Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfeld

Author:Scott Westerfeld
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

Eight

MIDNIGHT WAS ALMOST HERE, and Kieran still hadn’t called.

The bathwater burbled just beneath my nose, its warmth enveloping me, keeping my skin hunger barely in check. I closed my eyes and sank down until its rumble filled my ears, shutting out the deafening silence.

I still couldn’t believe what he’d done, stealing my poetry to dream about Barefoot. And added to his theft was cowardice, hiding the betrayal inside his own subconscious. And he still hadn’t called.

Maybe the rest was silence between us.

I stayed under the water, holding my breath, imagining Kieran’s face when my tragic death by drowning was announced. After my explosion in the auditorium, everyone would realize he’d killed me with his dirty little dreams. I visualized the whole world knowing, my poems found and posthumously broadcast throughout headspace, along with cruel comparisons of my angelic death mask with Barefoot Tillman’s puffy, snot-filled face.

As the fantasy progressed, the oxygen in my lungs ran out, my brain growing fuzzy, my heart thudding harder and harder inside my chest…

…until my bioframe sent me bursting up into the air, sputtering for breath.

“I wasn’t really going to!” I muttered between gasps for air. Stupid perfect world.

I sank back down to shoulder height in the water, the memory of my auditorium outburst twisting in my stomach. All those times I’d imagined going crazy with olden-day emotions, the madness had taken place on a Scottish moor, a high balcony, or in a richly appointed boudoir—never in front of an audience.

Apparently, hormones went hand in hand with humiliation.

I tried to remember what had happened in the fight, exactly when and how everything had gone so wrong. As I’d stormed away, he’d tried to call out something to me, but my brain had been too addled to hear the words.

I thought of all the books I’d read, the stories where letters went missing or were delivered too late or to the wrong person; where pride, prejudice, and accidental judgments tore lovers apart. So what had he said? It would be worth something just to know that Kieran wanted to make things right, if only to throw the explanations back in his face.

Midnight chimed, his sleep-time officially here. I’d set the reminder after that first night, the night of his falling asleep, of my dance in the storm.

Why hadn’t he called?

I groaned with frustration, sinking lower into the water. I’d sworn an oath that I wasn’t going to call him. An oath on my life, which suddenly felt as powerful as the dictates of my bioframe inside me. I’d die for sure if I broke it.

Minutes ticked away. Was he really sleeping without my voice tonight? I lay there fuming, imagining him calling Barefoot and asking her to sneeze and honk him into dreamland. Fat chance. He needed me….

But no way was I calling him. A true heroine never breaks an oath.

His father looked surprised to see me.

“Mr. Black? I’m Maria, a friend of Kieran’s.”

“Oh?” He looked down at my long black dress clinging to wet skin, the water dripping from my hair.

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