sophie.

Chapter 8

"I'll need to seek professional help after tonight, you now that, Soph?" Sawyer joked. I had convinced him to give me a ride there, but not without promising him full disclosure on the ordeal. And you're right to assume that I wouldn't give that up without feeling very anxious -- but Sawyer already knew about the doppelganger, or at least, what he considered was only the theory of the doppelganger, and with the evidence that I carried with me, I'd prove that theory true. With a possible existential crisis or something like that along the way, but mainly I was just happy that I was right for once. Sawyer had a tendency to rub it in my face whenever it was the other way around.

"Shut up, you know you're having fun," I responded, smiling. The periodic lights aside the highway were lighting up and dimming our faces when we sped past, giving a sort of heartbeat to the drive, and it made me calm. Breath in, breath out, I thought. But by the way things were headed, I got the sense that Sawyer would bring up the "question of all questions" soon, and whether he was willing to accept my answer was something I had yet to figure out. I mean, it's not like I didn't consider just blatantly lying to him: telling him the whole thing with the doppelganger was a hit-and-miss. And it's not like I didn't consider alternate means of transport, like a bus or a taxi, either; it was the fact that Sawyer was the only person who was still on my team, whether wholeheartedly or no, that I knew I had to tell him the truth. I knew we had our problems in those past few days, but I was willing to overlook them and focus on the fact that he was all I had.

The question came up after a heavy beat of silence.

"So what's going on, Sophie?" he asked, watching the road. I looked over at him, and suddenly the whole ordeal about me being right faded away. I was more nervous than anything else because, just like my dad, I felt as if Sawyer was getting tired of me. Call it irrational, but I started to get the sense that I was just some heavy burden that everyone had to carry. And something inside of me knew that that was wrong; that my perception of Sawyer was wrong, and that the perception I had of myself was wrong. That had to be changed.

"Adrien's doppelganger isn't... well, a doppelganger. They're the same man," I started.

"Sophie-" Sawyer tried to cut off, but I wasn't going to deal with any of it. I was going to tell him, and he was going to believe me, and that was final.

"Sawyer, trust me," I said, taking a moment to watch him. I wanted him to believe me so bad. He looked away from the empty highway in front of him and met my gaze. I swallowed hard. "Sawyer, please." There was another beat of silence as he focused back on the road.

"Go on," he said.

"When you escaped from Adrien's house earlier, I hid in his closet and found this note hanging from the back of the door," I said, and read for him the entirety of the letter, not sparing any of the details. It took more strain to do so than I cared to realize, what with how it was a fairly personal note, but when I was finished, I huffed triumphantly and dropped my hands to my lap. Yet the silence that followed made me anxious; and while I wanted to see how Sawyer was reacting, I didn't want to make eye contact if he had found an obvious loophole that I failed to notice.

"I don't know what to say," he responded. Taking that as acceptance, I cleared my throat.

"Well, you don't have to say anything. I got another note from him to go this address, and you're being a good friend and taking me there," I said, trying to finish on a lighter note. But I distinctly felt like I was trying to quiet him, and maybe myself, too. I was just needing time to think, to calm down, and maybe that was what Sawyer needed, too. We eventually got close to our destination.

"It's this road," I said, pointing ahead to an empty intersection. We were in Lincoln, but from what I could tell, it wasn't the good side of town. The lights were flickering from low maintenance, and I could almost hear the sound of metal bending, as if the whole area was slowly collapsing in on itself. Sawyer pulled up to the intersection, but didn't immediately take the right turn.