Complete Nothing (8 page)

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 talk 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.”

“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.

“It means he doesn’t know what he wants,” I said, trying to keep the acidity out of my voice. “It means you still have a chance.”

Her expression brightened, and she dropped the paintbrush onto a stack of paper towels. “So? What do I do? How do I get him back?”

Down on the field a whistle blew, long and shrill. A group of girls had gathered near the table full of water and sports drinks, and Orion noticed them as he pulled off his helmet. He and a few other guys jogged over to talk to them and I watched, frozen in horror, as Darla Shayne looked Orion,
my
Orion, up and down like he was a horse at the auction.

Envy surged through me and I felt not green, but white hot with rage. That was my man. Mine. She had no right to look at him like that.

“Hello?” Claudia said. “True?”

I snapped back to the now, and suddenly my skin tingled. Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

“Make him jealous,” I mused.

“What?”

I sat up a bit straighter as a cloud passed over the sun. “You have to make him jealous.” It was the oldest trick in the book. If this guy was as primal as he seemed, he’d fall for the envy thing in seconds. “Guys always want what they can’t have. Especially when they know what they’re missing.”

“So I . . . what? Flirt with other guys in front of him?” she asked.

“No, no, no,” I replied. “That’s for amateurs. You have to date someone else. Make it seem as if you’ve moved on entirely. That you have with this new person exactly what you had with him.”

Claudia squirmed in her seat. She touched the ring again. My heart went out to the girl. The love of her life had just broken up with her. I was sure the very idea of being with someone new made her uneasy. But sometimes we had to do unpleasant things in the name of love.

“Like who?” she asked quietly. “I’m not interested in anyone at school. And besides, everyone looks up to Peter. They’d probably stay away from me out of respect or something.”

“People do that?” I asked.

“Yep. Lauren couldn’t get a date for, like, a year after she broke up with her boyfriend Todd. You know, Todd Ivanovic? The captain of the swim team?” I stared at her blankly. “Anyway, she finally got Chase Varone to tell her what was up, and
he
said that everyone still thought of her as Todd’s girl even though Todd had totally been hooking up with a different girl, like, every weekend since she dumped him. So unfair.”

“Brutally,” I replied. “Well then, if none of the guys at your school will go out with you, we’ll just have to go elsewhere.”

I ducked my head as I walked past Coach. He was going over something with one of the assistants, poking at his iPad. I hoped to God he wouldn’t notice me. I couldn’t take a lecture right now. More than anything, I wanted to be home in front of the TV with a Big Mac and a monster soda. Actually, I wanted to be anywhere but here.

I still couldn’t believe I’d broken up with Claudia. I pictured her crushed expression and my stomach clenched. Just like it had out on the field right before I’d thrown that interception. And right before I’d gotten sacked the first time. And the second. And the third.

Humiliating. The whole practice had been humiliating.

“Marrott! Where do you think you’re going?”

I stopped and my head hung lower.

“Get your ass over here!”

I trudged up to him. Gavin, Mitchell, and Lester watched us from the bleachers, drinking their water. Great. An audience. This should be fun.

“What the hell was with you today?” Coach demanded, spit
gathering at the corners of his dry lips. “You looked like a freshman novice out there.”

“Sorry, Coach,” I said.

“Sorry? Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell me it won’t happen again. Because we have our opening game against our biggest rivals this weekend, and we got scouts coming. Now is not the time to lose it.”

“I know,” I said quietly.