Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(19)

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.”





CHAPTER NINE


True


“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.