by Nicole Thorn
“I would! Not that I think I would be amazing or anything. Not bad though. Like, not selfish. I would do my best if we were to—I mean,” he added fast, his voice cracking. “Not that I think you would wanna do that with me, or that we should go do that right now. I wasn’t saying that.”
I hadn’t thought he was, so he had me giggling again. Not at him, but at the whole situation. He looked so cute while he babbled, though I knew that it came from an uncomfortable and awkward place. If it didn’t upset him to some extent, then I would have thought it was cuter.
I kissed his cheek. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know what you meant, and I know that you don’t mean any harm. And while I might look fragile, I’m not easily offended.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Aster said in that same, careful and apologetic tone.
“Good. We should go up to my room and not take our clothes off then.”
He didn’t say anything when I took his hand and dragged him back into the house. It didn’t feel all that much safer than outside, but at least I knew I could keep an eye on my parents this way. They were in the kitchen, having not noticed the magic happening outside. I hoped that was because of something Apollo did, and not because they were so unwilling to accept this that they ignored it on purpose. Since I’d screamed, I had to think it had been the former.
I brought Aster up to my room, not sure yet what I wanted to do with him. Micha could have been back soon, and with more information on what to do going forward. I doubted Artemis would be sending me off on missions, but I was at the center of all this. I’d seen the faces of the people doing this, and the baddies knew it.
I took a seat on my bed, sitting across from Aster. We didn’t speak, but I blamed that on losing myself in worries both old and new. The sticky notes on my wall reminded me of mysteries that I hadn’t yet solved, and some pressing ones that loomed over us. When I looked up at the clustered colors of pictures and words I didn’t always understand. It would come back to get me in a big bad way. Lives could have been lost.
“You look scared,” Aster commented.
“I am,” I admitted. “There are so many things up in the air, and it can get overwhelming. Then something like this happens without warning. I hear all of these gods whispering in my ear most days, accidentally letting me in on things to come. Deaths, births, war, famine. It’s too much to handle sometimes. I feel like if I don’t find a way to understand it all and give warnings, then it might as well be me killing those who don’t make it out of this.”
Aster shook his head, putting his hand on my knee. “That’s not on you. Your only job is to be the mouthpiece of the gods, and you are. They don’t have you around to warn people.”
“But I feel like I should. There’s this stuff in my head and it feels like firecrackers bursting. If I don’t put out the wicks before they get to the dynamite, then people are going to die.”
“Even if they do, that isn’t your fault.”
I wouldn’t feel any less responsible. “But there’s this prophecy. I told it to my friends, and I know it’s about them. It feels like darkness itself. Like the words are black and sinking. They’ve never known the light. I don’t know what the words mean, but it’s coming for them. It’s running and running, and I can hear the footsteps getting louder in my head with every day that goes by. It’s them today, but it could be you tomorrow. Or Micha. I have all the answers to death in my brain, and I don’t know what they mean!”
Aster hushed me, making me realize that I hadn’t been breathing. I tried to catch my breath now, but only ended up panting. These voices wouldn’t be quiet, no matter how much I wanted it. They came at me when I didn’t expect it, finding me in my most silent of moments.
“I promise everything will be okay,” Aster said. “No matter how scary things might look right now, but that doesn’t mean there’s no plan.”
“What if the plan is that my friends die? They feel like these pits of sadness when I look at them. When I hear them talk. They were these holes that went on forever, and then someone started pushing dirt into them. It’s not fair that right when they’re getting filled up, something bad might happen. I feel like I should be able to help. Like the right thing is on the tip of my tongue and I still can’t get to it. My mouth wants to make the words but they’re in a language I don’t know.”
Aster put his hands on my shoulders, drawing my attention as I risked slipping into full blown panic. In times like this, I would curl up on my bed and breathe until it was over. If I got lucky, I could tap into the voice of a god and listen in.
“So, you need to solve the puzzle,” Aster said.
“Huh?”
His eyes went up to my walls, staring at the sticky notes. “You have all these puzzle pieces here, and they need to get put together in the right way. If we work on it together, then maybe we can get you an answer to . . . something. Anything.”
He stood up on my bed, taking my hands to pull me to my feet as well. It was overwhelming to look at all the notes I had, remembering every pen stroke that got them there. I’d hardly solved anything on my own, and it all seemed meaningless when it happened after the event already passed. But if we could do this together, then maybe I could scrape together a little bit of hope. If I could figure out this wind that was meant to come blowing, it could change everything.
Aster started reading the notes, asking if he could move them to where he thought they might work better. He started separating them by god and conversation partner, and the colors on the wall began to mix. Parts began to slowly form what could have been pieces of whole sentences, and that tingling on the tip of my tongue burned even more.
Aster smiled when he got a piece of something about his father and Artemis, and some fight with Aphrodite. He looked so happy to be doing it, and to be helping me make my head a little less frantic.
I tapped on his shoulder, making him turn to look at me. When he did, I took him by the shoulders and pulled him to me. I kissed him softly to start with, enjoying the warm feel of his lips against mine. It was new and slightly scary, but it only took one touch for me to not worry anymore. Aster put his hands on my hips, holding me steady as we balanced on my bed.
My grasp on his shoulders got a little rougher when Aster parted my lips, his tongue gliding across mine. Oh, and all new fireworks started exploding in my brain. I liked the burn of it, so I clutched the demigod to me as if I had the real power to hold him there. In that moment, it felt like I did.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Heaven Does Exist
Aster
OF ALL THE ways I thought this day would end, this had not been on the list. And boy was I grateful to have been wrong for once. She tasted like candy, specifically Jolly-Ranchers, the green apple kind. I could have spent the rest of my life immersed in that taste and it would have done wonders for me.
She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, as if worried that I would vanish if she didn’t hold onto me. Then her legs came around my middle, just as tight as her arms around my neck.
A small groan left me when she nibbled on my lower lip between kisses.
I backed the two of us up until I pressed her against a wall, having to jump off the bed to do it and crinkling sticky notes in the process. I figured that would be a problem later, but right then, I couldn’t focus on anything but the feel of her lips against mine, her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist.
My fingers bit into her sides, and she broke away for a second to let out a breathless little moan.
She shifted against me, pressing her body to mine so tightly that we barely had any space between us. I gripped one of her thighs carefully. I had to remind myself that Callie was human, even if she had the power of the gods flowing through her veins. I could easily hurt her if I forgot myself for even a second. I had to maintain control, or let Callie take control completely. That sounded like a good option, actually. I lowered myself to the ground, pulling her with me.
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nbsp; She settled easily on my lap, her hands biting into my shoulders pushing slightly. I didn’t lay down, just because I thought that things might progress too quickly. Her teeth dragged against my lower lip again, and I opened my mouth so that she could do some tongue action this time.
She groaned, her body tensing against mine. She felt so soft against me, even when she took control of the situation. Her lips were velvet, her skin silk, and I could have drowned in the sensations of having her surrounding me. Her candy apple taste consuming me.
In those few seconds, it was easy for me to forget all the things that had gone wrong in my life. I’d never had a reprieve from all that hell before, and to have that for even a second . . . It felt addicting. It felt like the kind of thing that would keep me going for another lifetime.
Callie’s hands pushed the bottom of my shirt up so that she could drag her fingers along my stomach. She probably would have continued until the shirt came off altogether, and I couldn’t begin to say how down for that I was, but we heard the door downstairs close.
“Callie?” her mother called. “I’ve brought snacks!”
Callie pulled away from me, her dazed eyes locking on the door. She blinked lazily for a second, then shook herself. She looked down at me and her eyes widened. “She can’t see this!” Callie shouted, flailing about. “Mom will never let us in the same room together again.”
“Callie?” her mother sounded closer now.
“In the closet!” Callie hissed, dragging me off the ground. I scrambled into the closet overflowing with things. Dresses, shorts, stuffed animals, a box of sticky notes that looked so big that I couldn’t imagine how much they cost, and what looked suspiciously like a stuffed chimera cub. I pushed through all the junk so that I could huddle in the corner of the closet.
The second I got secure, though, my mind started helpfully throwing things at me. I had just kissed Callie. A lot. The two of us had been on the floor, seconds from rolling around and shedding clothing. Naturally, my mind had to turn that into a roller coaster ride.
Did she like it? Did she do it because she wanted to, or because I’m such a sad sack that she wanted to cheer me up? Did I bore her? Would she want to do it again? What did this mean for us? Why am I such a wuss?
All those thoughts whipped through my mind, one after another, until it felt like I would blow the closet up with my anxiety.
Then I thought of Callie’s parents. They had been so understanding and her dad actually seemed to like me. What would they do if they found out about this? Would they boot me out of the house, forcing me to go back to living with my mother? She’d make my life hell, constantly reminding me that the people I’d run to in order to escape her, had thrown me out. What a pathetic loser I would be, that I couldn’t even make them stick around for longer than a handful of days?
Someone knocked on the door, and I froze.
“Yes?” Callie called.
Her mother’s voice came next. “Didn’t you hear me calling for you? I brought you and Aster some fries, since I stopped off to get myself ice cream.”
“Oh,” Callie said. “Sorry, I had my headphones in.” The lie came out smoothly, which impressed me as much as it scared me. How would I know that she wasn’t lying when I asked her if she liked making out with me? Sure, Callie hadn’t lied to me so far, not that I knew of anyway, so why would I assume that she had this time? What did it matter anyway? She would probably never want to do it again.
“That’s okay,” her mother said. “Here are your fries. I didn’t see Aster, though. Did he leave?”
“I think so,” Callie said. “He said something about getting his truck away from his mother, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
I could hear the disapproval in her mother’s voice. “But aren’t he and Micha supposed to be protecting you? How can they do that when neither one of them is here?”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Callie said. “I’ve got all the protection that I need.”
Her mother grumbled something so low under her breath, not even I could hear it. Then the door closed a second later. Callie opened the closet to find me huddled against dresses that probably hadn’t fit her in a decade. She held a brown bag in her hands with the scent of fresh fries wafting out to greet me.
Callie sighed, her shoulders slumping. “That was a close one.”
“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. I disentangled myself from the clothing and managed to extract myself from the closet without destroying her things. No small feat for me, considering I had about as much grace as a pig. My demigod status did nothing to make me a cooler, better person.
Callie held the bag out to me. I took it and peered in at the two large fries that her mother had bought us. I extracted one and handed the bag back to Callie. The two of us slumped onto the floor at the same time. I sat with my back against her bed, and Callie moved so that she could sit next to me. We ate in silence, staring at the opposite wall without saying anything.
That lasted a handful of minutes, until I’d finished most of my fries and felt like my heart would explode right out of my chest. “So, um . . . well . . . that happened.”
Callie nodded. “It did.”
“So . . . ”
Silence.
I wanted to die.
“Does this mean I have to sneak in through the front door?”
“I don’t think so. Mom is probably in the kitchen, her bedroom, or the office, so she wouldn’t notice you not showing up. Just come down for dinner and act like you didn’t have your tongue down my throat and everything will be fine.”
I almost choked. Callie patted my back while I coughed, shaking my head. When I could breathe again, I said, “I should be able to act like that. Well, maybe. I’m pretty bad at most things. But it’s not like they think I’m the boy they have to worry about.”
Callie raised her eyebrows.
“C’mon. They think Micha is more likely to kiss you,” I said.
“Why would they think that?”
“Because I’m kind of lame,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed my constantly stuttering and inability to say anything without contradicting myself less than ten minutes later, but there you have it.”
Callie frowned at me, crossing her arms over her chest. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
I snorted, glaring at my lap. “There is plenty wrong with me, believe me. I’m awkward, in both speech and body. I don’t do anything except get in the way. I infuriate everyone around me. I’m not that great to look at, and if not for my father, I’d have led a very boring life. There’s more wrong with me than there is good.”
Callie shoved me onto the ground so violently that I barely time to figure out what she planned. Then I laid on my back, staring up at a girl that I adored while she growled at me. I decided that I wouldn’t tell her how adorable she looked when doing something like that. It would only undercut her authority.
“Listen to me,” Callie said, shaking my shoulders. “There is nothing wrong with you and anyone who says otherwise is a dick and you shouldn’t listen to them. First of all, when you calm down, there is nothing awkward about you. And I love listening to you talk. It’s one of the most adorable things that I’ve ever heard. I love it. Second of all, your body is not awkward at all, as evidenced by the fact that you had me panting and thinking seriously about getting out of my shorts earlier. Third of all, you are adorable. So, you can shut right up.”
“Okay,” I said, staring up at her with wide eyes.
“Okay?”
“Yep,” I said, my hands tightening on her hips. “Nothing wrong with me.”
“I feel like we’re going to have this conversation again. If you think that I won’t pin you to the ground every day until you finally get it through your head that you’re fine, then you’re wrong. I will.”
“Be my girlfriend.”
“What?” Callie asked.
Great, I had screwed everything up and spouted something even d
umber than everything else I had said thus far. If there had only been a hole big enough, I’d shove my head right through it to keep myself from saying anything more.
I tried to backtrack. “I mean . . . That’s not what I meant.”
“You don’t want me to be your girlfriend?” Callie asked, sounding disappointed.
“No!” Dammit. “I mean, yes, I mean . . . why are words so hard!” I wanted to bash my head against the ground. “Let me try this again. I would like you to be my girlfriend, but I’d also like to find a way to ask that doesn’t sound quite so stupid and lame. Give me a second.”
Callie smiled at me. “I like the way you asked, though.”
“Why?” I asked, squinting at her. “Why do you like me at all?”
“Because you’re sweet, and you try harder than anyone else I know, and you’re cute, and you know that you’re more capable of what you think you are. Even if you won’t admit it.”
“Well, that’s nice,” I said, frowning. “Even if it’s not true.”
“Yes.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yes, I will be your girlfriend,” Callie said.
Well, what an odd tumble of emotions. I felt elated, anxious, and worried all at the same time. I didn’t know how to sort through them, so I sat up, scooting Callie over so that she could sit next to me. I put my arm around her, which felt nice and right, and tugged her in to my side. Her crazy curls pretty much immediately got in my face, but I didn’t let that bother me, choosing to breathe in the scent of her shampoo.
She turned to me, making one of her curls almost go up my nose. I pulled away in time to save myself.
“Can I ask you something?” Callie said.
“Anything.”
“Why do you like me?” she asked. “It’s not just because I’m around and give you attention, is it?”
“No!” I said, horrified that she could think something like that.
“Have you had a girlfriend before?”
“Well, no, but that’s got nothing to do with why I like you now. You’re . . . easy to be around,” I said. “Even when I feel awkward and stupid, I know that you don’t think that about me, which is nice. You’re also funny and understanding. And I like when you get excited about something.”
