“Pasta. She’s making pasta?” Wes slumps against the polished granite countertop of the HGTV-approved, Stepford kitchen, looking totally over it. Who can blame him? Here we are, brimming with rage, prepped for vengeance, expecting nothing less than Thunderdome, and Gigi’s dream is a total yawn.
“At least Grady had the good manners to give us something interesting to look at,” Wes gripes. “This is just…pathetic.” He dismisses Gigi with a wave, but aside from her Dexid-induced swaying, she stands more or less still in front of a top-of-the-line six-burner stove, watching a pot of water boil. It’s so dull, I almost feel bad for her.
Almost.
“Give her a chance,” I say. “There’s still time for a boiling bunny to make an appearance.”
Wes snorts and nods a concession. “Her dream doesn’t really matter anyway. We’re not here to observe.”
A knot tightens in my stomach.
“Yeah, but it’d be so much easier to do this if she was euthanizing puppies.”
He straightens and wags a finger at me. “Don’t you wimp out on me, Reyes,” he says in an only slightly more playful than aggressive manner. He slides over to Gigi and stands close behind her, careful not to touch. “We agreed to take our super powers out for a test drive in a beat-up old jalopy so it wouldn’t matter if we crashed it.” His eyes give Gigi a once-over. “Here’s the car. You’ve got the keys. What’s the holdup?”
I let out a sigh.
“Eeh—” he says, like the buzzer at the end of a countdown clock. “Time’s up.”
And before I can blink, he jumps into Gigi’s body.
The second he makes contact with her skin, he is part of her, pressing into her, the front of his body becoming one with the back of hers. Gigi stands at the stove, eyes glazed, mouth slack, arms outstretched, wrists limp. And Wes is sewn on. He is the master pulling the puppet’s strings.
They walk backward.
Stop.
Turn left.
The extra Dexid we took must be working, because he has way more control of Gigi than I did of Grady. And while I, like every other normal person, am not a particular fan of mimes, this performance is riveting. Standing over something that’s invisible to me, Wes uses Gigi’s hands to travel over a flat surface, rifling through something that I cannot imagine but that clearly has a powerful effect on him. Gigi’s features tighten. Her hands ball into fists. Agitated, Wes scans invisible walls, stopping at different spots to get a closer look at items that cause his jaw, or rather, Gigi’s jaw, to clench. He paces the room and roughly runs her fingers through her hair. He’s trying to make sense of something entirely unknown to me, and it’s making me feel like I’ve shown up late for a test.
A full-moon howl coming from just outside Gigi’s dream house steals my attention. The Burners have found us. I look out the kitchen window to where two hulking silhouettes peer in at me, their heavy, putrid breath fogging the glass. I should be terrified, and for a moment, I am. But once the initial shock of the Burners’ presence wears off, I’m more worried than anything else. What if they come before Wes is finished with Gigi? What if I don’t get my turn?
I move on instinct, first jogging then running full-out until I slam into Gigi and Wes.
Then…
Whoosh.
Pop.
I blink my eyes until they adjust to the dark of Gigi’s bedroom, a place I know so well. I sit up to find that I’m already on the floor, and Wes is gone. Did he seize out? Or did I push him out of Gigi’s body when I jumped in? Opposite me is a queen-size, pretty-in-pink bed, replete with satin tufted headboard and five-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Beside it is the framed poster of M.C. Escher’s Relativity that was a souvenir from a trip we took to the Metropolitan Museum of Art just last fall. I stare at the picture, a reminder of happier times, and my shoulders slump.
It was her favorite piece, she’d said, because in it, the laws of physics didn’t apply. There were no rules and no limits, two things Gigi was always trying to break. I’d told her that that was exactly why it freaked me out. So on our way out of the museum, she took me to the gift shop and bought us each a print. When she handed me mine, she said, “For when you get lost. Now we both have a map.”
I laugh in Gigi’s voice as I remember the conversation. Then my head begins to ache. What am I doing here? How can things have gotten to this awful place? Yes, Gigi’s got a serious mean streak, but she’s also the girl who once sat for hours with a freshman whose error cost us the game. Instead of blaming the girl, she told her stories about her own losses, building her back up so she could take the field with us the next day. Gigi’s not a bad person. She’s my friend.
Of course, friends don’t play incriminating voice mails over the loud speaker at school or share pictures of you that she took without your consent. How can one mistake erase everything good we had? How can what I did really warrant all the venom Gigi is throwing my way?
It can’t.
I get to my feet and look around. First thing I see is the bulletin board that hangs just outside her closet. As always, photos of Gigi and friends cover every inch of it. The last time I saw it, I’d been featured prominently. When I look now, I see that, though the same pictures I’ve always known are still there, I’ve been defaced in every one of them. Devil horns, Hitler moustaches, a blob of ink blacking me completely out. I haven’t been erased from Gigi’s life. I’ve become the evil demon that’s infiltrated it and is going to be exorcised as painfully and publically as possible.
Fuming, I remember that whatever first upset Wes was on Gigi’s desk, so I make a beeline for it. Immediately, I discover the source of his displeasure. Scattered across the desk are the pictures of me from the clinic. The ones she taped to my locker and so many more. Beside them are scissors and a glue stick. And covering all of it are little wisps of dark human hair.
My hair. The hair she took from me without permission. The hair she glued to a doll to shame me at school. To tell me I am not the sum of my parts but only this, a monster, a freak. That nothing else about me matters but my disorder, and that I do not count.
The tingling sensation that I felt inside Grady is tenfold now. Whether that’s because of the extra Dexid, or because of the rage that’s infected my every cell, or both, doesn’t matter. I am in control. No rules. No limits.
I throw open her desk drawer and easily locate the instrument of my revenge. I surrender to the moment and let fury guide me. Gripping the scissors in my right hand, I march over to Gigi’s full-length mirror and regard her furious face as it stares back at me. Clutching a large section of her hair at the front, I draw the scissors to her roots and cut. Chunk after chunk, I lop off Gigi’s long, flowing tresses until all that’s left are uneven patches of mousy straw fuzz against a bright white scalp.
A pink lipstick stands at attention on her desk, just within reach. I grab it and, in big block letters, scrawl a message across the smooth glass.
Here’s your karma, bitch.
Then I scream, take the self-standing mirror in both hands, throw my head back, and slam it into the frame.
Whoosh.
Pop.
Back in Gigi’s banal dream, Wes helps me to my feet. “Burners,” he says, and I hear pounding against the patio door. I take one last look at Gigi sitting on the floor, her long, beautiful hair now the thing of dreams.
I smile.
Wes leads me out of the kitchen, and we escape through the garage. The monsters are fierce, but they aren’t particularly smart. As they search the house for us, we take advantage of our head start. We run through the dark fields that surround the home and just keep going.
Hand in hand.
Never slowing.
Never tiring.
All through the night.
• • •
“Three times. Three times, if you can believe it!” Tessa huffs as she flips through one of the glossy tabloids she subscribes to. “I mean that’s some serious nerve to still be calling him her boyfriend after she’s been caught making out with another guy, not once, but three times!”
“Mmm-hmm,” I vaguely agree. Though I’ve long considered it part of my best friend duty to feign interest in the messed-up private lives of the movie starlets and celebutants that Tessa holds so dear, today, I can barely fake it. As we sit on the Quad soaking up the sun of the first March morning warm enough to be considered spring, my eyes scan the crowd of my classmates in search of the only person whose private life holds any interest for me.
At the far end of the green, Jamie and Meat toss a football as a trio of pom girls cheers them on. Not far from them, Amber’s new hookup, Pete, is arguing with his recent ex, Jenny, who looks like she hasn’t eaten in days. By the garbage shed, our resident genius Amy Lawrence sits peacefully reading a book until Kiara (who may be a badass but is also a brain and Amy’s lab partner) plops down beside her. Amy scrambles for something in her bag (a pen? her firstborn child?) as Kiara claps her on the shoulder too hard, looking like an after-school-special bully.
In other words, a day like any other for all of them. But not for me. And not for Wes. A torturous ache takes up residence in my chest, and it swells with every new arrival to the Quad. My knees jiggle. I’m picking my cuticles raw. Where is he?
“Sar,” Tessa says, tossing her magazine at me. “This is not trivial stuff. I’m doing important sociological research into the lifestyles of the randomly rich and pointlessly famous! This is my future I’m cramming for here.”
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s cool.” She shrugs. “You’re usually pretty good at pretending you give a crap.”
“I do,” I lie. “My mind’s just somewhere else.”
Tessa reaches over her outstretched legs and retrieves the magazine she threw at me. “Somewhere else like the West Gate?” she teases.
The West Gate. How can I have been so stupid? Why did I think I’d find Wes here, in the Quad, when all our previous encounters have been over there? I shove my books into my bag and jump to my feet, the ache in my chest thumping in gleeful agony. “I have to go. I totally forgot where I’m supposed to be,” I stammer.
“Supposed to be? Sarah, I was kidding. Homeroom’s in five. You don’t have time to go.”
“I’ll see you in class,” I say, fumbling with the zipper of my bag. I’m in such a frantic rush that I begin walking before I’ve stood up. I make it one bent, twisted step before I plow right into a solid mass of flesh. I straighten up and am eye level with a flannel-clad, broad chest.
Large hands cup my face and lift my chin skyward. My eyes sweep up, past the taut jaw, above the full lips, beyond the crooked nose. They stop on the deep-set, searching green eyes that sparkle wildly. The hands cradling my face tighten slightly and pull me forward.
Wes presses his lips onto mine, our mouths open, and I close my eyes.
My thighs go rigid, and I flex my feet. I wrap my arms around his back and pull him closer. He inhales deeply through his nose, gasping for air without taking his mouth from mine. Then he releases his grip on my face. One hand forages through my hair and, finding the back of my head, pushes me deeper into him as his other arm coils around my waist. I feast on him as he devours me. My back arches, and a small moan escapes from my lips. It’s only a hint of indecency, but it’s indecent nonetheless. I hope it’s quiet enough so that only Wes hears. It’s for no one but him.
If I had even the tiniest bit of my wits about me, the remote ability to consider anyone but myself in this moment, I might notice Tessa’s gaping grin as she tries not to giggle at the sight of us. I might worry that Jamie will fumble the football as he sees me, and his heart will hurt. Might give a thought to the spectacle Wes and I are making and consider a modicum of decency. But I don’t. There’s nothing but Wes and me, and this most fan-freaking-tastic first kiss anyone could ever imagine.
Finally, days, weeks, years later, we pull apart. We look only at each other—no embarrassed side glances, just eyes, mouths, eyes again. His breath is ragged, and he licks his lips. I hear myself panting and don’t even care as I flush. Wes holds out his hand, and I take it. His grip is firm and familiar, and he leads me into the building, eyes still trained on mine. It’s amazing neither one of us walks into a wall or a trash can. But we’re floating, gliding, drifting together as one. It’s now just a fact.
Wes Nolan and I are destiny itself.