Inseparable Friends

Most of my life has mostly, for lack of a better word, sucked. I was born to unmarried parents who conceived me at a one-night stand, I was put in an orphanage where other kids poked fun at me, I was adopted by a couple who only did so just to look good to the other neighbors (they couldn't care less about me), and I kept getting hit on by hideous, 50-year-old pedophiles even at the young age of 5. There was pretty much no one in my life.

Except Daniel Tran. Even though we are exactly the same age (we were born on the exact same day in the exact same year), he treated me like a little sister. Our houses were next to each other, and he would offer to bring me to his house whenever my sorry excuses for foster parents started being rude to each other. And I don't mean "typical husband-and-wife" rude that you see in sitcoms, I mean "why the hell did they even get married in the first place?" rude.

At his house, Daniel and I would do things together, such as playing video games, watching television, color in coloring books, basically just typical kids' stuff. His parents were extremely nice and let me do a lot of things there, but they did have their limits.

When Daniel and I went to school together, many of the kids poked fun at me by calling me ugly and insulting my dirty blonde hair. But luckily, Daniel had my back. He told them to leave me alone as I cried. He even threatened to tell our teachers and/or principal about the kids' behavior. The kids eventually stopped teasing me.

During the entirety of elementary school, Daniel and I shared the exact same classes. We both shared a study group whenever a big test was coming up, and we would usually pass. Daniel's parents were proud of his high marks, while my parents... well, most of the time, they were asleep.

However, my and Daniel's strong friendship began to crumble when middle school hit. Not that we decided to stop being friends on our own, but obviously my so-called parents' non-caring behavior began to rub off on me. At the time, I saw them drinking, smoking, and even taking some illegal drugs. I only told Daniel about this, and his only solution was that I should sleepover at his house. But the problem was we were both reaching puberty, and his parents didn't want to be grandparents yet, in case something went wrong. So I tried my best to avoid the drugs that my unfortunate parents used, but it was a difficult task. Every night I heard my parents insult each other. They didn't abuse each other or use curse words, but the anger was still harsh.

To make matters worse, a high school from across the country definitely wanted Daniel to go there. Being a good friend to me, he declined the offer. Still, I talked to him about rejecting a promising future.

"You don't have to do this for me," I said. "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure, Mary?" he said. "I'm going to be gone for a whole four years. Do you think you can get through high school without my advice?"

"I'll manage."

We both hugged, and thus, Daniel was on his way.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage as much as I meant. During high school, more kids insulted me, my grades began slipping, and my parents pretty much ignored me. So there was one logical thing for me to do:

I stopped caring.

Whenever a student came up to me just to make fun of me, I flipped him off and walked away from him. I did most of my assignments at the last minute. And finally, I never, never spoke with my parents.

After barely graduating from high school with a C average, I started smoking, drinking, and doing drugs at home. My parents saw this, but obviously did not care. In fact, they bought even more of those for me. I pretty much shut down and never went to college, and I stayed at my parents' house for quite some time.

When I turned 25, something happened. Daniel came back! When I saw him walk down the street, I immediately ran to him, but unfortunately all the damage caused to my body due to my ugly habits caught up to me, and I collapsed. Before I completely blacked out, I heard Daniel call my name, "Mary."

...

Suddenly I found myself in the hospital, looking up to a red-haired lady. "Hello, you must be that Mary girl that Daniel has told me about," she said.

"Who are you?" I asked her.

"I'm his wife, Gretchen," she said.

"You're very pretty," I complimented.

"Thanks. So are you."

"The only other person who has ever said that about me was Daniel."

"Well, he wasn't wrong. Anyway, Daniel has told me a lot about your difficult life."

"Difficult doesn't begin to describe it. So what did the doctors do to me?"

"Let's just say that they removed all the dangerous chemicals from your body."

"How?"

"They removed your body."

"What?!"

"Entirely from under the neck."

"Does that mean I'm just a living severed head?"

"Far from it. You are now sharing a body with..."

"W- w- wait," I interrupted. "Sharing? As in 'two heads on one body'?"

"Exactly. I would've volunteered, but our blood wouldn't have matched."

"Wouldn't have matched?" I repeated. "So, is your blood A-type?" Mine is B-type.

"Yes. For a head transplant to happen, both the head or heads and body have to be the exact same blood type."

I thought of other people that I knew had B-type blood. But since I didn't know that many people, let alone those with B-type blood (heck, my foster parents were O negative), the only person I could think of was...

Suddenly I heard yawning from the right side. "How long has it been?" I instantly recognized that voice. It was Daniel's. I turned to him and he said, "Oh, hi, Mary. Apparently the transplant did work."

I didn't make a move. However, Daniel did that for me as he removed the covers and I saw the results. Now we were together... forever.