Melvin to go out with friends, though it did happen. Chuck was pretty much a loner so he never set up anything like that.

Two days had passed since the last time Melvin had been present. It took him a moment to get caught back up with where he was at work since the last project had been finished and a new one started. As he went over his notes he got a ping on his phone. He checked it and didn’t recognize the name, Bev, though she were in his contacts.

Are we still on for tonight?

Melvin quickly checked his calendar notes and found one written just yesterday: Date with Bev, Monday 7pm, Meet at Chili’s.

“What the heck?” Melvin said aloud.

Neither of them had ever done much dating. It was hard to predict who would be out on any given day and sending the wrong one on a date was a recipe for disaster, or at least awkward embarrassment. Well, Melvin would do his best if he needed to. He didn’t know who this Bev was, or when Chuck had met her, but he felt he ought to at least try.

Of course, looking forward to it.

He texted back.

Bev replied with a heart emoji. How long had Chuck known Bev and how serious was this relationship? There wasn’t any other texts from her, and a quick check of the call log showed one call from her yesterday. It wasn’t like Chuck to do this sort of thing. For better or worse, Melvin and Chuck had tended to be pretty open with people about their personality situation. They didn’t just tell everyone, but most of Melvin’s friends knew, as well as his boss and most of his co-workers. It made things easier when people brought up meetings or conversations that Melvin or Chuck didn’t remember because they hadn’t been the one involved.

“Did you warn Bev?” Melvin asked aloud.

There was, as always, no response. Melvin pulled up Bev’s contact in his phone and was relieved to find a photo of her. That would at least allow him to recognize her when he saw her. A part of him hoped he’d switch back with Chuck so he could be the one to go on the date. He didn’t like the idea of stealing this opportunity from Chuck but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He’d either switch or he wouldn’t.

Melvin put a reminder in his calendar so he’d be on time for the date and then returned to his work. He avoided smelling the soap, in case that would hinder Chucks ability to switch over but it didn’t seem to matter. The day flew by and there was no sign of switching. After work, Melvin showered, put on some nicer clothes, and headed out to meet Bev.

He got to Chili’s a few minutes early and checked the picture of Bev once more. He let a few groups go ahead of him to be seated, not wanting to get a table until Bev arrived. Melvin worried he wouldn’t recognize her but just as the clock ticked over to seven, he saw her approaching. She was dressed casually, which was a relief, though her hair was done up.

Melvin opened the door for her as she approached.

“Hi,” she smiled broadly as she walked in.

“Hi,” Melvin said, trying to sound as natural as possible.

“How was your day?” Bev asked.

“It was good. You?”

“Better now that work is done,” Bev shrugged.

The server approached and led them over to a small table beside one of the windowed walls. She gave them their menus and left.

“Have you been here often?” Bev asked. “I never know what to order.”

“No, but I hear they have a good steak.”

Melvin wanted to find a moment where he could ask her if she knew about his D.I.D. but also didn’t want to ruin the date in case Chuck hadn’t brought it up. A fair number of people were weirded out by the whole multiple personalities thing, however, the longer the date went on, the more Melvin really felt he should bring it up.

“So,” Melvin began after their drinks had arrived, “I know this is going to sound a little odd, but you know me as Chuck, right?”

Bev gave him a slightly confused look.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Okay, I just need you to know that I’m Melvin. We have a multiple personality thing going on and I ended up being the one here today. I understand if that’s a bit off putting.”

Bev looked him over and Melvin couldn’t get a read on her.

“So you’re not Chuck?” she finally asked.

“Not right now, no.”

“But sometimes you are Chuck?”

“Right.”

“So, do you know who I am?”

Melvin shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “We don’t really share memories.”

“Huh,” Bev said and leaned back in her chair.

Melvin though for a moment that she was going to get up and leave, but she stayed there, occasionally sipping her drink.

“How did you meet?” Melvin finally asked. “Chuck’s not usually the out going type. Though to be fair, neither of us do much dating.”

“We met about a week ago,” Bev finally said. “We go to the same coffee shop and he’s always sitting alone. You, he came over and introduced himself last week, like I said. We talked for a bit and we exchanged numbers. I hadn’t heard from him so I gave him a call yesterday and, well, here we are.”

She must really like him to be the one to call. Melvin wasn’t an expert in such things but he knew it was still mostly on the guys to reach out.

“Well I assume Chuck’s told you what we do for work,” Melvin said, “what do you do?”

A mildly pained expression crossed her face.

“You’ve had that conversation with Chuck already,” I said. “Haven’t you?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was an extended pause and again I found myself worrying that she was going to get up and leave.

“This whole multiple personalities thing,” she finally began, “how many of you are there, in your head I mean?”

“There’s three of us, but it’s mostly just Chuck and I.”

Bev nodded.

“Have you always been like this?” she asked.

“It’s been most of our life,” Melvin replied.

“What’s it like?”

Melvin thought for a moment before responding. This was a common enough question whenever he told people about the condition but it was still not a straight forward answer.

“Unless I’m really paying attention, I can completely miss the fact that we’ve switched,” he said at last. “I can miss days at a time and unless something really jumps out at me as a sign that I’ve missed time I won’t notice.”

“But what about things like today, with our date?”

“Chuck and I have a pretty good system where we leave notes in our phone about what’s going on in case we switch,” Melvin explained. “It’s not perfect, as you’ve seen, but it covers a lot of scenarios.”

“Can’t you, like, talk to each other?”

“Nope,” Melvin shook his head.

“That sounds awful,” Bev said. “Do you ever just, like, wake up someplace and have no idea how you got there?”

“Like I said, most of the time I don’t even notice the switch. It’s like my brain makes up for the inconsistencies, but there have been times when I’ve noticed. It’s jarring and disorienting but I’m used to it.”

“Where’s the weirdest place you’ve found yourself?” Bev asked.

That was another question Melvin got a lot but there wasn’t really a good answer to it. Melvin still tried to say something that would at least be interesting.

“I’ve switched in the middle of shopping, without a shopping list so I wasn’t sure what we needed,” he said. “There’s been a few times where I’ve switched while Chuck was in the middle of a hike and I didn’t know where we were. One time I switched in the middle of a massage. That was surprising.”

“Have you ever switched in the middle of a conversation?”

“Yeah,” Melvin said, thinking of his recent meeting with Dr Scala, “but that’s usually in the other direction, me switching to Chuck.”

“Why do you switch? I mean, what made you like this at all?”

That was a sensitive topic. Not a lot of people knew that D.I.D. was caused by abuse, usually pretty severe abuse. If they knew, they wouldn’t ask. Melvin didn’t like to talk about it, partly because he didn’t remember the abuse itself. That was all part of Chuck.

“Sometimes we switch because we get stressed,” Melvin said, trying to ignore the second part of her question, “but sometimes we just switch for no reason.”

“And you can’t control it?”

“I wish,” Melvin chuckled. “There’s plenty of times I wish I could. Can you imagine the number of boring meetings I could skip?”

“I”m sure Chuck would appreciate that,” Bev scoffed.

There server arrived with their food and began setting it all out for them. Bev had ordered a burger and Melvin had ordered a steak.

As Melvin got into bed he fluffed his pillow and checked to make sure his phone was plugged in. He hesitated, thinking back on the day and then grabbed his phone to check his notes: Thanks for handling things until I arrived.

Chuck, it seemed, had made it to his date after all. There wasn’t anything else new in the notes so Melvin put his phone away and finished climbing into bed. He was tired and had a fair amount of work to do tomorrow.