Something True

by Kieran Scott

  Darla had broken up with me, and True had completely ditched me. And to top it all off, last night I’d had the worst night’s sleep imaginable. I kept falling into these horrifying, vivid dreams about wars and famines and genocides, as if I was actually there. Every time I woke up in a panicked sweat, I figured that had to be it—it had to be the last one—but then I’d fall back to sleep again and something even worse would play out inside my mind. The whole thing was so effed up that by four a.m. I’d decided I was done. I’d gone down to the kitchen and started chugging coffee so that I wouldn’t pass out again.

  Now that decision was coming back to haunt me. As I shuffled toward my car after school with happy, cheering, borderline-crazy kids streaming past me, I was crashing so hard I could barely see straight. I needed to get home and nap or there was no way I was going to be able to play tonight.

  I clicked the button to unlock the doors and dropped the keys on my foot. They bounced off and landed two feet under the car.

  “Crap.”

  I hit my knees and strained my shoulder to grab them. When I looked up again, a shadow had crossed over the sun. I froze when I saw who it was.

  “Hello, Orion.”

  Her cool voice sent a chill right through me. It was that girl again—the one from True’s old gang or whatever it was. She was looking at me like I was a steak and she was a starving tiger.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” I asked, backing up a step. “Where’s your sidekick?”

  “He’s not here,” she said. “I came alone. I just couldn’t stay away anymore.”

  “Why? What do you want with me?” I glanced past her toward the school, hoping one of the security guards would spot us. “If you think you can get through me to True, you can’t. We’re not even friends,” I said bitterly.

  “I don’t care about her.” She took a step closer to me.

  “I care about you.”

  The tiny hairs on my arms stood on end. Suddenly I was wide-awake. Adrenaline, I guess. Girl was starting to freak me out again.

  “Why? What the hell is going on?”

  “I know you don’t remember me, Orion, but you will. You and I . . . we were in love once.”

  I laughed harshly. “Now I know you’re crazy. I don’t even know your name.”

  She lowered her chin, giving me a patient sort of look. A cold breeze tugged her brown curls away from her face.

  “I am Artemis,” she said. “You do know me. You know things about me that would make a mortal girl blush.”

  I swallowed hard. What was I supposed to do here? How was I supposed to make her go away? Clearly she was unstable, so the best thing to do, probably, was get the hell out of there.

  “I have to go,” I said, yanking open the car door. “I have to get home.”

  She put her hand on my arm and held me. She was freakishly strong.

  “Tomorrow night you will be asked to make a choice,” she said, leaning in so close I could smell the lilac scent of her hair. “All I ask is that you remember what we had. That you think back to those days. It was a long time ago, but you were mine and I was yours and oh, how we loved.”

  “Okay, back off,” I spat, swatting her arm away. I dropped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door, relieved that she didn’t put her hand between it and the car. I started the engine and rolled the window down. She hadn’t moved an inch. “Next time I see you or your psychotic brother, I’m calling the police.”

  Artemis smirked and stood back while I revved the engine. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  I slammed the car into reverse and peeled out. My heart banged around inside my chest as I raced off, trying as hard as I could to focus on driving, even as I checked the rearview mirror over and over again.

  This day could not have been any weirder, but at least I had one thing going for me. There was no way it could get worse.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Darla

  Take it all in, Darla, I said to myself as I stood next to the white, old-school Chevy convertible Orion and I were supposed to ride in during halftime. This is it. This is your homecoming.

  I breathed in and out, kneading my hands in their elbow-length black gloves. The cars were parked along the visitor’s side of the track, the elderly drivers standing in a klatch nearby, talking and occasionally laughing as one. Usually the stands emptied out at halftime, but the bleachers across the field were jammed with students and parents and teachers. We were waiting for the guys from the football team who were also on homecoming court to get cleaned up and come back out. Once they got here, we’d have the processional around the track, after which each of us would be presented with our prince and princess crowns—the ones we’d wear to the dance tomorrow night, hoping to have them replaced by the king or queen crown. My smile was so wide my lips hurt. I still couldn’t believe I was here. It was actually happening. The whole scene was like something out of a movie, and I was one of the stars.

  Yes, it would have been nice if I hadn’t just broken up with the guy I was going to be riding the track with, but it had to be done. My heart wasn’t in it, and I was pretty sure his wasn’t either. A few weeks ago all that mattered to me was having the hot guy at my side, showing that image of me to the world. But things had changed. I couldn’t just be with a guy because he was going to look good in my homecoming pictures. I refused to be that shallow. It wasn’t me. Not anymore.

  “Hey there.”

  Wallace walked up behind me so silently, I didn’t hear him until his finger came down on my bare shoulder. I whirled around, hand to heart. He was wearing a blue LCHS T-shirt with a black vest over it, along with a pair of rolled jeans and black lace-up shoes. His arms were held behind his back in a way that made it blatantly obvious he was hiding something back there. Knowing him, it was his iPad with some new poll numbers on it. There was fresh writing on his left arm, but I couldn’t tell what it said.

  “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “I thought you were going to wear the blue dress,” he said, looking me up and down in a neutral way. “Wasn’t there a whole be-true-to-yourself theme to your speech?”

  “Yes, but I realized that part of being true to myself was being a good friend.” I smoothed the front of the green dress and smiled. “Let Veronica wear the blue and have her moment. I’m good.”

  Wallace smiled in a lopsided way. “You really are an original.”

  “Thanks,” I said, grinning. “And don’t you think the accessories sort of draw your eye away from the color?”

  I raised one gloved arm, then the other, and touched the massive rhinestone-and-pearl necklace I’d borrowed from my mother’s collection.

  Wallace laughed. “Absolutely. So listen, there’s a rumor going around that you broke up with Orion.”

  “I did,” I said. “It just wasn’t working anymore. Also, I kind of kissed this other guy.”

  “Did you?” Wallace played along. “Was he a cool guy?”

  “Beyond cool,” I said with a laugh.

  “So . . . what would you say if this beyond-cool guy asked you to homecoming?” Wallace drew his arms out from behind his back and presented me with a gorgeous bouquet of white roses. My breath caught at the sight of them. His iPad was nowhere in sight.

  “Wallace, I—”

  “Her answer is no.”

  Veronica stood near the front grille of my homecoming car, wearing the red bombshell dress she had originally picked out. Her hair was slicked back from her face into a severe bun, and her lipstick matched the shade of her dress perfectly. No male in a fifty-mile radius was going to be capable of looking at anything other than her.

  “I thought you were wearing the blue,” I said.

  Veronica sauntered around the car and came to stand next to me, swinging her little black bag on its rhinestone strap.

  “Like I was goin
g to take the chance we’d look like twins up there.” Veronica sniffed. “You know me better than that.”

  Wallace and I exchanged a look. When it came to sabotage, the girl really was brilliant.

  “As for your question, Wall-E,” Veronica said, turning to him. “The answer is no. Darla will be going to homecoming with Orion. But kudos to you for shooting so high on the food chain.”

  “God, Veronica! Do you have to be so rude?” I blurted. It just came out of me, and I wasn’t even scared. While she was momentarily stunned into silence, I smiled at Wallace. “I would love to go to homecoming with you.”

  “Have you completely lost your mind?” Veronica demanded. “You can’t do that! Don’t you get it? Whatever minuscule chance you had of winning this thing will be obliterated with him as your date.”

  “So? What do you care?” I said, arching one eyebrow. “You’ll have a better chance of winning.”

  Veronica laughed a wry, nasty laugh. “Okay, fine. I didn’t want to say this, but you leave me no choice.”

  At that moment, the homecoming princes from the football team crested the hill. They wore their uniforms but had taken out the padding, and none of them looked very happy. Orion was staring at the ground. He hadn’t played that well in the first half. In fact, he’d lost yards four times and fumbled the ball away once. Josh saw us and whacked Orion with the back of his hand.

  “I forgave your little breakdown at the mall the other day as some kind of PMS glitch, but this is not going to happen.” She waggled her finger between me and Wallace. “You think you’re so brilliant? Then do the math. If you go out with a dork, that makes you a dork.”

  My teeth clenched. “I think you need to check your work on that one, Veronica, because I’ve been hanging out with you for the last four years, but somehow, I haven’t morphed into a total bitch.”

  Wallace laughed. Veronica’s jaw dropped. Orion, who had just arrived with Josh, covered his mouth with his fist, but I saw the smile he was trying to hide.

  “Veronica,” Josh said, coming up behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

  But Veronica was still focused on me. “How dare you—”

  “You want to know how I dare?” I asked, my heart pounding like I was about to drive myself off a cliff. And maybe I was, but at the moment I didn’t care. “I dare because I couldn’t care less whether you want to be friends with me anymore. I’ve spent the last four years of my life doing everything you wanted, wearing what you told me to wear, liking what you liked, being where you wanted to be. And lately all you’ve done is treat me like crap. But you want to know who’s never treated me like crap? Him!”

  I pointed behind me at Wallace.

  “So yes, I’m going to choose him over you,” I told her, looking her up and down. I reached up under my mother’s big necklace and yanked at the diamond D she’d given me last year. The thin chain broke easily, and I handed it back to her. The tiny diamonds sparkled under the field lights.

  “What? What are you—” Veronica sputtered.

  I pointed at the necklace in her palm with my gloved index finger. “It’s a D,” I said. “For dumped.”

  Wallace turned away, trying not to laugh in her face. Even after everything she’d done to him, and to me, and to half the student population, he managed to be discreet. Orion, however, didn’t have such control. He was still chuckling when he came around the car to open the door for me.

  “Your chariot, princess,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  As Orion popped the door closed, I settled in atop the backseat like so many homecoming princesses had done before me, shaking with relief and glee and adrenaline. I only hoped that some of those princesses had felt as good as I felt right then. Wallace walked over and handed me my roses, which I cradled in the crook of my arm.

  “Meet up at the Snack Shack for a milkshake later?” I asked.

  Wallace pushed his hands into his pockets, and I could see what was written up his arm. Darla Shayne in big curly letters. He smiled when he saw I’d noticed.

  “I am so there.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Orion

  Sitting in the back of that car, I did everything I was supposed to do. I waved at the crowd, I tried to look happy. But when the slow-moving vehicles passed under the blindingly lit scoreboard, I felt like total crap. We were losing 17–10, and it was partially my fault. No. Totally my fault. I had fumbled away the ball that the Orchard Hill High cornerback had picked up, which had eventually led to the touchdown that had put them ahead. I was a complete loser.

  If only I had slept last night. If only I had been able to nap this afternoon. But like that was ever going to happen after that freak friend of True’s had practically accosted me for the second time. To be honest, though, when I’d gone into my room and downed the blinds and lain on my bed, it wasn’t her and her crazytown delusional comments that were playing in my mind. The only thing I could think about was True.

  She liked me. I was sure of it. Forget everything she’d said in the last few days. When I thought about that kiss, I knew how she felt about me. The way she’d clung to me so tightly, the way her lips had searched mine, the way she’d said my name.

  Orion. My Orion.

  She liked me. Maybe even more than liked. So why did she keep pushing me away?

  The caravan inched past the home stands. The crowd was going crazy for us, like we’d just come home from a war or something. The sustained cheering was honestly kind of hard to believe. Who the hell was I? I’d just moved here. I was losing the game for them. So why were they shouting my name? It made no sense. Maybe everything that I thought mattered was totally stupid. Maybe high school was totally stupid.

  And then I saw her. I saw True. She was standing in the ­middle of the booster section on the bottom bleacher, and she wasn’t cheering. She had her hands clasped under her chin, and she was watching me. Only me. When her eyes caught mine, she looked away for half a second, but then she looked back. We were moving by her, but I kept staring at her. I craned my neck so I could keep staring at her. And then, when it became impossible for me to twist any farther, I heard a voice in my mind. Not True’s or Darla’s or even my own. It was, weirdly, Artemis’s.

  You will be asked to make a choice, she said.

  And just like that, I did. I flung my legs over the side of the car and jumped down. A few people gasped, but the driver kept on driving.

  “Orion!” Darla shouted. “What’re you doing?”

  I jogged for the stands. My heart throbbed inside me, growing bigger with each beat. This was nuts. I knew it was. But it had to be done. It had to be. I would never stop thinking about her until I knew for sure.

  Up the stairs I went, taking them two at a time. A few stunned people stood in my way and I turned sideways, sliding past them, taking a pom-pom to the face and almost tripping over someone’s megaphone. As I got closer to True, she looked over her shoulder in a gesture I was starting to expect—True searching for a way out. But this time, I wasn’t going to give her one.

  I stepped right up to her, put one arm around her waist and the other hand around her neck, and kissed her.

  “What the hell?” some guy said.

  “Aw! That’s so romantic!” a girl cooed.

  For a second True went stiff, and I had this awful, sinking feeling that I was about to be kicked to the curb. But then, out of nowhere, she relaxed. She relaxed and her hands traveled up my sides and around my back. Thank God we’d taken our pads off to ride in the processional or she never would have been able to hold me as close as she did.

  This was it. This was where I was supposed to be. As much fun as Darla and I had, I hated myself for wasting so much time with her. Time I could have spent here, with True, where I belonged.

  Then, a voice called out over the loudspeaker.

  “And now,
your homecoming court will step up to receive their crowns!”

  True pulled away from me. “You’d better go.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, breathless.

  “No. You should go. Get your crown, Mr. Popular Homecoming Prince.”

  I laughed. “I’ll go, but only if you say you’ll go to the dance with me.”

  “Say yes!” Lauren Codry prompted from behind True. “Say yes!”

  True glanced around uncertainly. Then her eyes trailed up to meet mine, and she smiled. “Oh, what the hell?”

  Smiling from ear to ear, I kissed her one more time, then jogged across the field to the makeshift stage to receive my crown. On my way, I glanced one more time at the scoreboard, but now the numbers didn’t bother me.

  I had a feeling the second half was going to be a whole new ball game.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  True

  It was past midnight when I snuck out the back door of the house with my bow and arrows, the night so eerily still I could have been at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Ducking as best I could while loaded down with weaponry, I shoved through the back gate and raced toward the thickly wooded park at the far south end of town, keeping close to the hedges that lined the streets and crouching behind parked cars to avoid the few headlights that passed by. Once inside the tree line, I finally dared to look around. The jogging path was still, the park deserted. I was completely alone.

  I walked until I found a clearing with a nice, fat oak tree near its perimeter. Then I took twenty paces back and loaded an arrow onto the bridge of my bow. A giddy bubble burbled up inside my throat as I pulled back and aimed. Holding my bow—the bow I’d wielded for countless millennia—I felt like a mother being reunited with a long-lost child. I couldn’t have been more at peace, more content, more fulfilled. But then I remembered the reason I needed this weapon in the first place, and the giddiness died.