Every Day

Also by David Levithan

Boy Meets Boy

The Realm of Possibility

Are We There Yet?

Marly’s Ghost (illustrated by Brian Selznick)

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (written with Rachel Cohn)

Wide Awake

Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (written with Rachel Cohn)

How They Met, and Other Stories

The Likely Story series (written as David Van Etten, with David Ozanich and Chris Van Etten)

Love Is the Higher Law

Will Grayson, Will Grayson (written with John Green)

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (written with Rachel Cohn)

The Lover’s Dictionary

Every You, Every Me (with photographs by Jonathan Farmer)

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2012 by David Levithan

Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Adam Abernathy

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levithan, David.

Every day / by David Levithan.

p.   cm.

Summary: Every morning A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon.

eISBN: 978-0-307-97563-8

[1. Love—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L5798Es 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2012004173

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For Paige

(May you find happiness every day)

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Day 5994

Day 5995

Day 5996

Day 5997

Day 5998

Day 5999

Day 6000

Day 6001

Day 6002

Day 6003

Day 6004

Day 6005

Day 6006

Day 6007

Day 6008

Day 6009

Day 6010

Day 6011

Day 6012

Day 6013

Day 6014

Day 6015

Day 6016

Day 6017

Day 6018

Day 6019

Day 6020

Day 6021

Day 6022

Day 6023

Day 6024

Day 6025

Day 6026

Day 6027

Day 6028

Day 6029

Day 6030

Day 6031

Day 6032

Day 6033

Day 6034

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Day 5994

I wake up.

Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just the body—opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I’m fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you’re used to waking up in a new one each morning. It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.

Every day I am someone else. I am myself—I know I am myself—but I am also someone else.

It has always been like this.

The information is there. I wake up, open my eyes, understand that it is a new morning, a new place. The biography kicks in, a welcome gift from the not-me part of the mind. Today I am Justin. Somehow I know this—my name is Justin—and at the same time I know that I’m not really Justin, I’m only borrowing his life for a day. I look around and know that this is his room. This is his home. The alarm will go off in seven minutes.

I’m never the same person twice, but I’ve certainly been this type before. Clothes everywhere. Far more video games than books. Sleeps in his boxers. From the taste of his mouth, a smoker. But not so addicted that he needs one as soon as he wakes up.

“Good morning, Justin,” I say. Checking out his voice. Low. The voice in my head is always different.

Justin doesn’t take care of himself. His scalp itches. His eyes don’t want to open. He hasn’t gotten much sleep.

Already I know I’m not going to like today.

It’s hard being in the body of someone you don’t like, because you still have to respect it. I’ve harmed people’s lives in the past, and I’ve found that every time I slip up, it haunts me. So I try to be careful.