Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Sarah Dessen
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
“WOULD THE defendant please rise.”
This wasn’t an actual question, even though it sounded like one. I’d
noticed that the first time we’d all been assembled here, in this way. Instead,
it was a command, an order. The “please” was just for show.
My brother stood up. Beside me, my mom tensed, sucking in a breath.
Like the way they tell you to inhale before an X-ray so they can see more, get
it all. My father stared straight forward, as always, his face impossible to
read.
The judge was talking again, but I couldn’t seem to listen. Instead, I
looked over to the tall windows, the trees blowing back and forth outside. It
was early August; school started in three weeks. It felt like I had spent the
entire summer in this very room, maybe in this same seat, but I knew that
wasn’t the case. Time just seemed to stop here. But maybe, for people like
Peyton, that was exactly the point.
It was only when my mother gasped, bending forward to grab the bench
in front of us, that I realized the sentence had been announced. I looked up at
my brother. He’d been known for his fearlessness all the way back to when
we were kids playing in the woods behind our house. But the day those older
boys had challenged him to walk across that wide, gaping sinkhole on a
skinny branch and he did it, his ears had been bright red. He was scared.
Then and now.
There was a bang of the gavel, and we were dismissed. The attorneys
turned to my brother, one leaning in close to speak while the other put a hand
on his back. People were getting up, filing out, and I could feel their eyes on
us as I swallowed hard and focused on my hands in my lap. Beside me, my
mother was sobbing.
“Sydney?” Ames said. “You okay?”
I couldn’t answer, so I just nodded.
“Let’s go,” my father said, getting to his feet. He took my mom’s arm,
then gestured for me to walk ahead of them, up to where the lawyers and
Peyton were.
“I have to go to the ladies’ room,” I said.
My mom, her eyes red, just looked at me. As if this, after all that had
happened, was the thing that she simply could not bear.
“It’s okay,” Ames said. “I’ll take her.”
My father nodded, clapping him on the shoulder as we passed. Out in the
courthouse lobby, I could see people pushing the doors open, out into the
light outside, and I wished more than anything that I was among them.
Ames put his arm around me as we walked. “I’ll wait for you here,” he
said when we reached the ladies’ room. “Okay?”
Inside, the light was bright, unforgiving, as I walked to the sinks and
looked at myself in the mirror there. My face was pale, my eyes dark, flat,
and empty.
A stall door behind me opened and a girl came out. She was about my
height, but smaller, slighter. As she stepped up beside me, I saw she had
blonde hair, plaited in a messy braid that hung over one shoulder, a few wisps
framing her face, and she wore a summer dress, cowboy boots, and a denim
jacket. I felt her look at me as I washed my hands once, then twice, before
grabbing a towel and turning to the door.
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