Something True Page 8

  Apparently word really had gotten around that Artemis and Apollo had been showing people a picture of me yesterday after school. And also that I’d thrown myself out a window to avoid them. So far no one seemed to know about Orion’s involvement in the whole thing, though, which was good. I didn’t want him to have to try to explain that I’d locked him in a closet. It wouldn’t do much for his reputation as a male, or mine as a non-weird person, which I was still trying to cultivate.

  “They get distracted easily,” I lied. “Anyway, I’m sure the school is safe, at least, with all the added security. And my mom and I have an alarm system at home.” Another lie. But maybe we should get one.

  “Okay then. Well, be safe.”

  Claudia surprised me by reaching in for a hug. I hugged her back and smiled. Physical contact was so rare around here, it was nice to share actual affection.

  “See you tomorrow?” she said when we parted.

  “Yep.” I couldn’t stop smiling as she strode back toward the gym to meet Peter. “And tell Peter I said hi.”

  “I will.”

  Peter and Claudia. A happy, beautiful couple, reunited because of me. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d figured it out, and look at them now. They not only seemed closer than ever, but were practically a lock for this homecoming king and queen insanity. And Charlie Cox and Katrina Ramos, my first couple, were going strong. Whenever I saw them together, they were holding hands or whispering in each other’s ears or sneaking kisses. Totally in love.

  I could do this. I could match another couple. I just had to stay positive. I took out my phone and texted Wallace.

  HOW WAS IT W/DARLA 2DAY?

  He texted back immediately.

  FINE. WHY?

  YOU GUYS LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE HITTING IT OFF.

  His reply said merely:

  ????

  Ugh. Maybe it was time to stop being coy about this and tell him my suspicions. If he did like her, it would make it much easier to match the two of them with him on my side.

  “Hey, True!”

  I looked up to find Charlie and his friend Brian walking past, soaking wet from cross-country practice in the rain. Charlie’s usually floppy blond hair was slicked back from his face, and Brian’s dark skin shone under the fluorescent lights.

  “Hey, guys!” I said with a smile, flipping my hair over my shoulder.

  “Are you gonna be at Goddess later?” Charlie asked, walking backward as he passed me, his sneakers making awful, wet squeaking noises with each step.

  “Not tonight. Tomorrow.”

  “Ugh! I was so looking forward to some free cupcakes,” he said with a wink.

  I laughed as I rounded the corner into the main hall, and I realized that my heart felt light and giddy. It wasn’t so bad, being a normal, human teenager. Once you had friends, once you had a purpose, once you developed a sense of style. In fact, I was starting to get comfortable in my own skin. Earth wasn’t the hell it was cracked up to be. I hooked a left and headed for the door all smiles, and then my foot was nearly crushed by a wheelchair wheel.

  “Hephaestus! Are you trying to maim me?”

  “No, actually, I’m saving your ass,” Hephaestus said, turning me away from the front of the school. There were still two security guards posted at the doors, but they were chatting about some football game and not paying much attention to the scant number of students coming from after-school activities.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The twins are out there,” Hephaestus said under his breath. “Apparently they’ve figured out they can’t get on school grounds, so they’re lurking at the deli across the street. You have to go out the back way.” He glanced down the hall at the sound of male laughter, and we both saw Orion headed toward us along with Josh Moskowitz, Trevor McKay, and Gavin Dunnellon—a wall of wet hair and varsity jackets. “And you have to get Orion to go with you.”

  So much for my normal human moment. I had to protect my amnesia-ridden boyfriend from the fallen deities looking to kidnap him and kill me. Awesome.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but just do it. I’ll get the van and meet you in the back parking lot.”

  He gave my wrist a quick squeeze before wheeling toward the exit. My skin felt hot and prickly as adrenaline began to course through my veins. I had no idea what the twins might do with Orion if they got their hands on him, but I wasn’t willing to find out. The guys were fast approaching. I grasped at the only thing I had going for me, and turned to face them with a smile.

  “Hey, guys!” I said brightly.

  “Hey, True,” Orion said as the others added their greetings. “What’s up?”

  I grabbed Orion’s arm and turned him around, steering him through the crowd of his friends back toward the gym. “I am taking you out to dinner.”

  “You are?” he asked, one hand clutching his football duffel, the other his backpack strap on his shoulder. “Why?”

  I hurried him away from his friends, out of their earshot. Luckily, none of them seemed to care in the slightest that I was dragging him away. They simply went on their merry way toward the front door. Boys. Honestly, it seemed as if nothing ever fazed them.

  “It’s a booster thing,” I told him as we passed by Lester Chen’s locker with its big, glittering #85 on the door. “It’s . . . take your player to dinner night!”

  “Really? But none of the other guys—”

  “Are you really gonna turn down a free pizza?” I interjected. “You can even get extra peppers if you want, as disgusting as it is.”

  Orion stopped walking. “How did you know I like extra peppers?”

  Oh, Hades. Just when I was so close to home free. I ran my hand over the back of my neck as my brain scrambled frantically for a response. But I’d never had pizza with Orion in this version of our life. I’d never even been in a pizza shop while he was eating when I could have overheard his order.

  “Darla!” I blurted suddenly. “Darla told me. She joined the Boosters, and so I asked her what you’d want to eat and she said pizza with extra peppers.”

  Orion looked so stunned I thought he might fall over. “Darla helped you?”

  “I know,” I said. “I was as surprised as you are.”

  “But I’m supposed to go to her house tonight. For Chinese. We had a plan.” He looked almost forlorn, which broke my heart. The thought of Darla potentially ditching him made him that sad.

  “Like you can’t have pizza now and then Chinese in a few hours. Are you not a teenage American male?” I ventured.

  Orion smiled. “Excellent point.”

  In the lobby, a door slammed. I glanced nervously over my shoulder. “So can we go?”

  “Sure,” he said finally, shrugging. “I could eat.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and shoved open the back door next to the gym. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle, and the cool autumn air felt like nirvana against my hot skin. I just hoped he didn’t say anything to Darla later about my lie. But there was nothing I could do about that now. The most important thing was that I was saving him from Artemis and Apollo. For now, anyway.

  Tomorrow was an entirely different nightmare for an entirely different time.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Darla

  “Thanks for picking me up,” I told Veronica as I slipped into the passenger seat of her black Mercedes. My hair was misted with rain, and I was shivering under my lightweight trench. “I’ll have my car back tomorrow.”

  Once every three months my mother’s mechanic showed up like clockwork to take my car into the shop for a bunch of routine maintenance. Today was that day, so our housekeeper Lisa had dropped me off this morning, but she was too busy with errands to pick me up. Orion was supposed to get a ride home with Josh, so I’d tried to find them after Boosters, but no luck. Thank God
Veronica had been done with the mall.

  “No problem. It was on my way.”

  Veronica tossed her hair over her shoulder, and I noticed the many shopping bags neatly lined up on the small backseat of her car.

  “Get anything good?” I asked as I plugged in my seat belt.

  “Eh. Slow day.”

  I almost laughed. Her slow day was another girl’s shopping spree. She hit the gas without checking a single mirror, and the car lurched away from the curb.

  “Did you get my text?” she asked.

  Snagged. I’d been hoping she’d be too busy cataloging her many purchases to remember the homecoming dress thing.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I just checked my phone before I called you for the ride.”

  “What did you think?”

  We came to a stop at the edge of the parking lot, the windshield wipers gliding lazily back and forth over the wide windshield. Across the street, half a dozen cars idled at a red light, so Veronica had to wait to make the left. She instantly began to drum on the steering wheel. Veronica hated to wait almost as much as I hated to eat alone.

  I couldn’t wait to get home, crawl into some comfy yoga pants, and order up a Chinese food feast for me and Orion. Lunch had been a skimpy salad, as always, and my stomach had growled all the way through eighth and ninth periods. Wallace had given me half a Snickers at Boosters, but I still felt semi-faint.

  “Darla? My lips are moving, right?”

  “Yeah, um . . .” What was I supposed to say about that awful dress? Was Wallace right? Was my best friend really trying to sabo­tage me? “It was—”

  “Omigod!”

  Suddenly Veronica’s hand reached out and grabbed mine. The light had turned green and cars had started to slowly move forward. Inching up right in front of us was a big black van, and sitting perfectly framed by the back window was Orion. But that wasn’t what had caused the Omigod. It was the fact that True was leaning back from the front passenger seat to talk to him, and her buddy Heath was driving.

  “What is he doing with them?” Veronica demanded as Heath gunned the engine and they drove off.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Orion had met up with True after Boosters? Why hadn’t he met up with me? “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Veronica demanded as she turned out into traffic, her jaw dropping in shock or disgust or both. “How do you not know? I know where Josh is every minute of every hour of every day.”

  “I know, but—”

  “It’s the only way you’re going to keep him in line, Darla. The only way,” Veronica warned me as we zoomed through the now yellow light. “With a guy that hot, you have to keep him on a short leash.”

  “I can’t tell him what to do,” I said, toying with the zipper on my bag as I thought about our conversation at lunch. He said he cared what I thought, but he made it pretty clear he was going to do what he wanted anyway.

  “Yes, you can! You have to!” Veronica took a blind turn way too fast and slammed on her brakes at another red light. “Look, D. Hot boys don’t transfer to LCH that often. You were lucky he showed up after the whole Charlie debacle. Orion Floros has put you on the map. Unless you want this whole homecoming thing to become one huge joke, you cannot let that girl snake him.”

  My teeth clenched. The whole Charlie debacle? Like it was somehow my fault that he’d turned on me? She was the one who’d hinted—not so subtly—that he needed a makeover. She was the one who’d practically forbidden me from going out with a band geek. And why did she make it seem like no guy was ever going to date me unless he was a transfer? I knew it had taken the guys in my grade a couple of years to forget about the Darbot the Geek I’d been before, but I’d had boyfriends in high school. Not as many as she had, but still.

  “She’s not going to snake him,” I said as calmly as possible.

  “She better not, because you know how it’s gonna feel if you’re sitting in some car during the homecoming parade with the guy who just dumped you for the freaky klepto chick with the violent streak? Not good.”

  My insides felt twisted and lumpy. If Veronica really was trying to sabotage my chances at homecoming, and she thought that Orion was the only reason I made homecoming court in the first place, then wouldn’t she want me to screw things up with him? Wouldn’t him defecting to the land of the weird with True be the greatest thing ever?

  “Can I ask you something?” I blurted.

  “What?” she asked, hitting the gas the second the light turned green.

  “Do you think I have any shot at winning homecoming queen?”

  Veronica’s laughter filled the car. It filled the town. It filled the entire universe. She laughed so hard I thought she might actually drive us off the road. My face burned, and tears welled up in my eyes. When we came to the stoplight across the street from Moe’s Diner, she finally caught her breath and glanced at me.

  “Omigod, you’re serious.”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak without my voice cracking. Instead I weakly lifted a shoulder.

  “Darla, no junior has won homecoming queen since Ruma Sen,” she said in this totally condescending voice. “And I’m sorry, but you’re . . .”

  “No Ruma Sen,” I finished for her.

  She widened her eyes like, obviously. Suddenly I found myself staring at the car door handle. I saw myself opening it and jumping out of the car. Imagined what it would feel like to slam the door on her and just walk away. She was my best friend, and I’d felt like nothing but crap since my butt hit the heated leather seat of her car.

  “Neither of us are,” she added in a kinder voice.

  Okay. Well, at least she saw us as equals. Or at least equally not in Ruma Sen’s category. I felt myself start to uncoil.

  “Are you hungry?” Veronica asked. “Wanna hit Moe’s?”

  My favorite diner was right there, bursting with the after-extracurricular crowd. “But you hate Moe’s.”

  Veronica had once said that you could gain a hundred pounds just by inhaling Moe’s grease-filled air.

  She lifted her shoulders. “I’ll get a smoothie.”

  I sighed reluctantly. I knew that if we went in, we’d probably bump into Mariah and Kenna and some of the guys, and at the moment I didn’t have the energy to be social. But then, Orion wasn’t coming over anytime soon, and being seen was important. Especially right now.

  Not that I had any chance at homecoming queen, but I wanted to at least get a few votes.

  “Okay. Sure,” I said, just as the light turned green.

  Veronica hit the gas and turned into the crowded parking lot, cutting off an oncoming car so closely I saw my life flash before my eyes. Which wasn’t pretty. It was mostly me as Darbot the Geek. Me as a loser. Orion flirting with True, having lunch with True, laughing with True.

  “What should I do?” I heard myself say meekly.

  “About what?” Veronica pulled into a space and killed the engine.

  “Orion.” I looked at Veronica and, instead of imagining what she might do, decided to ask her point-blank. “What would you do?”

  “Call him,” she said firmly. “Call him and tell him you know who he’s with. Remind him whose boyfriend he is. Put the boy in his place. Don’t be a doormat, Darla. You’re better than that.”

  I whipped out my phone and hit Orion’s speed-dial.

  “Just be cool,” Veronica whispered.

  Whatever that meant.

  “Hey, babe!” Orion answered.

  Veronica got out of the car, so I did the same, blinking against the rain. “Hey! Having fun with True?”

  “Yeah, I am, actually. Thanks for—”

  “Well, that’s great,” I said, surprised. I’d expected him to be shocked that I knew. Or at least hem and haw. “But you’re still coming over later, right? To visit your girlfriend. Who would
be me, by the way.”

  He hesitated, and I glanced uncertainly at Veronica as we headed for the front of Moe’s. Had I gone too far? She gave me an encouraging nod. No. I hadn’t.

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll be there around seven thirty. Is that cool?”

  Cool. Be cool.

  “Yep. That’s perfect. I’ll have our SYTTD marathon all cued up,” I told him.

  “Great. I’ll see you then,” he said.

  “Oh, and Orion? I think you should bring the food. And get me an extra spring roll, okay?”

  I hung up the phone and yanked open the door for Veronica.

  “That was perfect,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  I grinned, feeling so much better. Sometimes I had no clue where I’d be without Veronica Vine.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  True

  “Wallace? We need to talk.”

  I dropped my tray and sat down across from Wallace at the lunch table he’d chosen in the corner of the cafeteria, since it was, once again, storming out. I was starting to think Hera was responsible for this weather. What better way to squash burgeoning love than to douse it with a few straight days of torrential downpour and gray skies?

  “That’s ominous,” Wallace said, looking up from his iPad and popping a pretzel into his mouth. He was wearing a white T-shirt under his gray vest, and somehow the combination made his brown eyes seem deeper. Drawn up his left arm was a series of intricately detailed spaceships.

  “It doesn’t have to be, as long as you answer my next question honestly.”

  I took a no-nonsense posture, back straight, arms folded on the table. Eye contact, crucial.

  “Shoot,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Do you like Darla Shayne?” I asked him. “Like her like her, I mean.”

  Wallace froze. I think he stopped breathing. Somewhere in the cafeteria something crashed, and dozens of people laughed. Wallace didn’t flinch.

  “Wallace?”

  “Okay, yes.” He suddenly collapsed forward, his forehead hitting his iPad. “How did you know?” he asked the table.