Chapter 3

Tessa's POV

The whole senior class watches Sutton fall apart over the next few days.

She starts showing up late to everything. Doesn't matter how many alarms she sets or how hard her parents try — she can't get up before ten.

In class, any time she hasn't slept her fourteen hours, she just goes down wherever she's standing. Once she face-plants straight into a vat of chili in the dining hall and comes up dripping.

And the snoring. God, the snoring. Her roommates finally get fed up and file a formal complaint with the dorm supervisor, which turns into a full screaming match in the hallway.

"You walk around acting all sweet and perfect, and at night you snore like a freight train! Some of us are trying to study for the SAT!"

The girl who owned this school is now the school joke. It takes less than a week.

After school one afternoon, I'm cutting through the path behind campus when Sutton steps out in front of me. Dark circles, hair everywhere, looking like she hasn't fully woken up in days.

She lunges at me, grabbing for my collar. "Tessa! What did you wish for? What did you do to me?"

Honestly, it's kind of funny. A few days ago she was untouchable, handing me candy like she was doing me some big favor. Now she can barely hold herself upright.

I step to the side and she misses completely, stumbling forward and hitting the ground hard.

"What are you even talking about?" I look down at her. "Demons? Wishes? Sutton, have you been reading too much fantasy?"

"You're lying!" Tears and snot, zero dignity. "It was you. That candy — I gave you that candy! Whatever you did, undo it. Right now."

"It was just a piece of imported candy. That's what you said." I crouch down and lower my voice. "Unless there's something about that candy you'd rather people not know about?"

She goes completely still. Her jaw tightens and she doesn't say another word.

She can't. The second she opens her mouth, everything comes out, the pact, what she was trying to do to me. So she just sits there and takes it.

"Get some help. And stay away from me."

I stand up, don't give her another look, and walk out.

Winter break comes fast.

For most seniors, it's prime time to get ahead. For me, it's something else entirely. It's the window I've been waiting for.

Seven hours of sleep locked in every night, seventeen hours left to work with. I don't waste a single one.

My schedule is brutal. Ten hours a day grinding through SAT prep and college apps, three hours of cardio and strength training. By the end of each session my clothes are soaked through and my muscles are screaming, but I don't stop. Every time I think about stopping, I see Sutton's face. I see the look Chase used to give me.

Not enough yet. Nowhere near enough.

Meanwhile, Sutton's break is a disaster.

Fourteen mandatory hours of sleep carve her day into pieces. No test prep, no seeing Chase, nothing. Kayla lets it slip in the group chat that Sutton's parents have been dragging her to therapists and neurologists. Nobody can find anything wrong with her.

Move-in day before spring semester, I walk back onto campus.

A full break of that kind of work shows. I'm still heavy, but something has shifted. The weight that used to feel loose and soft has tightened up. My skin has color in it again. I feel like I'm actually living in my body for the first time in years.

I'm passing the bulletin board when I hear Kayla running her mouth to a group of girls nearby.

"Did you hear? They announced the student speaker for the welcome ceremony. It's Sutton."

"But she's been such a mess lately. Can she even pull it off?"

"Of course she can. She's Sutton. Plus Chase went to the student council president himself and got Tessa bumped."

I stop walking.

That speaker spot was mine. I earned it last semester by placing first in the school speech competition. Chase pulled strings to hand it to Sutton, just to make her happy.

"Like Tessa could ever stand up there anyway," Kayla says, laughing. "Chase said if she got on that stage, she'd fall right through it."

I don't bother responding. I just turn and walk toward the equipment room.

So that's how you want to play it, Sutton. You want to stand in front of the whole school and soak it all in.

I close my eyes and call the name.

"Erelius. I'm ready for my second wish."

He materializes in the air, practically vibrating with excitement. "Oh? Already? What are we doing this time?"

I open my eyes.

"I want my weight at exactly one hundred and twenty pounds. Right now."