Sleeper by MacKenzie Cadenhead

Author:MacKenzie Cadenhead
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2017-06-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Wes doesn’t say much after his initial horrified reaction to my bandaged ear. And I’m too shell-shocked to speak. So we walk in relative silence back to my house.

Our first time alone together in my room isn’t exactly how I pictured it. Wes perches on my windowsill, staring out at the sunny day that now seems to be mocking us. I lean against the doorframe at the entrance. Even though it’s my space, something about Wes’s demeanor, contemplating so deeply, utterly lost in his own thoughts, makes me feel as though I should wait for an invitation.

“High school sucks,” he says finally, still staring out the window. “And I should know. I’ve been to enough different ones to be considered an expert.”

I relax a bit and move to the edge of my bed.

“Do you remember who you were last week?” he asks.

“Uh, Sarah?” I venture.

“No. You were Gigi.”

My body jerks back as if I’ve been slapped. I begin to protest, but he holds up a hand to silence me. “The first time I saw you wasn’t in a dream. It was a week before at school, when I was doing my paperwork for enrollment. You were strutting down the halls like you owned them. Smiling at everyone you passed, then laughing at whatever remark Gigi made as soon as they were out of earshot.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry to say it, but in some ways, you were even worse. Because you know what it’s like to be imperfect. Imperfect in a way that trumps any unibrow or lisp.”

“Well, if I’m so terrible,” I say, “why are you hanging out with me?” Though my words are accusatory, it strikes me that I could just as easily be challenging myself as him. It’s not like I don’t get exactly what he’s talking about. In the past few days, I’ve experienced what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Gigi’s ire, and my own culpability in her past cruelties toward others has been creeping on me bad. I’ve been so afraid of slipping from my rung on the high school social ladder that I’ve allowed for too much bad behavior, and it makes me sick. But hearing Wes say it is way worse. Guilt and rage collide inside of me, and I clutch my stomach.

“I’m hanging out with you,” Wes says, “because you’re not that girl anymore. You’ve fallen from your pedestal, but you’re still standing. You’re not knocking innocent people down to build yourself back up, but you’re not being a total pushover either. You, Sarah Reyes, are a force of nature.” A half grin lightens his face. “And if you start using those powers for good—that’s the kind of girl I can get behind.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Though my mumbled retort gives nothing away, inside, I’m relieved to be forgiven by someone, and I thrill at this vision of the new me.

“Tell me something,” he says as he leans forward. “How’d it feel seeing Gigi knocked down a peg today?”

“It didn’t feel great.

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