Michael Swartz
Author-Scientist
SPLIT
Have you ever wondered how much your parents influence who you will become? Family often point to the physical traits between parents and their children. The boy with his father's chin. The girl with her mother's eyes. But what if the child was SPLIT?
My first novel is about 16-year-old Ethan Rivers who is a chimera: the rare fusion of two fraternal twins into a single child. But he is Split, the traits on his left side resemble his father and the traits on his right side resemble his mother. One side has to win. Since Ethan’s father returned from Operation Desert Storm, he has been agitated, complained of headaches, and is physically abusive. When Ethan also develops headaches and violently attacks a lifelong bully, it confirms his worst fear: his father’s half is dominant. Ethan must protect his mother from his violent father while reconciling his identity, the importance of his unique diagnosis, and whether he is destined to behave like his father.
Diagram of how a fetal chimera can form
SPLIT
Chapter One
September 1995Lurching down the cement steps two at a time, I’m halfway across the parking lot before the diner’s front door slams. But no angry footsteps follow in pursuit. No hands force me to the ground. There is only the soft yellow light from several windows, glowing like the menacing face of a carved pumpkin. I run, sneakers scuffing against the asphalt, loose gravel flying in my wake. Deep breaths flood in panting waves—plumes of air that bloom and then vanish. As I surge out of the parking lot, my throat constricts. I need to stop. I need to take a hit from my inhaler. Instead, my pace increases, moving faster toward where the road splits. To the left, there’s the gas station, my high school, the library. I swerve right.
“E-than!” A voice demanding vengeance bounces off my ears like a vibrating fist.
I race away, just like my father. How many times did he flee? How many times would he refuse to face the consequences of his actions? If anything is clear after tonight, I am my father’s son.
“E-than! E-than!”
The shouts challenge me to twist around, but to face what? The diner’s owner carrying a Louisville slugger or the clenched fists of Jackson VanPatten’s friends out for revenge.
Racing forward, the distant growl of an engine carries into the night air. Tires screech, and headlights shine, painting a target onto my back. In seconds, my head start evaporates. I might outrun Jackson’s friends, but not a car.
The high beams loom closer, stretching my shadow. The distinct features that make me different are lost. All that remains is a distorted silhouette with unnaturally long arms and legs. A praying mantis—a circus freak.
Hairs on my arm stick upright. The lights must be only yards behind. They’re going to run me over. I want to glance back but can’t watch the impact. Then I see it. The two closing beams of light point to an adjacent field, and I spring from the road edge, landing in a crouch.
The car passes in a whoosh of heavy air, accelerating away. Was that one of Jackson’s friends? Will they circle back? On the road’s edge, I’m still visible. Hunched over, I see the dark outline of the woods at the far end of the field. Adrenaline thumps my heart against my chest, and I struggle against the need to catch my breath. Swallowing hard and ignoring the acrid taste of blood where I bit my tongue, I head toward the safety of the wood line while the scene from the diner replays in a continuous loop. My first punch, twisting into Jackson VanPatten’s nose. His gaping expression of disbelief. My second punch striking his abdomen, knocking him back, his head cracking against the table edge and his body thudding to the floor.
I slide between thick pine branches, my lungs battling for air. Behind the camouflaged protection of the evergreens, my trembling fingers scrape at the cap of my inhaler. With each failing breath, my windpipe constricts, and the whistle in my throat jumps in pitch. Stars, not from the night sky, form at the edge of my vision. My lips tingle, demanding oxygen. Thrusting the inhaler toward my mouth, I bite down on the orange cap. The smooth plastic dimples from the force of my teeth, and like pulling the pin of a grenade, the cover releases. My lips wrap tight around the mouthpiece, and I press hard on the metal cylinder, forcing the chalky medicine into my throat. After the second puff, I crumble, dropping the inhaler.
Curled on my side, I tuck my legs tight to my chest and bundle my lanky arms around my torso. The canopy of trees blocks any moonlight as the medicine opens my lungs, and the sharp, sweet smell of conifer works its way into my nose. It’s not a deluge of air but the drip of a faucet. Minute by minute, my chest gradually expands, oxygen finally reaching my lungs and relaxing the tremor in my hands.
In the distance, the echo of a siren’s earsplitting two-note rise and fall reminds me of the damage left behind at the diner. My stomach knots, and I double over and vomit. Images of my fist colliding with Jackson VanPatten’s nose replace my partially digested French fries. Rocking back and forth, my hands press tight into my eyes, shoving the tears away. In my brain, I hear the repeating crash of Jackson’s head cracking against the table as he fell backward and then thudding against the diner floor. The two sounds pound in synchrony with my heartbeat. Crack. Thud. Crack. Thud.
I picture Jackson crumpled, his legs precariously crossed, his left arm cradling his head while rivulets of dark blood drip into the seams of the black-and-white linoleum tiles. Words I learned at the hospital two years ago flood my memory: subdural hematoma, increased intracranial pressure, near death, could go at any moment. Jackson wasn’t moving; was he even breathing? Am I a murderer? If Jackson’s friends locate me first, there will be no need for criminal justice.
Sweat pours from my brow, mixing with salty tears. Tugging my shirt to wipe my eyes, even without any light, I fixate on a shotgun pattern of dark spots that crust to the fabric. The marks after my fist cracked Jackson’s nose.
Sinking into the soft bed of pine needles, I lie, caged and yet protected by the woods. I can’t stay here forever. I could keep running but to where?My eyes recognize the piles of gray shale several yards away. From somewhere nearby, a trickle of water disrupts the silence. The stream leads to the woods behind my house. My house, where my father’s violence began and ended, where I promised that I wouldn’t become him.
On my feet, I circle twice before spotting the creek, keeping clear of the shale ledge, slippery from the cold water. My feet shuffle across the familiar route as my mind replays the night’s events. When I see the corn from Henderson’s farm, tan and ready to harvest, standing in symmetric rows, I’m home.
At the edge, in the furthest corner of our property, a mound of earth protrudes from the lawn. The box of letters and mementos buried here marked my promise never to become him. My mother’s half, the good half, would win over my father’s. That promise is broken, and the split inside me, the divide between who I want to be and who I am, is apparent.
Lowering myself onto the dewy grass, I lean heavily onto my crossed legs, staring at the heap of dirt.
Headlights slice a path through the dark, and car tires crunch against the gravel driveway. Of course, they found me. Coming home was stupid. My muscles tense. In my head, I’m prepared to face the consequences, but my DNA has me programmed to run. The footsteps are not officer’s boots or heavy sneakers out for revenge. They’re lighter, more graceful—and my heart and breathing slow as jasmine perfume wafts in my direction.
“Why did you jump from the road?” My girlfriend, Aia, sits close so that our shoulders touch. Her warmth radiates through me, but I resist the urge to fold into her.
“I thought it was Jackson’s friends.” She shouldn’t be here. Jackson’s friends could still be after me.
The wind catches several strands of her black hair, pulling them in front of her face. “How’d you know I’d be here?” I avert my gaze, focusing on the ground at my feet.
She slides her hand into mine. “You told me.”
Replaying the scene in the diner for the thousandth time, I never said a word when I ran for the door. My eyes travel from the burial ground of my youth to the tips of Aia’s fingers, nails painted a bright purple, that interlock mine. She presses tight against my shoulder. She isn’t afraid. She saw what I did to Jackson. She knows who I am.
“Two years ago. You said it’s where you buried everything your father ever gave you.” Her eyes travel toward the ground, scouring for what she knows is there. “This doesn’t change anything.” Her words pull my gaze to her green eyes. “You understand that, right? What happened at the diner, what you did, doesn’t change a thing. You are not like your father.”
Rumors spread faster than the speed of light in this town, and this fight will be on the tip of every tongue by tomorrow morning. I want to accept that it was a single event. But in my mind, an image forms: the morning patrons at Ronni’s Diner sitting on the tall, checker-print bar stools, sipping coffee and reading the paper; analogies will spill onto the counter like breakfast syrup, comparing the proximity of an apple after falling from the tree or describing a piece of fabric cut from the same cloth. They’re correct, of course, all of them. It’s a description of who I am and my biology.
I swallow my question with a gulp, but it wrenches out anyway. “Is he alive?”
Copyright 2025 Koehler books. Expected release 8/25