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  “Why are you always snapping at me lately?” she asked quietly, but angrily. “I’m so sick of it.”

  “Yeah? Well I’m sick of you being on me about this!” I shot back. “All you do is nag, nag, nag.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I’m serious! It’s like you can’t wait for this year to be over,” I bit out, staring into my locker. Taped inside the door was a big blue #11 that she’d made for me last season, her first year as my booster. What I wouldn’t give to be back there. To be a junior again. When none of this mattered.

  “Well, yeah. I mean . . . it’s college. Who can wait for college? We’re going to be on our own. We get to do whatever we want—”

  I looked at her, my eyes flashing. “Yeah. Everything except be together.”

  I reached out and slammed my locker, but it was too hard and it ricocheted open again, so I had to slam it twice. It still didn’t close, and Claudia flinched.

  “It’s like you just can’t wait to move on and put me in the rearview. Maybe it’s me you’re sick of,” I spat, yanking my backpack straps over my shoulders.

  Claudia glanced around. A few random packs of people were watching us and trying to look like they weren’t. I felt like such an asshole, and such a dork, and such a whipped loser. Yelling at my girlfriend in public about her not liking me enough? Was this how low I’d sunk?

  “What?” she said shakily. “Peter. Come on.”

  I glared down at her, my chest heaving angrily even as a tiny part of me withered and died. I didn’t hear her denying it. She wasn’t denying it.

  “Whatever,” I said. “If you’re so psyched about starting your life without me, maybe we should just start right now.”

  What are you doing? a tiny voice in my head screamed. What the hell are you doing?

  Claudia’s face paled, then suddenly reddened. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  Take it back! Take it back!

  But I couldn’t. It was like I’d chucked a Hail Mary as hard as I could into the air and was powerless to stop it. I had to stand back and watch it fall.

  And I was so angry. I’d never felt so angry. I just wanted time to stop, but it wouldn’t. It just kept going and going and going. I had no control over anything anymore, and it totally pissed me off.

  “Why not? It was going to happen anyway, right? Now you can go hang out with Lance as much as you want and practice for your big audition,” I blurted. “Princeton calls!”

  “That is so not fair,” she said through her teeth. “You know there’s nothing going on with me and Lance.”

  “Yeah. Not yet, maybe,” I said. “But you can’t tell me you don’t think about it—what it would be like to go out with a guy like him. Somebody with a brain, somebody who likes the same things you do, somebody with a future.”

  “You could have a future!” Claudia shouted, holding the stack of brochures up. “You just don’t want to be bothered. You’re so pathetic sometimes, Peter. For the great big football star, sometimes I swear you’re like some scared little boy.”

  And there it was. What she really thought of me. Pathetic. She thought I was pathetic.

  A few freshmen laughed into their hands, and my face burned. She shoved the stack of brochures at me but stood her ground, lifting her tiny chin, which, I noticed with a pang, was quivering awfully. At that point, though, I was too pissed off and humiliated to care. If that was what she really thought of me, then maybe I was doing the right thing.

  I took the brochures and threw them into the bottom of my locker with a clang. This time when I slammed the door, I made sure it stayed shut.

  “Well, I know one thing for sure,” I said. “My pathetic future is not with you.”

  As she crumbled into tears, I turned around and speed-walked toward the gym.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Claudia

  What just happened? What just happened?

  I couldn’t breathe. I could barely see. Everything was a blur. The blue-and-white locker doors. The shred of paper on the floor. The yellowing caulk around the windows. I tipped my face up and tried to stop the flow of tears. The Marrott poster I’d toiled over yesterday afternoon glinted in the sun, mocking me.

  Had Peter really just dumped me? Had he just called me a nag, accused me of liking someone else, said I couldn’t wait to get away from him?

  Had I just called the guy I loved pathetic?

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. This couldn’t be happening.

  My hands shook. Slowly my gaze traveled along the faces around me. Most of them turned away as my eyes met theirs, as if that could make them invisible, erase the fact that my humiliation had come with an audience. The pulse in my wrists fluttered like the wings on a dying bird. Dying. I was dying. I was going to die. I wiped my face, then turned and slowly walked through the library entrance across the hall and over to the table where my chemistry notes were laid out neatly, ready to be organized into a lab report.

  Are you breaking up with me? my tremulous voice repeated in my head.

  Why not? he blurted in reply. Why not? Why not? Why not?

  It was like I didn’t matter to him one bit. Like breaking up with me was nothing. Did he really think I wanted someone else? Someone like Lance? Did he think that I thought I was too good for him?

  “No.”

  I said the word so loudly I startled a girl reading a romance novel near the windows.

  “Sorry,” I said, shoving everything haphazardly into my leather backpack. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and I felt snot forming inside my nose. I took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. I had to get out of there. Now. My knees shaking beneath me as if I’d just done five hundred first-position deep pliés at the barre, I somehow made it out the door.

  There had to be some kind of mistake. Peter wouldn’t just break up with me out of nowhere. We were fine. We were happy. We were a perfect couple. We’d never fought in the fifteen months, three weeks, and three days we’d been together. Not once. Yes, he’d been snapping at me here and there, acting impatient, but that was different. That was a phase. Not a cause for a breakup. There had to be some kind of mistake.

  I repeated this word to myself over and over again like a mantra as I walked toward the locker rooms just outside the gym.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  Why not? Whynotwhynotwhynot?

  No.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  A twittering klatch of freshman girls stood near their lockers gossiping and messing with their hair. God, how excited they’d be when they heard that Peter Marrott was single again. I felt an ache in my heart that seemed unsurvivable, but yet, I kept walking.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  Mistake mistake mistake.

  I got to the door of the boys’ locker room. Only then did I realize I could follow Peter no farther. Inside, I heard boy laughter, the kind that normally made my heart quicken because it was just so male, so mysteriously carefree. Now I wanted to slam my hand against the door and scream. Were they laughing at me? Was he telling them he’d finally dumped the bookish bitch they couldn’t stand? I could see Lester doing a happy dance, whooping it up over my misery.

  One humiliated tear spilled down my cheek, and then my teeth clenched. No. He loved me. He might never have said it, but he did. Or at the very least, he respected me. He wouldn’t talk about me behind my back. He’d never do that. I turned and walked through the doors of the always ice-cold gymnasium, then out the back door, where the football players would eventually emerge from their locker room. The JV girls’ soccer team was gathered into a huddle with their coach under a copse of trees, and that True girl sat on one of the metal benches, watching Gavin and Orion chat by the door with Mitchell Ross.

  Well, at least if those three were out here, they weren’t laughing at me inside. Part of me wanted to walk over there and ta
lk to Gavin. To see if he knew anything about this. He and I had always gotten along pretty well, I thought. At least compared to me and Peter’s other friends. Gavin was more mature than the rest of them. More intelligent. He actually listened when I spoke. Maybe he’d have an explanation for me. Maybe he’d even talk to Peter for me.

  But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go over there and beg the best friend for information. I had my pride. I needed to talk to Peter myself. I had to explain. I didn’t think he was pathetic. Not really. I understood that he didn’t want to graduate. Leaving the world we knew behind was going to be hard for everyone, but everyone else was at least trying to figure out what came next. I just wanted him to wake up and smell the future. I didn’t want him to get left behind.

  That was what I would tell him. I would tell him that I was only doing these things because I cared about him. I just had to tell him and everything would be fine.

  The heavy metal doors of the locker room finally opened, and half a dozen guys spilled out, consumed in conversation. They were just swinging shut when Peter stopped one of them with his hand and stepped through. He saw me as soon as he emerged. I opened my mouth to say something—I had no idea what—but he brought his helmet down over his head.

  He might as well have kicked me in the gut.

  “Peter, please. Just talk to me,” I said quietly as he walked by. “You can’t just unceremoniously dump me and then bail.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “Not now.”

  “But how could you even think that I want to move on so badly? After everything I’ve—”

  He turned to look at me, but his eyes were shaded by the helmet. I could barely see them. “Claudia, don’t,” he said. “Not in front of the guys.”

  My eyes stung with tears. I was embarrassing him. Great. Could this get any worse?

  “I’m—I’m—”

  I wanted to say I was sorry, but I felt like if I tried to form the word, it was going to come out as a sob. And besides, Lester, Mitchell, Gavin, and Orion were walking up behind Peter now, and the last thing I wanted was for any of them to see me crumble.

  “What’s up, guys?” Peter said.

  They started talking about holes in the offense and how Orion was going to fill them, and I was entirely forgotten. Just like that. Fifteen months, three weeks, and three days. Like it never even happened.

  Peter did look back at me once as they walked away. At least I think he did. My eyes were a bit blurred, and I might have imagined it in my heartsick haze. I just stood there and watched them as they walked up the hill toward the football field. Until Coach Morschauser and his assistants drove by in their white golf cart. Until the girls’ soccer team loaded onto their bus for their away game. I stood there for way, way too long, just waiting. Waiting for him to come jogging down the hill and tell me he was wrong. That he couldn’t live without me. That it was some big misunderstanding.

  I waited until I finally couldn’t take my own wretchedness anymore. Then I finally turned around and bumped right into True.

  “What are you doing, you freak?” I demanded.

  Normally, I’d never talk to someone like that. But the girl was standing six inches behind me, watching my nervous breakdown like I was starring in an episode of Real Housewives. Also, I was a tad emotional at the time. Of course, being as weird as she was, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She just said, “We should talk.”

  “You’re a freak and a klepto,” I snapped, every ounce of my misery and confusion and righteous indignation now directed at her. “Why should I talk to you?”

  She smiled. I insulted her, and she smiled. “Because I can help you get him back.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  True

  “I don’t even know what happened,” Claudia said, staring down at a cup full of blue paint.

  We had set up our art project a few feet away from the rest of the boosters on the hill. Lined up on the field below us were the football players, getting ready for another play. They’d given Orion the number 22, which was fitting since there had been seven stars in his constellation and fifteen in the scorpion constellation, which had hovered next to him those many centuries. Add them up and you get twenty-two. Somewhere, Zeus was laughing.

  Zeus. I felt a shiver of fear at the mere thought of him. Had he been watching me last night when my conjuring power had returned to me? Every time I thought about that rose, I felt so anxious my vision crossed. I had to hope he had more important things going on in the universe than to notice the appearance of one tiny flower. There had to be wars, debates, famines, diseases that warranted his attention more than me.

  Telekinesis and conjuring. My powers just kept on returning. It was too bad I couldn’t use either of them to aid me in my mission. I was certain I could have found a creative way to put them both to good use. But I had to heed my father’s warning. No using powers unless absolutely necessary.

  I could deal with this whole power-growing phenomenon when I got back to Mount Olympus.

  “And of course it had to happen on a day when Lauren had a dentist appointment,” Claudia sighed.

  “Lauren?” I asked.

  “My best friend.” She idly dipped her paintbrush into the paint, then gazed at it as it dripped. “No offense, but I’d much rather be talking to her.”

  “None taken.” I leaned back on my hands as Peter yelled, “hike” and stepped back with the ball. He handed it to Orion, who ran forward and slammed into two guys the size of trucks. With a crunch, he hit the ground, but then popped right back up again and slapped hands with the boys who had leveled him.

  Wow. This whole thing was just so brutal. I kind of loved it. Orion pulled his helmet off, and his sweaty hair fell around his face as he reached for a cup of water. I suddenly started to salivate. I wanted to be with him so badly. What I wouldn’t give to lick that sweat right off his—

  “You said you could help me?” Claudia prompted.

  I shook my head to clear it. Right. It was time to focus on the task at hand. Namely, getting Claudia back together with Peter so they could realize true love. And so that Orion and I could take one step closer to freedom.

  I had noticed these two around school before. I’d seen him steer her around a backpack on the floor so she wouldn’t trip, pull out chairs for her, defend her to his friends. I’d noticed her watching him with starry eyes while he studied, oblivious to her admiring gaze, and heard her ask one of his teachers if there was anything specific she should help him focus on. They were obviously in love with each other. I had this gut feeling that what they were going through was a relationship growing pain or a misunderstanding of some sort. Something that if I could just help them move past, they would fall even more deeply in love with each other.

  If I could successfully do that, I would chalk up my second matched couple. Two down, one to go. I slapped my hands together to clear them of the grass that had stuck there.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t know. Everything was fine. I mean, everything was totally normal. I picked him up for school today and he kissed me hello, we ate lunch together as always . . . and then, out of nowhere, he dumps me.”

  “He gave you no indication of what the problem was?” I asked, trying not to be distracted by the action on the field. The guys were lining up again, and this time Orion was right behind Peter.

  Claudia gave me this look like it pained her to say what she was about to say.

  “He said all I do anymore is nag him.” Her eyes fluttered shut, and I could practically feel her nausea. “Like it’s so awful that I help him with his homework and I’m there for him when he needs me? That I want him to get his applications done so he can have a future? He didn’t complain when I helped him get his first A in algebra last year. He took me out for ice cream.”

  I had a feeling I knew what was going on here. I’d seen it millions of times. Guys this age often started to feel like they needed space, like they’d invested too much
in one person, like there might be something better out there. It was testosterone taking over, the need to spread the seed. Males were so primal.

  Claudia’s gaze flicked to the football field, watching Peter as he dropped back to throw. “I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I assured her. “He’s just being a guy. This is fixable.”

  But she kept staring into space as if she hadn’t heard me. “When I asked him if he was breaking up with me, he said, ‘Why not?’ ” she added, reaching up to touch a ring that hung from a chain around her neck. “Like it was no big deal. Was being with me really such torture?”

  I glanced at Orion again, the word “torture” inextricably linked with him in my mind. At least he was happy right now, if oblivious to who he really was, running around down there with his new buddies. Little did he know that Artemis could suddenly plop down in front of me at any moment, slit my throat, and drag him back to Etna, where she could hide him among the volcanoes and ash, and I’d never find him.

  Out of nowhere, Claudia’s eyes widened.

  “What? What is it?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder, half expecting to spot a leather-clad Artemis and Apollo flying at me in slow motion, their eyes wild, their teeth bared. Instead I saw that Wallace kid bent over his electronic pad thing, playing some kind of game.

  What I wouldn’t give to have my bow and arrows back. Not the gold-tipped arrows, of course, since they only breed love, but the leaden ones, which could breed hatred or cause death, depending on my will. I’d even take silver-tipped hunting arrows. Iron. Stone. Anything I could use to defend myself against a possible attack. If my powers were slowly returning to me, would my bow and arrows eventually appear in my room?

  “His ring,” Claudia said, lifting it slightly from her chest. “He didn’t ask for his ring back. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

  I reached up and touched the silver arrow—Orion’s silver arrow—that always hung from my neck.