by Kieran Scott
“Oh.” I tried not to look disappointed. “Sure. Let me finish this one problem.”
“They’re kind of starving now,” Ty said, holding out a wad of folded bills. “Could you please just go?”
“Tyler,” Uncle Gino said in a warning tone.
“What?” Ty’s face was pure innocence. “I said please.”
“It’s fine,” I told Gino, closing my book. “I’ll go. I’m hungry anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Gino asked, giving Ty an admonishing look.
“Positive.” I was touched that he cared. The thing was, he didn’t know how much I owed Ty. He was giving me a place to stay so that I didn’t have to deal with my mother. He paid for half my meals and drove me everywhere. Making one food run was nothing compared to what he had done for me. It was the least I could do.
I stopped next to Ty on my way out the door and gave him a kiss, trying to ignore the streak of grime across his cheek.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” I told him.
I trudged out the back door and walked down the cold, shadowy alleyway to the street. As soon as I stepped out into the sunshine, I had a fleeting memory of the dream I’d had in the office, and my skin warmed. Charlie. Thinking about him brought a smile to my face.
At least he would be there tomorrow when I headed up the class discussion on Great Expectations. That was a good thing. Or it would be, if I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of him. Again.
Something slammed behind the garage doors, and I saw Ty staring out at me. I swear it was like he knew I was thinking about another guy, however innocent those thoughts were. I ducked behind my hair and speed-walked up the block toward Bellissimo.
CHAPTER THIRTY
True
I bit into a strawberry cupcake on Sunday afternoon, and my taste buds hummed with happiness. This job was the best thing that had happened to me since arriving on Earth. Not only had it gotten me out of the house and away from my self-pitying mother on a day when I otherwise would have had nowhere to go, but I was also surrounded by potential match-ees on a day when I otherwise might not have encountered a soul. And today I was working a full shift, which meant that by Friday I’d have enough money to buy Darnell a new soul-sucking cell phone of his choice. But the best part was the cupcakes. I’d been on break for ten minutes and I’d already eaten four of them. They were perfection in a mini cake.
I was going to have to thank Katrina for sending me here.
I took another bite, and as if my thoughts had conjured her, Katrina walked into the shop, carrying a heavy plastic bag with an Italian flag stamped across the front. She placed an order at the counter, then turned and spotted me. The magnitude of her grin was surprising.
“Hi,” I said as she approached my corner table. “You look happy.”
“I am,” she said. “Guess what? Ty asked me to move in with him.”
“Oh.” Somehow, I couldn’t muster her level of enthusiasm. “Really?”
“Yeah. I was spending half my time over there anyway, so it made sense,” Katrina said.
“And your mom is okay with that?” I asked dubiously.
Katrina’s face hardened. “She works a lot, so . . . Yeah. I think it’s good for everyone. Now she can have her own space.”
Even without my soul-reading powers, I didn’t believe that positive spin for a second, but I nodded anyway. “Okay. Well, good then.”
“Ramos? Your order’s up!” my coworker, a gangly guy named Torin, called from behind the counter.
“See you at school,” Katrina said.
I watched her go, wishing there was something I could do to make her see how very not-made-for-each-other she and Ty were. But I had a feeling that my advice wouldn’t exactly be welcome. Besides, I was here to bring couples together, not break them up. I finished off my strawberry cupcake and reached for my milk. Out on the sidewalk, Darla appeared, peering through the window until she saw me. Her face lit up, and she practically flung herself at the door.
Excellent. People were really excited to see me today.
“You’re here! Good!” She yanked out the chair across from mine and sat, wearing LCHS sweatpants, silver flip-flops, and a barely-there white tank top. “Thank you so much for hooking me up with Charlie. He’s so yummy!”
I sat up straight, my spirits rising considerably. Had I finally done it? Had I finally made a real match? “Really?”
“Totally,” Darla said, checking some messages on her phone. “I mean, he totally fell for that ‘I hate football’ thing, so we hung out on Friday, and then yesterday I went to his race and even met his parents. You were so right! Being interested in the stuff he’s interested in and not in the stuff he’s not interested in totally worked! And he is so sweet and polite and mature. I swear he is almost perfect. I can’t wait till he—”
I blinked. “Wait a second. Did you say almost perfect?”
Darla shrugged and shoved her phone back into her minuscule purse.
“Well, yeah,” she said, resting an elbow on the table. “I mean, he could bulk up some, and maybe wear something that’s not from a signature line at Kmart. Plus, does he have to carry those drumsticks around everywhere he goes? Like, what? A drum set is going to suddenly appear out of nowhere in the middle of the movie theater and he’ll just have to play it?”
She laughed, and I felt like I was going to vomit. Which was something I never, ever wanted to do again.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I said, regretting that last cupcake. A lot. “Charlie is amazing! He’s sweet, he’s chivalrous, he’s musical, athletic, smart. He’s awesome the way he is!”
Darla rolled her eyes hugely. “Whatever. If he’s going to take me to homecoming, he’s gonna have to step up his game. I mean, am I really gonna go out with a guy who’s in band? Not likely. Veronica would die.”
I gripped the edge of the table with both hands. If I had my usual strength, I would have cracked it in half and hit her over the head with it. Both sides.
“Anyway, listen, since you’ve been so cool about this Charlie stuff, I think there’s something I should tell you,” Darla said, lowering her voice and leaning across the table. Her long glossy hair fell forward into the crumbs from my first cupcake—tiramisu—and I didn’t tell her. It was the tiniest act of revenge, and it made me feel very slightly vindicated. “Or maybe I should show you.”
She took out her phone, hit a few buttons, and laid it in front of me. On the screen was a picture of me, taken from the side, without me knowing. It looked like it had been shot on the first day of school, when I’d worn those painful cowboy boots. The title across the top of the page read, “True-ly Awful!”
My skin seared. Darla touched her fingertip to the screen and flicked to the next picture. It was me on vomit day, wearing the band jacket over the long, gauzy dress and jeans, a photo I was fairly certain Veronica had taken. Then me in my overalls on Wednesday, that itchy plaid vest I’d sported on Thursday, and finally the purple sweatpants and striped shirt I’d worn on Friday.
“Sorry. I thought you should know,” Darla said, with a sympathetic click of her tongue.
“Who’s taking these?” I asked, furious. “Who’s posting them?”
“Honestly? Whoever started the website made it so anyone can post. There are, like, a hundred pictures from farmer day,” she said. “Plus the video of when you kicked Ty Donahue’s ass.”
Something inside me snapped. I reached for the phone, but she tucked it into her purse and under the table. She was smarter than she looked. If she hadn’t acted, her phone would have gone the way of Darnell’s, and I’d have had to work another week to pay it off.
“The good news is, I can help,” Darla said, her brown eyes wide. “You know that boutique up the street? My Favorite Things? Well, I work there! If you come in, I’m sure I can get you a discount.” Her eyes flicked over my gray button-front shirt and apron. “We even have bras!”
I crossed my arms over my chest, then quickly dropped them
, annoyed over feeling self-conscious. I was a goddess, for Zeus’s sake! There wasn’t a human on Earth who could touch my beauty. Except for my mother, of course. And as for bras and underwear, those things were purely archaic. The human body was not meant to be so constricted.
I glared around the room and, for the first time, noticed several people glancing from their phones to me, then back again. A pair of boys in green jackets laughed behind their hands. A girl with a million braids in her hair gave me a look so disgusted it was like she was eyeing a pig in slop. I stood up, shoving my chair back so hard it slammed into the wall and shook the framed cupcake art behind me.
“Evil trolls!” I shouted.
Everyone in the shop laughed.
I could smite each and every one of you, I thought, my fists like rocks. When I get my powers back, I will smite each and every one of you.
But for now, there was nothing I could do. I turned on my heel and stormed into the kitchen, through the baking area, and into the back room, slamming the door behind me.
At least I thought I slammed it. I didn’t recall touching it, but that was probably fury blackout.
“Are you okay?” Dominic asked, opening the door tentatively and sticking his head in. Flour streaked his long nose, and a swipe of red icing decorated the front of his apron.
“I’m fine,” I said, pacing the room from end to end, trying to work off my anger.
“This is what I get for hiring teenagers,” he said under his breath. “Look, I need you back out on the floor in five. I’m gonna have Torin train you on the register.”
“Great,” I blurted. “Fantastic. I’ll be there.”
He shook his head and closed the door quietly. I glared at it, wishing like hell I were anywhere but here. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse. Katrina was moving in with Ty, I was the school jester, and Darla and Charlie were clearly a mismatch.
I sat down on the plush couch that took up one wood-paneled wall and hung my head in my hands. This was a nightmare. Clearly, I couldn’t make one match without my powers, let alone three. I was never going to get this right. Never.
Orion was doomed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
True
The sun was sinking behind the shingled rooftops and towering spires of downtown Lake Carmody as I walked home from work that evening, my eyes trained on the ground. Normally, dusk was my favorite time of day on Earth. A time when colors were muted, sounds seemed less harsh, friends met up with friends, and families gathered together again after a long day apart. It was the time of day when more first kisses happened than any other time. But today I couldn’t have cared less. Today I hated Earth and everything that came with it.
The kids at school were picking on me. Me. Eros. The Myth. The Legend. The Goddess of Love. No one was ever going to want to be friends with me now. No one was even going to want to be seen talking to me. Darla, bless her weak little heart, had taken a huge risk even sitting down with me today, but who knew if she would ever do it again unless I hit her boutique and bought myself some underwire. Not that I had any money to do so.
If no one wanted to talk to me, it would be a cold day in the underworld before I coupled anyone. As if that mattered. I’d been talking to Charlie ever since I got here, and all I’d managed to do was find him three inadequate candidates.
I took a deep breath and looked up. Somehow, I had walked myself to the corner of a square park near the center of town. A twentysomething couple sat on a bench nearby, smooching over milk shakes. I felt like spearing them both through the chest.
Why couldn’t Charlie have that? He was such a great guy. So handsome and accomplished and mature. There had to be someone out there who would love him for him, not for the him he could become with a few tweaks. Why was this so hard?
I turned my back on the couple and walked up the pathway toward the center of the park. Never in my entire existence had I felt so defeated. Even when I’d been banished, when I’d had Orion ripped away from me, I hadn’t felt this desperate, because I’d known I was going to find my way back to him. I’d known that I could and would complete the task set before me. But now, my heart felt heavy and sick. I was failing him. With each slipping sand grain of the hourglass, I was failing him. Just as I had once before. . . .
• • •
“He’s suffering,” I wailed at Harmonia, kneeling at the edge of my Earthen window. “He’s suffering and it’s my fault.”
Harmonia put her hand on my shoulder as we watched Orion, who lay on a cot in a small, sparsely furnished cabin. He was curled up like a frightened child, mewling, crying, thrashing in his sleep. I’d had only the time to find him shelter before Aphrodite called me back from Earth. My envy for the upper gods and their powers always burned inside me—a small, irritating flame in my gut—but it now overtook everything. I had to get to Orion, but as a lower goddess, I couldn’t go to him without the help of an elder.
“Is there nothing you can do?” I asked Harmonia.
“I’ve done the best I can, but I can’t control his dreams,” Harmonia told me, kneading her fingers before her. “He’s seen endless destruction and misery, suffering and pain . . . you must have expected this.”
“I didn’t expect anything!” I ranted, unfairly taking out my frustration on her. “I didn’t even mean to bring him to Earth. Not really. I was just fooling around. I never thought it would work.”
Orion let out a guttural wail, and Harmonia and I clasped hands as he spun on the mattress, clawing at the sheets. I was glad I had chosen to trust her with this, my greatest secret. There was no way I could have dealt with the consequences of my actions alone, and I knew that my sister was loyal to me above all else, as I was to her. No matter what, we would always keep each other’s confidence.
“He’s not equipped to deal with the atrocities he’s seen, as we are,” Harmonia told me. “Mortals can’t process such things as we can. If Artemis knew what she’d done to him—”
“She must never know,” I told her, squeezing her hand. “Promise me.”
“Of course,” she replied. “No good could come of it. Even I know that.”
Orion screamed so sharply it pierced my heart.
“You must go to him,” Harmonia said, breathless.
“I can’t. I’ve tried. You have no idea how many times I’ve tried,” I whispered.
A stiff, warm wind swept our hair across our shoulders, and my mother appeared on the far side of the window. My heart stopped beating.
“So try again,” Aphrodite said calmly.
Harmonia and I exchanged an alarmed look. “What?” I asked. “Do you even realize what I’ve done?”
“I do,” my mother said, with an eerie sort of calm. “It seems you have developed some new powers, Eros.”
I scrambled to my feet as Aphrodite strolled around the rim of the window, her white robes sweeping behind her.
“I didn’t—How did you—?”
“Did you think I wasn’t watching you? Did you think I wouldn’t mark what you’d done?” she asked.
She was calm. Too calm. And an unmistakable anger sizzled within her words.
“You are not supposed to wield that kind of power,” she said, looking down her nose at me imperiously. “How did you, Eros? Did you make some sort of deal with Zeus? Because deals with Zeus do not come without consequences.”
“No!” I replied as Orion let out another soul-shaking wail. “I didn’t—”
“Who then? Please tell me it wasn’t Hera,” she said with a sneer.
My mother’s feelings about Hera were well known, although she managed to hide them whenever we were in the royal court. Barely.
“No! Mother, I made no deals. I was shocked when it worked,” I told her. “Truly. I don’t understand how it happened.”
My mother studied me for a long moment, and finally her features softened. I let out a relieved breath. She must have decided I was telling the truth. “Well then. Let us see what else you can do.”<
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She stepped aside, opening a pathway to the window. I looked down at Orion uncertainly. “What do you mean?”
“Go to him,” she replied.
Harmonia raised her shoulders. “She’s tried.”
“Too hard, I’m sure,” my mother said with a knowing smirk. “What were you thinking about when you returned him to Earth?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I replied. “It was just for fun. I was playing.”
“Then relax.” My mother put her hands on my shoulders and steered me to the edge of the window. Her hands were warm, and I felt calmer suddenly. Like nothing was wrong. Like everything was possible. “Don’t think about anything other than what you want.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, wondering if this was some sort of trick. Was she trying to get me in trouble? Everyone knew that lower gods and goddesses were not permitted to come and go as they pleased. If any of the upper gods caught me, they could take me right to Zeus for punishment. He could banish me to Mount Etna, or worse, rob me of my powers.
“Don’t worry,” she told me. “I will cloak you both. No one will be the wiser.”
“What?” I asked. “Why would you do that for me?”
“Sheer curiosity?” she replied, her eyes glittering with mischief. “Let’s see what you can do, my daughter.”
She took a step back and nodded at me. Instantly I was bathed in a cool pink cloud. I glanced at Harmonia. Her forehead lined with concern as she gazed without focus at the spot where I’d been. The cloak was working.
“I’ll be right here,” she said, unable to meet my eyes.
I knew what she meant. She would keep an eye on my mother and make sure Aphrodite didn’t betray me.
I took a deep breath and concentrated on Orion, my arms flat at my sides, as I’d seen many upper gods do before they traveled to Earth. Orion cried out in anguish.
“Orion,” I whispered, gritting my teeth. “I wish to go to Orion.”
Nothing happened.