“Hey, I didn’t—”
“No! It’s my turn to talk. We’re done, Erik. You’re too possessive, and even if I wasn’t exhausted and stressed out of my brain—two things that apparently don’t matter at all to you—I still wouldn’t be up for tolerating your crap.”
“After everything you’ve put me through, you think you can just walk out on me like this?”
“No.” Feeling the spirit swirl around me I channeled it into my next words as I stepped forward, backing him down the hall. “I don’t think anything. I know this is how it’s going to be. We’re done. Now you need to go away before I do something I might, in like fifty years, be sorry for.” I purposely pushed hard with the power of the element that was flowing through me, causing him to stumble.
His face had gone utterly white. “What the hell’s happened to you? You used to be so sweet. Now you’re a freak! And I’m sick of you cheating on me with everyone who has a dick. You should be with Stark and Heath and Kalona. They’re what you deserve!” He stomped angrily past me, slamming the door to the stairwell.
Just as angry, I marched over to room number thirteen and flung open the door.
And Aphrodite almost fell right out, face-first.
“Oopsie,” she said, running her fingers through her always perfect hair. “Guess I was, uh—”
“Listening to my big breakup scene with Erik?” I finished for her.
“Yeah, that would be what I was doing. And may I just say I don’t blame you. Talk about an asshat. Plus, you so don’t cheat on him with everyone who has a dick. You and Darius are just friends. Plus there’s Damien and Jack… well, not that they really count, being as they like dick themselves. Still, it was a ridiculous exaggeration.”
“You’re not really making me feel better.” I plopped down on the twin bed that wasn’t all ruffled and obviously just laid on.
“Sorry. I’m not very good at the ‘making someone feel better’ part.”
“So you heard all of that?”
“Yep.”
“Even the part about Kalona?”
“Yes, and again I call him an asshat.”
“Aphrodite, what the hell is an asshat?”
She gave me an exaggerated eye roll. “Erik is an asshat, you dork. Anyway, as I was trying to say before you interrupted, it was seriously not cool that he brought up Kalona. Plus, he had enough evidence for his stupid jealous insecurity already with Heath and Stark. It was totally not necessary to mention the winged guy.”
“I do not love him.”
“Of course you don’t. You’ve outgrown Erik. Now, I suggest you get some sleep. Goddess knows I hate to mention it, but you look like crap.”
“Thanks, Aphrodite. It really helps me right now to hear that I look as terrible as I feel,” I said sarcastically, completely avoiding the fact that when I said I didn’t love him I’d meant Kalona and not Erik.
“Hey, anytime. I’m just here to help.”
I was searching for a sarcastic comeback when I noticed what she had on and a little bubble of unexpected laughter escaped from me. Aphrodite, Queen of Fashion, was wearing a floor-length, cover-her-from-ankles-to-neck, white cotton nightgown. Like she’d gone Amish. “Uh, what is that lovely little thing you’re wearing?”
“Don’t start with me. This is the penguins’ idea of nightwear. Well, I can almost understand it. I mean, they take those stupid chastity vows, and if this is what they wear to bed, the vow would be practically unnecessary. Seriously. The thing almost makes me look unattractive.”
“Almost?” I giggled.
“Yes, smart-ass, almost. And before you’re too gleeful, cast your eyes over there. That thing folded up on the end of your bed isn’t an extra sheet. It’s your very own designer nun sleepwear.”
“Oh, well, at least it looks comfortable.”
“Comfort is for sissies and unattractive people.”
As Aphrodite snootily retucked herself into bed, I made my way over to the little sink in the corner of the room and washed my face and used one of the new, still-in-its-wrapper guest toothbrushes to brush my teeth. As nonchalantly as I could I said, “Hey, uh, can I ask you something?”
“Ask away,” she said, plumping her pillows.
“It’s a serious question.”
“So?”
“So, I need a serious answer.”
“Yeah, fine, whatever. Ask,” she said flippantly.
“You said before that you knew Erik got too possessive.”
“That’s not really a question,” she said.
I raised my brows at her in the mirror. She sighed.
“Okay, yes, Erik was a stage-five clinger.”
“Huh?”
She sighed. “Clinger. Stage five. Totally not fucking cool.”
“Aphrodite, what language are you speaking?”
“Teenage American. Way upper-class. You could speak it too with a little imagination and a few real cuss words.”
“Goddess help me,” I muttered to my reflection before I continued. “Okay, so. Erik was too possessive with you, too.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“And it made you mad?”
“Yeah, definitely. Basically, it broke us up.”
I squished Crest on my toothbrush. “So it made you mad. You and Erik broke up, but you were, still, uh, all, well…” I chewed my lip for a second and then tried again. “I saw you with him and you were all, um—”
“Oh, for crap’s sake! You can just say it without melting. You saw me go down on him.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said awkwardly.
“That’s not a question either.”
“Fine! Here’s the question: You were broken up with him because he was a possessive jerk, but you were still trying to be with him, so much so that you were even doing that. I don’t get why,” I blurted, and stuck my toothbrush in my mouth.
Watching her reflection in the mirror, I saw her cheeks turn bright pink. Aphrodite flipped back her hair. She cleared her throat. Then she met my gaze in the mirror. “It wasn’t about wanting Erik. It was about wanting control.”
“Huh?” I said through the bubbles of Crest.
“Things had started to change with me at school even before you showed up.”
I spit and rinsed. “What things?”
“I knew something was up with Neferet. It bothered me, and that was weird.”
I wiped my mouth and went over to my bed, using kicking off my shoes, pulling off my clothes, putting on the soft, warm cotton nightgown, and climbing in bed as an excuse to stay quiet while I tried to figure out how to put into words the stuff babbling through my mind. But without me saying anything, Aphrodite continued, “You know I used to keep my visions from Neferet, don’t you?”
I nodded. “And humans died because of it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. They did. And Neferet didn’t care. I could tell. That was when I started to feel weird. That’s also when my life started to fall apart. I didn’t want it to. I wanted to stay the bitch in charge, who would someday be High Priestess and, preferably, rule the world. Then I could tell my mother to go straight to hell—and maybe even be so powerful that I could scare her like she deserves to be scared.” Aphrodite blew out a long breath. “It didn’t work out that way.”
“Instead you listened to Nyx,” I said softly.
“Well, first I tried like hell to stay queen of my bitchy kingdom, and being with the hottest guy at school, even if he was a possessive asshat, was part of that.”
“It makes sense, I guess,” I said.
Aphrodite hesitated then added, “It makes me sick to remember it.”
“You mean doing it with Erik?”
Her lips curled up and she shook her head, laughing a little. “Goddess, you’re such a prude! No, doing it with Erik was actually not bad at all. It makes me sick to remember how I kept quiet about my visions and basically shit on Nyx’s path.”