Annabeth Neverending (3 page)

I set aside the empty bottle and snap open the jewelry box. I size up the pendant. It sure doesn’t look like it has any special powers. After all, it’s just a hunk of metal. But can it bring back ancient Egypt? Can it bring back Sethe?

Maybe he’s calling out to me? The ankh certainly is. I feel it rumbling. It’s insisting that I touch it, and its pull is growing harder to refuse. My fingers slowly inch in its direction. Tentatively, hesitantly. At this point, I’m not sure I can help it. Not that I’d stop, even if I could. It’s compelling me. A power beyond my control. And soon, I’ll have its silky smoothness within my fingertips…

3

“W
hat are you doing?” asks Howie, incredulous.

I think fast, maneuvering the beer bottle so I’m sitting on top of it.

Even though he’s only twelve, my “little” brother towers over me. Bernadette can take hers in a wrestling match, but I’ll never know that pleasure. No doubt the behemoth is wondering why I’m about to poke at some strange pendant on a chain.

“Nothing. Last time I checked, this was my room. Why are you in here anyway?”

“Uh…no reason,” he responds abruptly.

So he’s guilty of his own transgression. I’m convinced that Howie regularly sneaks into my room and rifles through my stuff. Everything is slightly out of place when I get home after an extended period of time. I rarely have anything damning in here. But the one time I’ve got the evidence on me to prove I committed a
crime
, he walks right in. Good thing the bottle escaped his notice.

Howie tries to get a better peek at my jewelry, but I don’t want him taking the tiniest look. He knows too much already.

My frustration gnaws at me. I desperately wanted to hold the ankh. But maybe Howie did me a service by bursting in. He probably got here at the right moment, preventing me from exercising some especially poor judgment. I would’ve made myself completely vulnerable to it had I been alone. On second thought, I should thank him. But I won’t.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” I ask, slipping into antagonized
-
big
-
sister mode.

“Yes, now that you mention it,” says Howie as he stomps out of my room in his heavy
-
footed way.

That moment, the one where the ankh was drawing me in, is lost. And I’m not taking any chances. I got the wake
-
up call I needed. I pull out a brass key and lock the little box tight in my chest. Now that the ankh is out of sight, it’s out of mind.

I can only hope.

I arrive at practice seconds before it starts and adjust the waistband on my gold
-
and
-
blue York High boxer shorts that say “pompon” on the butt. I search for the answer to a timeless question: Why do some squads spell it pom
-
pom
while others spell it pom
pon
?

Just when I think I may be close to solving the age
-
old puzzle, Sethe threatens to intervene. Though Gabriel is the one I should be dwelling on, seeing as he exists and all. But Sethe keeps worming his way into my mind. His olive skin, his full lips, his square jaw. His piercing hazel orbs that penetrate into my deepest core…But the more pressing task at hand, that of perfecting a piece of dance
-
team choreography, pushes him right out.

I take a seat next to Bernadette and commence my warm
-
up.

“Stretching feels so good,” she says, her legs splayed straight out to each side. Her arms are extended, guiding her torso down so far that she could kiss the field house’s pale wood floor. Her long, black
-
brown hair is fanned out around her, covering half of her body.

I grunt as I try to mimic her. I can feel my muscle fibers tearing under the strain. Even after some serious exertion, I’m so stiff I’m practically sitting straight up.

“That is exactly…the opposite of what I was thinking,” I reply sorrowfully.

“Do you know the choreography yet?” she asks.

I shake my head in shame.

“Why not? What could be more pressing than pompons?” Bernadette asks with a grin.

“Let’s run the routine. Get in formation!” cries Kerry, the captain.

I watch on in fear as Kerry coldly, meticulously scrutinizes us with her aqua
-
blue eyes. She forcefully moves those who are slightly askew into the correct position. Then, Captain Kerry starts the music. The pumping techno reverberates loudly through the high
-
ceilinged gym, causing the bleachers to rattle. We run through the moves to our newest halftime show. It isn’t pretty, and I’m the reason why.

I’m always a step behind. Or a step ahead. One way or another, I’m habitually out of sync with the other girls. At least I’m consistent in my inconsistency. I fear I may have some sort of dyslexia that only applies to choreography. I still don’t understand how I somehow squeaked by and landed on the team, but it was a rare stroke of luck I try not to question.

“Let’s try it again,” Kerry says with dismay, looking right at me. “We’ve got some…synchronicity issues.”

I glance at the other girls, who look irritated, though they should be used to my epic pompon disasters by now. When the time comes for the grand finale, I don’t even attempt it. I just mark the move. Kerry stops the music.

“Annabeth, can you show me your toe touch?” demands Kerry.

I squat down on the floor and try to gather as much momentum as I can. I force myself into the air, trying to propel my legs high enough and reach my fingers far enough to touch my toes. But I fall short. Very short. And land on my rear end. I can hear the soft giggles of the other girls on the squad.

“You haven’t been practicing, have you?”

This seems like a trick question. If I say no, Kerry will think that I’m not trying hard enough. But if I say yes and still can’t deliver, that makes me seem incompetent. I opt for the answer that seems the least damaging.

“Kind of.”

“You better get that down by the game. Or else we’ll replace you with the alternate. For good,” threatens Kerry.

I look over to the bench, where the alternate, a husky junior with rubber
-
band
-
covered braces, is practically drooling at the thought of permanently taking my spot.

The last thing I want to do is give Kerry an excuse to kick me off the squad. She’s a taskmaster, but I continually tell myself that it’s worth it. After all, being on the team is social capital. It gives me friends. It gives me an
identity
. I’m not on the fringes anymore, which was how I felt for so long.

“Whatever. Toe touches are easy when you’re used to spreading your legs,” whispers Bernadette mischievously.

I wonder what it would be like to have nothing to obsess over other than poms. I have plenty of other things to occupy me besides botched toe touches. Like a mysterious piece of jewelry, a vision of ancient Egypt, and two diametrically opposed hunks: one real and one imagined. Nevertheless, I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of the whole school after I just humiliated myself in front of the whole flea market. And my whole squad. Though at the moment, that scenario seems more than likely.

I lie on my bed, wracking my brain and doing my French homework. It’s proving even harder than usual to get into the
passé composé
. Isn’t the present tense enough? Can’t we just live in the now? I sit up when I hear the doorbell ring.

“Is anybody else home?” I cry, not wanting to lose my train of thought.

Hearing no answer, I groan and get up. I skip downstairs to open the front door. Gabriel is standing there, blinking his icy blues, his thumbs in his pockets. He’s wearing a grubby T
-
shirt that says “I Dig Archaeology” and some frayed cords.

“I hope you don’t mind me stopping by, but I wanted to check up on you.”

“You could’ve texted.”

“But then I couldn’t have…you know…seen you,” he says softly.

He’s too much. I need to be funny. I need to be clever. I need to be better than myself.

“Oh…” is all I can muster, the edge of my lip gearing up for action.

“I also wanted to collect my reward for saving your life,” he says with a sideways smirk.

I can feel butterflies making loop
-
the
-
loops in my stomach.

“I’m not sure you actually saved my life,” I reply with a toss of my hair.

“I thought you’d try to get out of it.”

“Of course not. I like to make good on my obligations,” I insist.

“Great. Then you won’t mind if I ask you out.”

“No.” I pause, noting Gabriel’s disappointed reaction and reveling in it. “I don’t mind, I mean. So long as you don’t mind slumming it with a high schooler.”

“Not that much,” he answers coyly.

Gabriel flashes me his pearly whites, and I respond in kind. And then the corner of my mouth starts to twitch in earnest.

Would kissing make it stop?

“Wait, Mrs. Lansing doesn’t have a rule against fraternizing, does she?” I ask, knowing full well that I’d break it if she did.

“Please. She wanted this to happen. Couldn’t you tell?” he asks.

“A little.”

I should’ve known. Mrs. Lansing isn’t just a good friend and neighbor; she’s a full
-
service employer. But does he know about my past? Would he act differently if he did?

“Look, there’s something I should tell you. I have…issues.”

“If you’re trying to scare me away, it won’t work. Besides, I’ve got my own stuff. Your problems, my problems: I’m guessing they cancel each other out.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Gabriel casually leans his weight against the doorjamb. I should probably invite him in, but I’m not ready for that. Not yet.

I cross my arms and then put them at my sides, not wanting to look like I’m on the defensive but not sure what else to do with myself. I try to seem open to his advances but not too open. The last thing I want is to come off as needy. I hope I’m sending the right cues with my body language. Though I doubt it.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to get some ice cream?” Gabriel asks.

Huh. Maybe I’m sending the right signals after all.

Even though ice cream is the last thing I want right now, because I just drank two Moxies and downed half a box of Little Debbie snack cakes, I can’t risk turning him away, just in case he realizes later that he’s completely lowering his standards, so I say, “I’d love some.”

And so we head out, with me in a state of joyous disbelief.

Gabriel drives us in circles for a while because all the seasonal ice
-
cream shops are closed in this tourist town, and we wind up in a small Formica booth at Dairy Queen. I take the paper cover off a straw and twist it around apprehensively.

“I know what you’re thinking. DQ? But don’t worry. I like to set the bar low. Manage expectations. That way, you’ll be thrilled when we go to Olive Garden. It’s a great strategy.”

“Did you use it on your girlfriend?” I ask, searching.

“If I had a girlfriend, would I be with you now?”

“That would depend on how caddish you are,” I reply curtly.

I spoon some soft serve into my mouth, even though I’m one step away from sugar shock.

“There’s nobody else. At the moment. So trust me, you do not want to miss this rare window of opportunity!”

There goes my twitch. Dammit!

“I’ll take that into consideration,” I respond.

“So what are your issues exactly? I want to hear all about them,” Gabriel says, stirring his Blizzard.

“Let’s see. There are just so many to frighten you with…I was adopted, so as you can imagine, that’s pretty complicated and has resulted in some ‘emotional development problems.’ I’m also a semichronic sleepwalker. And the star of a video
—
that caught me in the act
—
which was posted on the Internet by my dear friend, Anonymous. It made me a local celebrity. Of sorts. And not in a good way.”

“If you want me to lose interest, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“You obviously don’t watch enough YouTube.”

I pause, but Gabriel seems undeterred.

“Well, what have you got?” I counter.

“Let’s see. My mother died when I was four.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” he says sadly. “While she was slowly slipping away, my dad had an affair with my now stepmom. It’s been pretty…awkward ever since. My brother gets along with them fine. I guess he’s a more forgiving person than I am.”

“Huh. I always worry that my parents love my brother more because he’s theirs, you know, biologically.”

I’ve never felt comfortable sharing this with anyone before. Gabriel looks at me, growing thoughtful.