“Contagious?” he asks. His smirking baritone transports me back to my dream, and I blush at the sense memory of his smooth, naked chest. “What’s she got?”
Gigi glances back at me triumphantly. “Social leprosy,” she snarks.
Amber and Kiara laugh. Tessa mouths at them to shut up.
The guy slides forward into Gigi’s personal space, and for a second, I’m utterly terrified that he’s going to kiss her. “So you’re saying I’d be better off sharing a petri dish with you?” he asks.
“Maybe,” Gigi says, sounding way less composed than she’d probably like. She tilts her face up to his, and I want to leap between them and claw both their eyes out.
He brings his mouth even closer to hers, and I’m paralyzed, imagining the heat of his breath against her lips.
Then, in a whisper, he says, “Unfortunately, I’ve already been inoculated against clichéd, high school mean girl. So I guess that makes us a no-go.”
Amber makes a choking sound, and Kiara covers her mouth with both hands.
Gigi flushes bloodred but doesn’t move an inch, caught in an unexpected standoff with a guy who, moments ago, she was sure was hers for the taking.
It takes all my strength not to smile and incur any more of her wrath.
As the period-ending bell finally rings, Gigi snaps back to reality and steps back, effectively ending the stalemate.
“Interesting choice,” she says, then turns to leave. She bodychecks me as she struts past, her two stooges scurrying behind.
I’ve been issued a reprieve, but I know it’s only temporary.
By the time I regain my composure, my dream guy has taken off and is at the far end of the hall. Without breaking his stride, he glances over his shoulder and throws me a smile. Then he turns his back on the scene of his social suicide and carries on. I watch him until he disappears around a corner and wonder if he feels my eyes on him just like I felt his in the cafeteria.
“Um, what was that?” Tessa asks.
I shake my head, having forgotten for a moment that I’m not alone. “Well, Gigi slapped me, and we almost got into a girl fight—”
“Yeah, I caught that,” she says impatiently. “I’m talking about him, Little Boy Lost on the Way to Homeroom. Yum. Order me one of those.” She gives me a sly smile. “Unless, of course, you’ve already called dibs.”
“What? No,” I reply quickly, hoping my face isn’t too red. “Do you seriously want to talk about some guy smiling at me? Because I’m still sort of thinking about getting slapped.”
“Move on!” Tessa says. “That dude had your back just now. And unless you’ve been holding out on me, it doesn’t seem like you know him.”
I frown. I’ve already pushed the limits of best friendship with my wacky sleep disorder. How can I expect her to understand that I recognize this guy from my dream when it’s completely inexplicable to me? “I don’t,” I say as I head down the hall toward class. At least not in any remotely sane way, I silently add.
Tessa claps her hands excitedly. “Well, maybe I can help with that. His name is Wes Nolan. Just transferred from some boarding school up north. Today’s his first day.”
Wes Nolan. I’m already scribbling his name across a thousand imagined notebooks, replacing the a with a bubbly heart. No. Too much, too fast. I refocus my attention on Tessa’s detective work. “I suppose it’s pointless to question your superior snooping?” I ask.
She cocks an eyebrow. “You know my sources are solid. I overheard Principal Hatch talking to Mrs. Linkler about a new transfer student this morning. Seems your boyfriend’s been in and out of a few boarding schools.”
“Really?” I ask. I remind myself I don’t actually know Wes and have no real reason to be surprised by this information.
“Don’t judge,” Tessa chides. She leans her head on my shoulder and grins up at me. “Bad boys can be fun. Maybe you should reach out to him. You make a great welcoming committee.”
I playfully shove her away and continue toward class.
“Come on,” she says, matching my stride. “There are worse things than having a tall, dark stranger come to your rescue.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Like having one of your oldest friends make it her personal mission to destroy your life.”
Tessa scoops up my hand in hers and squeezes it tight as we walk down the corridor. Having been my best friend since we bonded over hating naptime in nursery school, Tessa has never once wavered in her loyalty. We know everything about each other, like that Tessa’s an excellent lock picker and has been reading her older sister’s steamy diary for years, and that, when I hit double digits, I started having violent outbursts when I slept. While my other close friends, like Gigi, know the basic facts of my parasomnia, it’s only Tessa who’s bothered to learn how to secure the straps that keep me tied to my bed at night.
She shoulder-checks me. “Buck up, bub,” she says brightly. “Things aren’t all that bad.”
I raise my eyebrows, curious how she’s going to spin this one.
“If a kid who just started school has fallen under your spell enough to make an enemy of Gigi MacDonald on his first day, then you really have made an impact. I mean it, Sarah. This is way better than a sex tape!”
As Tessa prattles on, planning our high school domination, my mind wanders back to Wes. I can either freak out over the baffling coincidence that I imagined this kid the day before I met him in real, waking life, or I can focus on what’s really important: adding that Puck-like smirk to the mental picture of him shirtless in the woods.
“He is kind of hot, isn’t he?” I say.
“Who? Transfer boy?” Tessa laughs, thrilled to return to the subject. “Yeah. He looks as tasty as a banana fudge sundae with whipped cream and cherries on top. The question is, beyond the looks, is he anything to write a song about?”
“I don’t know,” I say coyly. “Maybe you should do some research, since you keep talking about how delicious he is.”
“Uh-uh,” Tessa replies, shaking her head. “That boy’s only got eyes for you. Besides, I’m busy playing the naughty Lolita to Mr. Riley’s Humbert Humbert.”
“In your dreams,” I snort.
She grins seductively. “Just a few more extra credit assignments and he’s all mine.”
We enter Mr. Riley’s History III class and take our seats at the front of the room. As the rest of the students file in, Tessa turns to me, her lips pursed together. “I do hope he’s not a total freak,” she says.
“Who? Wes?”
She nods. “I hate it when hotness is wasted on the weird.” She perks up as our teacher takes his place at the front desk, her concern for the ratio of attractive to odd forgotten. “Hi, Mr. Riley. Nice jacket. Is that tweed?”
As Tessa flutters her lashes, I contemplate her assessment of Wes. Yes, the guy is gorgeous, but his good looks can only distract me for so long. Not only has this total stranger appeared in my most recent violent dream, but then he shows up in the flesh, wandering the halls of my high school. Did I see him on the street or stand behind him at Starbucks? I wrack my brain, trying to rationalize this most recent irrational event. But I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something different about Wes Nolan. And no matter how attractive he is, in my personal experience, rarely does different equal good. The thought makes me twitch, and I have to put down my pencil before someone notices. Though I’d have thought it impossible this morning, Gigi’s vendetta against me may have just slipped to the number two spot on my OMFG list.
Chapter Four
“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” says a bald, doughy man with a seventies porno ’stache.
“What’s shaking, Ralphie?” I ask. “Other than your belly.”
“Hey,” he replies, feigning offense. “I’ll have you know I’ve lost five pounds in the last four months, Sarah. ’Course, I’d gai
ned twenty since you were in the clinic last.” Ralphie howls with laughter, and I giggle along with him; his joy is always infectious.
I met Ralphie at my first overnight observation at the Leigh-Erickson Center for Sleep Medicine when I was ten. Four months earlier, I had begun to exhibit strange nocturnal habits: screaming out in the middle of the night; kicking and punching anything near me (stuffed animal, concerned parent); falling out of bed at least three times a week; and even sleepwalking to another room and wreaking havoc on it.
My pediatrician and parents were clueless. My mother later confessed they were actually considering an exorcism when she came across an ad that spared me. A nearby university had just opened a sleep clinic and was looking for patients to study. My mother believed this to be the answer to our prayers. But when I entered the sterile room with cold white tiles and a springy cot in the corner, I knew it was the beginning of a nightmare.
“I’m going to fill out some paperwork just down the hall while Mr. Berger here gets you set up,” Mom had said that first night. “Everything will be fine.” Then she left me alone with a large, strange man whose thin, upturned mustache suggested I was about to be tied to a train track. He wheeled in a big computer with what looked like a million little wires connected to tiny suction cups. I opened my mouth to scream.
“Wait, wait,” said the mustachioed technician as he popped a few onto his own head and switched on the computer. “See? They don’t hurt a bit.” I watched closely as he adjusted knobs and fiddled with the keyboard. Then he sat on the bed next to me.
“I’m Ralphie,” he said and held out his hand to shake mine. I didn’t move. He smiled and asked, “How’s about I make you a deal, Miss Reyes? If I can’t keep you entertained with a story while I place these harmless little electrodes on you, you can scream as loud and as long as you want. Heck, I’ll even join you.”
I thought about this. “Tell me one for free, and then I’ll decide.”
“Ah, a smart customer,” Ralphie said. He agreed to my terms and began the most magical version of Sleeping Beauty I had ever heard. There were silly songs, limericks, and cameos by characters from other fairy tales, while animals and inanimate objects each spoke with a unique accent. By the time he finished, I was so enchanted that I agreed to the electrodes just so I could hear another story.
That night, hooked up to a collection of machines monitoring my brain, heart, muscles, eyes, and breath, I dreamt I was being chased down a beanstalk by one of Ralphie’s German-accented giants. I had stolen a silver-plated shield, and escape was a matter of life and death. The video monitoring my room recorded me as I stood up and unsheathed an imaginary sword. I hacked away at the corner of my bed as if it was the base of the beanstalk. The next day, I had sore knuckles and a diagnosis: REM sleep behavior disorder, or RBD as us cool kids call it.
As the doctor explained my diagnosis to my mother, Ralphie laid it out for me in a way that I could understand. “Most people’s bodies stay still when they’re sleeping,” he’d said. “They get a kind of paralysis when they dream. Not you. You can always move, and move you sure do, little lady. So whatever’s going on in your dream, you act out with your arms and legs, your whole body, even though you’re completely asleep. That’s why you were a slayer last night,” he added, trying to lighten the mood. Unfortunately, my mood was already way dark.
As Ralphie tells it, I was really quiet for a long time. Finally, I spoke. “I’d rather be Sleeping Beauty. Can we fix that?”
Though I roll my eyes whenever he tells the story, I’m always glad when Ralphie’s assigned as my tech.
“So they got you doing this Dexid trial?” he asks. He parts my hair and applies clear, goopy gel to my scalp before placing the electrodes on top. “Thought you just said no to drugs.”
“Let’s say it’s not a voluntary enrollment,” I offer diplomatically.
As Ralphie well knows, I’ve had a couple of bad experiences on prescribed medication, and my mother put the kibosh on anything that messed with my blood chemistry, to the disappointment of my doctors. For the past year, it’s been holistic therapies and nighttime restraints only.
“Who’d you try to kill?” Ralphie asks.
“Captain of my lacrosse team,” I reply.
Ralphie stops what he’s doing. I can’t tell if he’s more surprised by my answer or by the fact that his joke turned out to be right.
“Of course, in my dream, she was a wounded deer who I was trying to put out of its misery,” I add, as if this will lighten the moment.
A look of pitying empathy shoots across Ralphie’s face, but the pity is gone as quickly as it appears, and his jolly smile is once again restored. He snorts. “Bambi or Barbie—doesn’t make much difference. You’re still the villain.”
The door to my room swings open, and an orderly named Barry drops off a tray with a small pitcher of water and a pill in a paper cup. An older man, a patient I remember from past clinic visits, waits in the hall. When he sees me, he points and raises his eyebrows, as if to say, “You too?” I shrug and nod.
When the door closes and Ralphie and I are once again alone, I ask, “Mr. Houston’s in this trial? Isn’t he a sleepwalker?”
“They’re trying this drug on a bunch of different parasomnias,” Ralphie explains. “Sleepwalking, night terrors. Not just what you got. Though RBD is the mother lode.”
“Isn’t it always.” I sigh, allowing myself a nice self-indulgent exhale.
RBD is such a head trip. I’ve met grown men whose wives had left them because there was only so much of literally being kicked out of their beds these women could take. One guy I knew from an earlier clinic stay had to sleep with a helmet and babyproof the corners of every object in his apartment because he was prone to middle of the night ragers where he thrashed about like he was in a mosh pit. Another, who had a recurring dream about being a lion hunting with his pack, said he would circle his bed on all fours for over an hour before he’d finally pounce and tear the sheets with his hands and teeth. Not only was he completely worn out when he woke up, but there was little chance of getting past a first date with that.
Which is one of the most annoying things about my disorder. The disruption isn’t just nocturnal. It affects all the waking parts of your life too. Especially relationships.
As if reading my mind, Ralphie says, “Hey, how’s Prince Charming? You given him another chance yet?”
“He’s great,” I say, a bit too cheerily. Ralphie side-eyes me. I’m not getting let off the hook that easily. “Fine,” I concede. “Jamie and I are still just friends, but he’s mad at me. Thinks I’m being too hard on said Barbie for being an unforgiving shrew. Which is annoying, because he’s probably right. I am the one who tried to kill her after all.” I frown and look at my phone. “I should probably text him.”
Ralphie hands me the paper cup with a raisin-size pill in it.
“This is the Dexid?” I ask.
He nods. Dexidnipam is the latest non-FDA-approved drug the clinic is testing. In truth, I’ve been bugging my mother to let me try medication again for the past few months. Though she’s been adamantly against it, I guess when faced with either juvie or a patent-pending prescription, the latter doesn’t look quite so terrible anymore.
Still, I have butterflies in my stomach. As eager as I am to move beyond the hypnosis and chanting and Mom’s other homeopathic alternatives, I’m not a fool. There are always side effects, always risks. I stare at the little gold pill in the little white cup. Now or never.
“Down the rabbit hole,” I say, and I knock it back with a glass of water. “Anything I should expect?”
“With the Dexid?” Ralphie pets his moustache. “Just a really deep sleep. One patient mentioned vivid dreams. He’s having a recurring one about Grand Central. But that’s all I’ve heard.”
“So nothing to be worried about?” I ask with what I hope is cool non
chalance.
My tech smiles. “Want me to tell you a story before bed?”
I nod enthusiastically. Sure, I’m too old for stories, but even big girls sometimes need their security blankets. I snuggle onto the squeaky observation-room cot and pull the fraying, clinic-issued blanket over my chest. Ralphie fluffs the edges, keeping the blanket loose enough not to interfere with all the wires running off me. He sits beside me, and for a moment, I feel safe.
“Once upon a time,” he begins, “There was a girl named Sarah. And she had a magic cell phone. One day, the magic cell phone said Oy, mate—”
“The phone is Australian?” I interrupt.
“What if it is?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just don’t think of cell phones as Australian. American or Japanese, maybe. How about Norwegian? That could be—”
“Hey, who’s telling this story?”
I smile apologetically.
He waves me away but goes on. “If it makes you feel better, the phone was adopted by a nice Australian family. Just be quiet and let me do the accent, okay?”
I zip my lips closed and throw away the key.
“As I was saying, one day, the magic Australian cell phone said, Oy, mate. Text your prince g’day before he decides to put a shrimp on the Barbie.” Ralphie wiggles his eyebrows saucily, jack-hammering the dirty punch line of his awful joke. When I say nothing, he adds, “The end.”
“Seriously?” I ask. “That’s it?”
He nods.
“Ralphie, that was the worst story you’ve ever told,” I say with a huff.
“Sometimes, bad stories have good lessons,” he says. “At least the accent was all right. Besides, I gotta keep it brief. You’ll be amazed at how quickly the Dexid kicks in.” He does a final check of the machines and adds, “Just text the heartthrob. You’ll feel better once you do.”
Sleeper Page 3
