Only Everything (8 page)

A few people applauded. Mostly girls, I couldn’t help noticing. Instantly I thought of Katrina, and those offhanded comments the girls had made at lunch. I couldn’t believe she’d lost her dad. It had sounded, in fact, like she’d lost a lot more than that. I wished I’d said something to her in the hallway before, but what?

Oh, hey. You don’t know me, but sorry your dad died
? Not likely.

“Fantastic, Charlie. Absolutely fantastic,” Mr. Roon said.

“Thank you, sir,” I replied, trying to focus.

The guys from the corps snorted, like they’d never heard anyone use the word “sir” before. Mr. Roon glanced at them. “Looks like you gents have lucked into a talented new member.”

“Great.” Phineas and Ferb sneered at me. The other two said nothing.

I got my stuff together and headed for the door. The three corps members stood close enough together that I couldn’t get through. I stared each of them in the eye.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Excuse us,
sir
,” the short one said pointedly, backing off with his hands in the air.

I shook my head as I blew by them. So much for making friends in orchestra. At least they were good. That was something. Not that I’d ever tell them that if this was the way they were going to be.

“Hey, sir! Wait up, sir!”

They were following me. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“Hey you, new guy. We’re talking to you,
sir
!”

I gritted my teeth and kept walking.

“Is there a problem?” I said quietly.

“Our problem is we’ve been playing together for three years. We’re finally seniors. And we don’t need some punk-ass hick coming in here and screwing up our corps,” Phineas and Ferb said, getting in front of me.

I backed up into the wall. This kid had, like, a hundred pounds on me and I could see up his nostrils. He was pissed.

“I just want to play drums,” I said, hoping to appeal to him on common ground. “I don’t care which ones or on what songs. I just want to play.”

“Well, we don’t want you here, sir,” he said, shoving my chest so hard my head knocked back against the wall. “So tomorrow you’re gonna go in there and tell Mr. Roon you want to switch to the glockenspiel or the harp or something. Whatever you want. But you’re not gonna be a part of our corps.”

He shoved me again, and this time my head cracked so hard I saw stars. I was trying to figure a way out of this when a hand came down on Phineas’s shoulder.

“Lay off him, Fred.”

Fred. So his name was Fred. Well, Fred paled at the sound of Josh’s voice. Then he paled some more when he saw Brian and Trevor were with him.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Fred said, raising his meaty palms.

The other two drummers were already halfway down the hall. Looked like they weren’t the type who had their friend’s back.

“It’s fine,” I said to Josh. “Really.”

Josh didn’t look convinced. He gave Fred a menacing stare. “Why are you still here? Go!”

Fred flinched and took off after his buddies. I cleared my throat, standing up straight. The back of my head radiated crackles of pain. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem. That kid’s been a bully since we were in kindergarten and he was the big bad first grader,” he said. “Luckily, I’m bigger than him now,” he added with a grin.

I laughed and rubbed at the bump forming on my head.

“I woulda pounded on him some for ya, but his band’s playing my party next Friday, so I don’t wanna, like, create bad blood or whatever,” Josh added.

“Or break his arms,” Brian put in.

They both laughed. “Or break his arms,” Josh agreed.

“He’s in a band?” I asked, jealous against my will.

“They’re called Universal Truth,” Trevor said with an eye roll. “But they’re good.”

“Annoyingly. They’re so good I actually have to pay them for the gig,” Josh put in. “Anyway, I gotta get to football practice, but Brian’s on his way to help Coach Ziegler with cross-country tryouts. You in?”

“Come on, man,” Brian said, raising his palms. “You only gotta run a three-mile course. It’s no big.”

I had that put-on-the-spot feeling that I didn’t love. “I don’t know, you guys. . . .”

“You make it, you get a varsity jacket,” Trevor told me, opening the lapel of his own like he was modeling it. “The ladies love the varsity jacket.”

I laughed.

“And hey! You get to
come
to Moskowitz’s party next weekend,” Brian said, slapping my chest with the back of my hand. “It’s varsity athletes only. Well, and girls. Lots of girls.”

“And Universal Truth.” Trevor rolled his eyes again.

A party? I hadn’t been invited to a party since the fourth grade. And this was a real party. A popular crowd party. With a live band. For a second I stood there, trying to wrap my head around this. All day I’d been waiting for these guys to suddenly pants me in the cafeteria, or lure me into a bathroom for a swirly, or worse. But now the day was over and they were still not torturing me. It was getting harder to believe that they didn’t actually want to be friends.

But did I want to be friends with them? I mean, they weren’t exactly my type of guys with their thick necks, school spirit, and sports-obsessive attitudes. They were more the Quarterback Twins’ type of guys. But then, wouldn’t rejecting their friendship on superficial criteria be as bad as the kids at the other schools rejecting me for what
I
looked like? For the things I was into?

My brain was starting to hurt. And Brian, Josh, and Trevor were waiting. The adrenaline from the near miss with Fred was still coursing through my veins. Maybe I could work it out with a run. Just this once. It wasn’t like I was going to actually make the team.

“What the hell,” I said with a shrug. “I’m in.”

“Yes!” Brian cheered, throwing his arm around my shoulders. “You will
not
regret this.”

“Aw, yeah,” Josh said, slapping hands with Trevor behind my head. “I knew we’d get him!”

I tugged out my cell phone as we loped toward the locker rooms. For kicks, I texted my dad.

HOME LATE. TRYING OUT FOR XCOUNTRY.

He was probably running drills on the football field over at St. Joe’s right now. I imagined the whistle falling out of his mouth as he stared at the phone in shock. That simple image would make a three-mile run totally worth it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

True

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. Why am I doing this? I’m not even supposed to date. My mother would freak out if she knew I was here. I mean, she would
freak
.
Out
.”

Stacey rubbed her knees together as we waited near the back door of the gym, her ribbed stockings making a
shush, shush, shush
ing sound. There were a few other packs of kids hanging around, some in blue-and-white soccer uniforms, others in football pads, others in plain clothes. Half of them were texting instead of talking to their friends. Ugh.

At least I’d lost the awful red boots. When I’d taken them off in the locker room for last-period gym, the gym teacher had spotted the open sores on my feet and sent me right to the nurse. Now I sported several bandages, a clean pair of white socks, and a pair of blue-and-white cheerleading sneakers someone had fished out of a supply closet. They were heavenly. I was going to wear them every day for the rest of my exile.

“Do you really think he’ll like me?” Stacey asked. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

I looked her up and down through the silver-framed sunglasses
I’d taken from an open locker, thereby fixing the glaring sun problem, and smiled in an encouraging way. My heart went out to her. Somehow, even with her big brown eyes, her appealing smile, and her obvious intelligence, the girl had serious self-esteem issues. Being with a good, stable, sweet guy like Charlie would work wonders on her. That was one of the many incredible things about love, its power to change a person’s life.

“Why wouldn’t he?” I said.

Stacey’s eyebrows shot up, and she smiled. “You’re so sweet!” She looped her arm through mine and clutched me to her side. “I’m so glad you moved here. I think we’re going to be best friends.”

I smiled, moved and relieved by the contact. No one aside from the nurse had touched me today. Not once. At least I now knew that people did still want to connect around here. Perhaps all was
not
lost.

“There he is!” she breathed, rising up onto her toes.

Charlie had just crested the hill with one of the VT—Brian, he of the dark skin and ridiculously winning smile. Charlie’s face was ruddy, and his hair was wet around the ears. His gray T-shirt was stained with sweat, and he was grinning from ear to ear. He looked strong. Vibrant. Manly. He was oozing testosterone. I could see the attraction written across Stacey’s face, and why not? Men gave off abundant amounts of pheromones when filled with the adrenaline of battle.

“Charlie!” I shouted, waving.

He said his good-byes to his VT friend and jogged over. This was it. Their first impression of each other. I felt a flutter of nervousness inside my chest.

“True! What’re you doing here?” Charlie asked pleasantly.

“We followed you after school and asked the coach what you
were doing,” I said. “He told me the cross-country tryouts would take about forty-five minutes, so we waited.”

His brow knit, and he eyed me curiously. “Okay.”

“So did you make the team?” Stacey asked, biting her bottom lip.

“I did, yeah,” he replied.

“That’s amazing!” Stacey cheered, gripping me even harder.

“Um . . . thanks?” He shot me a question with his eyes.

“This is Stacey,” I told him, smiling my encouragement. “She loves to read, excels at math, and plays the flute in the school orchestra. Oh, and she detests football.”

They both seemed nonplussed by my introduction, but Stacey recovered first.

“I saw your audition after class today,” she told him, touching his forearm with her fingertips. “You were . . . amazing.”

Charlie blushed. “Wow. Thanks. You play the flute?”

“Second chair,” she replied, looking at her feet. “It’s not as cool as drums.”

“No, no. Flute’s cool,” Charlie said.

They both laughed. They grinned and shifted their feet and turned all sorts of colors. I might not have had my powers of intuition, but even I could see that these two were hitting it off.

“Why don’t you guys go out and celebrate?” I suggested, detaching myself from Stacey’s side. “You made the team!” I cheered, tilting my head toward Stacey and hoping Charlie would get the message.

“Yeah?” Charlie said, eyebrows raised.

“Totally!” Stacey enthused. “You’re new here, right? Have you been to Goddess yet? It’s amazing!”

“Um . . . no. I—”

“Good! Let’s walk into town. I’ll show you around,” Stacey
suggested, gathering up her things. Charlie bent to pick up her flute case and Stacey preened. Perfect. They were perfect. Or, perhaps,
amazing
.

“Okay. But I have to hit the locker room and get my stuff.”

As the two of them moseyed off together, Charlie turned around and gave me a double thumbs-up, the flute case hooked around two of his fingers. I grinned and waved, watching them until they’d disappeared inside, Charlie holding the door open for his lovely girl.

With a breath of relief, I reached up and laid my hand over Orion’s arrow. My heart swelled and tears stung my eyes, remembering the first time we’d met. It was almost three thousand years ago, and a love connection was not in the cards—at least not for us—but still, it was a memory I now cherished. I walked to a nearby bench and sat with my eyes closed, my face tipped to the sun, letting the remembrance embrace me.

•  •  •

“Come one, come all! Come god, come mortal! None of you can best me when there’s bow and arrow in my grasp!”

Orion threw his sinewy arms wide, turning in a slow circle at the center of the wide, sun-dappled hills of the poppy field, a favorite meeting place for the lower gods and goddesses near the apex of Mount Olympus. I had heard tales of his bravado, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it for myself. I understood why so many women in the heavens and on Earth had fallen for the guy. He was a perfect specimen. Obnoxious, to be sure, but otherwise perfect.

I approached, my bow at my side, my quiver fastened, as it always was, to my back.

“We have a taker!” he crowed to the clumps of gods and goddesses lounging in the flowers along the knoll. I saw my nemeses—the twins Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, and Apollo, God of Light—draped over each other, along with Artemis’s Titaness friend Hecate, who was even more awful than they were. Her black eyes were trained on me as she leaned toward Artemis’s ear to whisper. “And you are?” Orion said to me.

“She is Eros, the Goddess of Love!” Artemis shouted. “She fancies herself the greatest archer on Mount Olympus.”

A few of the other gods laughed, and I smiled. “It is not a fancy,” I called back, “but a proven fact.”

“You have not tested me,” Artemis replied, a shadow passing through her eyes.

“Then come forth,” I shouted back. “Orion has the test laid out for us!”

I gestured to the target Orion had fastened to the tallest tree at the edge of Gaia’s Wood, a dark and magical forest, home to all sorts of exotic and unnatural beasts. Artemis squinted at the bull’s-eye, her hand held up to guard against the sun.

“She will not take the bait,” Orion said, leaning toward my ear. The masculine scent of him was very appealing, the odors of sweat and blood and wine. “Of all the goddesses, I find Artemis to be the most vile. She has the bark, but not the bite.”

“And you?” I said, looking him up and down. “What do you look for in a mate?”

He smiled wickedly, and I opened my inner ear to his heart of hearts. “Submission,” he replied, even as I read his real desire. He longed for someone who could be his equal. Someone who would challenge him. A great beauty with whom he could forge new adventures. Someone who would fight by his side and love him forever.