by Kieran Scott
Every inch of my skin tingled. High school. Of course. Who longed for love more than a community of hormonal, attention-starved, drama-addicted teenagers? I needed to go to school.
For the first time, I noticed a manila folder sitting in the center of the desk. Next to it was a large hourglass hewn of ash and filled with dark red sand. It was already running, gravity releasing the sand at the top of the timer through the minuscule hole at the center, spraying the tiny red particles across the bottom of the glass. My heart thumped.
Undoubtedly, it was a gift from Zeus. But did I have this much time to complete my first pairing, or to complete all three? For the moment, I decided not to dwell on that awful question.
I opened the folder and found a smiling photograph of my own face. It was attached to a transcript from a high school in Maine called James Monroe. The transcript boasted straight As in everything but psychology, where I’d received a C. A school in Maine, where Orion and I had hidden. Only average at psychology, the study of the soul. Very funny, Zeus. But at least he’d seen fit to provide this for me. The meaning of the gesture was not lost. It was important to him, to each and every one of the gods, that love continue to thrive here on Earth. Without it, the balance of good and evil, of right and wrong, would be forever altered. Without love, all would be lost.
Of course that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t enjoy torturing Orion while I was stuck here, carrying out his little mission. Zeus was a complex god.
At the very top of the page in front of me was a space for my name and my birth date, which had been left blank. At least the king had given me that, the chance to choose my own name.
I stared out the window and considered, then picked up a pen and wrote it in. True Olympia. It would be a daily reminder of my mission—to save my true love and return myself and my mother to Mount Olympus. My birth date was, of course, February 14, and I quickly did the math, writing down a year that would make me sixteen today.
Another horn honked outside, and my head exploded along with it. I closed my eyes and brought my fingertips to my temples again. Still nothing. It wasn’t bad enough that I was stuck on the mortal plane without my powers and with a seemingly impossible mission, but I had to be in debilitating pain as well? Talk about adding injury to insult. But it was nothing. Nothing compared to what Orion was going through. It was time for this goddess to suck it up.
I took a deep breath, walked back into the closet, and readied myself for my first day as a mortal.
CHAPTER TWO
Katrina
It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be great. But you’re going to have to actually get out of the car.
“What did you just say?” Ty asked as he put his vintage Firebird in park at the curb in front of Lake Carmody High.
I blushed. One strand on the fringe at the end of my gauzy scarf was wrapped so tightly around my finger, the tip was turning white. I quickly unwound it. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize I said anything out—”
“Ugh. Did you forget the sugar?”
My mouth snapped shut. Ty Donahue, my very own tall, dark, handsome—not to mention older, employed, license-having—boyfriend was digging through the brown paper bag from 7-Eleven like a bear pawing at a picnic basket. The large coffee I’d bought him at our morning pit stop was wedged between his legs on the driver’s seat, his pride-and-joy roadster having been built in a time before cup holders.
“No. It’s in there somewhere,” I said.
“No, Katrina, it’s not.”
I swallowed hard. There was nothing I hated more than when he used my name like that. Like I was some stupid kid, when he was only three years older than me. And if I’d forgotten to grab sugar on the way out the door of the convenience store, it was only because I was so nervous this morning, not because I was callously trying to deprive him of sweetener or something. I opened the glove compartment and dug through it until I found four crumpled, but full, sugar packets from Dunkin’ Donuts and slapped them into his hand.
“Thanks,” he grumbled, shaking the packets before ripping them open.
“Why are you in such a bad mood?” I asked quietly, letting the dark waves of my hair fall forward as I picked at a dried stain on my vinyl backpack. “It’s my first day of school.”
“So what? It’s school.” He dumped the sugar into the steaming coffee. “Hang out with your friends, torture a few teachers, and I’ll be here to pick you up before you know it. You going home tonight or are we hanging at my place?”
“Your place. My mom worked the night shift, so she’ll be sleeping.”
My mom had left a note on Friday asking me—no, ordering me—to go to the grocery store to get the basics, but I hadn’t done it yet, having spent the whole weekend at Ty’s. But what did it matter if she was going to be sleeping and I wouldn’t be there?
I looked out at Lake Carmody High, the red brick walls and multipaned windows glaring judgingly back at me. Sophomore year had sucked, plain and simple. After breezing through freshman year with my head buried in my books and a string of straight-A report cards, I’d been bumped from three honors courses to five as a sophomore and had suffered through the summer as the only person I knew who was looking forward to going back to school. Not that I knew that many people. My best friend Raine Santos was pretty much my only friend and had been since we’d bonded in kindergarten over our similar last names and the fact that we were both obsessed with Minnie Mouse. But unlike her, I liked learning. I liked figuring things out. And I lived for the huge grin that would break out on my father’s face whenever I brought home an A test or paper.
But then, one icy day in January, my dad had gone to work with a wave and a smile as always and had never returned. One slip of his tires and he was gone. Forever. The rest of the year was a blur, and my grades? Let’s just say if my father had seen them, he never would have believed they were mine. After my epic fail, I’d been demoted to the regular college-prep-level classes this year, which for me was weird. It made me feel like a loser, and like I’d disappointed my father. Not that I’d ever tell anyone that.
At least I had a few classes with Raine now. I was doing my best to look on the bright side.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, my eyes finding the window of the school shrink’s office—the room I hated more than any other room in the school. That was where they’d brought me the day my father had died—where they’d carefully delivered the news. That was where I’d seen my mom break down into convulsions on the floor. My tough, impassive mother. Broken. And she’d been broken ever since.
Before my father died, my mom had always been strict. She had always held me to the highest standards. But she had also shown me she loved me in a million different ways, like hiding encouraging notes in my lunch box, attending my academic decathlon meets in middle school—even if it meant finding someone to take her shift at the hospital—or taking me out for a special breakfast once a month, just the girls. Since my dad died? Nothing. It was like she couldn’t even look me in the eye anymore, and I hadn’t once seen her smile. Not once. Obviously I had let her down with my grades last year. Obviously I’d become a huge disappointment. Just when she’d suffered the most crushing loss she’d ever faced. That either of us had ever faced.
“I’m kind of hoping things’ll be different this year.” Major understatement.
Ty tilted his head. He reached out and cupped the back of my neck with his rough hand, giving me a quick, comforting rub. “You’re gonna be okay,” he said. “If anyone messes with you, send ’em to me.”
I smiled. He’d completely missed the point, but at least he was trying. I picked up the wax bag of doughnuts from the floor, and Ty reached in to grab one. He was bringing it to his mouth when I realized it was the only sugar-coated jelly.
“Don’t eat that! That’s for—”
Too late. He’d already pushed half of it past his lips.
“I got that for Raine!” I complained as I opened the door.
“Sucks to be her,” he said with a laugh.
Great. Earlier this morning Raine had reminded me that the only thing that was going to get her through the first day of school was a jelly doughnut, and now she was going to think I’d spaced when I hadn’t. As I climbed out of the car, Ty revved the engine, making it growl, and a few girls in cardigans and preppy little skirts turned to look. One of them, Cara Tritthart, used to be a semi-friend—at least a during-the-school-day friend—back in middle school and freshman year when we were in the accelerated classes together. She’d even come to my dad’s funeral and offered to study with me when I’d started getting Ds and Fs. Not that I’d taken her up on it. Back then, studying had felt so pointless, and after a while, we’d stopped talking between classes like we used to. Now I saw her eyes flick judgmentally over me, the car, and Ty. I slammed the door, walked around the front, and leaned toward the window for a good-bye kiss, my face so hot it could have melted rubber.
“Have a good day, baby,” Ty said, sucking a dot of jelly off his finger.
“Thanks for the ride,” I replied.
When we kissed it was like the last five minutes hadn’t even happened. He tasted like sugar, and being so close to him reminded me of how lucky I was to have him, to have someone who loved me. When I leaned back again I was smiling, Cara and the prepsters forgotten.
“You look hot,” Ty said, his eyes traveling possessively over my skinny jeans and black high-heeled boots. “These high school losers best behave.”
I reached out and ran my fingers over his dark buzz cut. “I’ll see you later.”
He ground the engine one more time, then peeled out, making sure every kid in a five-mile radius was watching. That was Ty. He loved to be the center of attention—something I’d never be able to figure out. I tucked my chin as I walked up the concrete stairs toward the school, trying to ignore Cara’s friends, who were obviously whispering about me, and suddenly I felt icky and hot on the inside. Why? I didn’t care what they thought about me or about Ty, because what they thought was wrong. I wasn’t just some poor half-orphaned Latina girl, and he wasn’t just some dropout mechanic. They didn’t know anything about us that wasn’t superficial. So why did I feel like I cared?
As I was about to stride through the front door, I noticed some kid staring at me. His shaggy blond hair was pushed forward over his forehead, his bright blue eyes peeking out from under it. White wires dangled from his ears, connected to an iPod in his front pocket. His posture was slightly hunched, and a pair of worn-looking drumsticks stuck out of his red backpack. He had on a blue-and-white-striped polo shirt that was too pressed to go with the rest of him, which made me think his mother might have picked it and laid it out for him this morning.
Dork, I heard Ty say in my mind.
But still. There was something about the way he was looking at me that made my palms sweat all over the wax doughnut bag. I ducked inside and paused for a breath in the Pine-Sol-scented hallway, trying not to glance back through the glass doors. I took in the fall-colored bulletin boards, the club sign-up sheets, the huge WELCOME BACK! banner. I could smell fresh coffee brewing in the Café—the seniors-only area off the cafeteria—and the scent calmed me.
It was a new year. I was going to be new me.
I promise you, Dad, this year is gonna be different.
My throat tightened like it annoyingly did every single time I even thought the word “Dad,” and then I did glance back, but the guy was gone. Staring at the gleaming floor, I turned and walked straight down the middle of the deserted hallway, to the arts wing at the back of the school. I was still twenty feet away from the girls’ room when I heard Lana Auriello’s cackling laugh. I opened the door and a cloud of acrid smoke hit me in the face.
“Ramos!” my friends sang out. The three of them were sitting on the floor, ashing into a plastic cup. Lana held open a compact with one hand while applying mascara with the other, her glossy dark hair pulled over one shoulder. Raine and Gen Moore made gimme gestures at the doughnut bag.
“Hi, guys,” I said, walking over to the window to crack it. I tried to breathe in some fresh air, but still got two lungs full of smoke. “How long have you been here?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops,” Raine said, rifling through the bag with her cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth. “Where’s my jelly?”
I pressed my lips together. “Sorry.”
“And you call yourself my best friend,” Raine joked, finishing up her smoke before biting into a cinnamon doughnut. She’d highlighted her curly hair over the summer, and it had looked sun-kissed for a few days before turning its current shade of Florida orange. Last week Gen had called her “Garfield,” and the slap fight that followed would have gotten us a million hits on YouTube if me or Lana had been quick enough to record it. No one had brought up Raine’s hair since.
“Do you have an eyeliner I can borrow?” Lana asked, pushing herself up off the floor. Her mother didn’t let her wear eye makeup, so the rest of us had become her own personal Rite Aid.
“I think so.” I slid my backpack off my shoulder and opened the zipper.
It was hard to believe that at this time last year I’d barely spoken two words to Lana or Gen. Back then they were Raine’s “other friends”—the girls she hung out with when I was too busy studying or hanging out with my dad. But after the accident, the four of us had spent most of our time together, cutting classes, hitting the mall, and borrowing Lana’s brother’s car to go down the shore when it was nice out.
“Where’s my makeup bag?” I muttered. Lana stood on her toes to peer inside my backpack, and her eyes widened. By the time I realized what she’d seen, it was too late. She’d snatched the typed report out of my bag. I closed the zipper before she could spot my black notebook, too.
“What is this?” Lana asked, holding it up between elaborately manicured fingers. Each pink nail had two white stripes painted diagonally across it, and there were clear rhinestones on the thumbnails. Lana worked at Burger King and spent her french-frying money on her nails. And on eye-makeup remover.
“Give it,” I said through my teeth. But she was already bending over to show Raine and Gen.
“You did the summer homework?” Raine asked, gaping up at me. “Are you trying to reclaim your nerd status?”
I snatched the pages back from Lana and shoved them into my bag, wincing as they wrinkled. “What? I thought it was mandatory.”
The three of them exchanged a look and then doubled over laughing. I turned toward the window, smoothing the pages flat across the front of one of my brand-new notebooks. I cleared my throat and zipped the bag closed.
“Don’t any of you, like, want to go to college?” I asked. “Get the hell out of here?”
“Please. No one ever actually gets out of here,” Gen said, flicking an ash into the cup. “That’s a line they sell you so they can pad their graduation percentages and get more money from the state.”
Gen’s dad had graduated from our school twenty years ago and was now one of its janitors. We always joked about how his bitterness had rubbed off on Gen, who was so cute and petite and blond she could have been a cheerleader if she had one ounce of school spirit. But I had to believe that if I did well enough in school these next two years, I could still get into a good college. I had to believe it because I couldn’t imagine any other way to get out of my house permanently, and with my dad gone and my mother basically hating me, getting out was my only option.
“When did you even have time to read a book?” Raine asked, getting up. “Every time I called you this summer you were either pushing groceries at the Stop and Shop or hanging out with Tiiiiy.” She sang out his name and clutched her hands under her chin.
“I don’t know,” I said, hoisting my bag onto my shoulder. “I guess I . . . figured it out.”
The truth was, I’d been fired from my job at the Stop & Shop in July after Ty had forgotten I needed a ride—again—and I was more than half an hour late for the third t
ime in a row. The next day my mom was home from work, which meant I needed to be somewhere else, so I’d walked the two miles into town. It was so hot, I’d slipped into the library to cool off, and that was when everything had changed. I’d been wandering the aisles, feeling aimless and conspicuous, when Mrs. Pauley, one of the librarians—a skinny middle-aged lady with a nice smile—had told me they had my school’s summer reading list, if I was interested. She’d helped me pick out a book, A Separate Peace, and I’d spent three hours in a cushy chair, lost in the reading. For those three hours I hadn’t been obsessing about my pissed-off mom or my dad who I was never going to see again or how I was going to sock away cash for college without a job. I’d escaped to this whole other place. By the time Mrs. Pauley had come over to tell me they were closing down, I felt like she was waking me up from a really good dream.
I went back there every day for three days and read two more books. On the fourth day, she offered me a job. Almost every day since, I’d worked mornings shelving books and spent my afternoons reading. I’d read my way through the entire summer reading list, actually. Not that I’d ever tell my friends that.
The first warning bell rang.
“Yay. First day of school,” Lana said flatly.
“Is there enough room in here to do a cartwheel?” Raine joked.
“Come on. My dad’ll kill me if we don’t clean this up.” Gen got up, tugged down on her denim miniskirt, and dumped the plastic cup full of ash into the garbage. Then the four of us spent a couple of minutes pointlessly fanning the smoky air toward the window.
“Hey, Kat, did you see the new guy?” Raine asked as we shuffled toward the door.