Annabeth Neverending Page 17

  Mrs. Lansing returns, and Gabriel bids us both a hasty farewell. Mrs. Lansing looks at me questioningly. “What’s going on between you two now?”

  “Nothing much. Just that Gabriel was an evil sorcerer in ancient Egypt, and I fear that he’s unknowingly accessing his black magic from his past life.”

  Mrs. Lansing stops short. “Annabeth, that’s absurd. I’m willing to entertain most of your notions, but Gabriel isn’t evil and never was. I know him well enough to say that beyond a doubt.”

  “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You weren’t there.”

  “Please. If he were so powerful, would he waste his time working at the flea?”

  I shrug, knowing that this is hard for her to accept because she’s so fond of him, which is why I put off this talk as long as I did. “None of it makes sense if we apply the laws of physics, of nature. Gabriel had to have caused that accident at the Desert.”

  Mrs. Lansing shakes her head resolutely. “You know I’m open-minded. But maybe it was just a freak occurrence that had nothing to do with magic. Let’s face it; that is the likelier story,” Mrs. Lansing points out.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  I grow quiet, wishing that I could be as confident and as rational as she sounds. But I fear what’s swaying her isn’t logic but emotion.

  “Please, don’t accuse him of anything right now. And certainly don’t share your theory with C. J. Gabriel’s dealing with enough as it is.”

  All of this causes my head to spin in bewilderment. I want to be there for Gabriel, help him through. I want to be on his side…carefully, quietly. I can’t make any more waves, cause any more problems. Especially when I’m convinced that even if he is a purveyor of black magic, it isn’t really his fault. So for now, I’ll keep it all to myself. I decide to settle into my silence. I owe Gabriel that much.

  I’m slowly learning to erase Gabriel from my mind. The close proximity to C. J. helps. He’s everywhere. I can nonchalantly keep tabs on him by seeing whether or not his bedroom light is on, and I imagine he probably does the same with me.

  I peer out my arched window and see that he’s left his blinds open. He’s home, studying, just as I am. Maybe algebra will be a little less miserable if we work on it together. So I text him with an invitation to come over. He looks up at me and nods in agreement, arriving with a book in hand and a hopeful look on his face.

  “So, where are your parents?”

  “They’re out.”

  “They are?” asks C. J., beaming. He takes my hand, pulling me along behind him, and we run up the stairway. We enter my mishmash of a room, and he closes the door.

  “I don’t have a lock…And they could be back any minute,” I say quietly. Though he does not seem dissuaded by that idea. In fact, he looks even more intent than before. And I have to admit, that element of danger—the idea that we could get caught—adds to the allure of messing around.

  My hieroglyphics loom in the background, as do some small pharaonic statues I picked up at the flea for a song. They can’t touch what was in the storage room from my memory, but they’re decent stand-ins. I’m hoping this will be an accurate re-creation of the scene from ancient Egypt that I wasn’t able to see to completion.

  C. J. gently pushes me backward, leaning me up against the wall. My shoulders rest against it, and my hands slide in around his waist. He lowers his face and rests his cheek on mine. His eyelashes fan against my skin.

  “Oh, Annabeth…”

  C. J. kisses me, slowly, deliberately, taking his time as he goes deeper, gets more intense. Then he seems to think the better of it and stops.

  “Is this what it felt like…to kiss me…back then?”

  “I wish I could remember, but I don’t,” I say with a sigh.

  “I’m kind of relieved. Then I won’t suffer by comparison.”

  He grows pensive, his brow furrowed, and I know what he’s thinking. It’s obvious.

  “I didn’t kiss Gabriel either. It never got to that point,” I say, hoping to disguise any hint of sadness.

  “I would’ve understood if it had, but I’m happy that it didn’t,” C. J. admits.

  “Um, let’s not talk about your brother right now. It’s kind of a buzzkill.”

  I run my hand over C. J.’s chest, and then I feel something bumpy beneath his thin cotton tee. I push my hand up under his shirt and over his abs, which are washboard, washboard, washboard…Then I finally reach it. It’s shaped like a bullet. It’s his scar.

  The scar!

  “How did you get this?”

  “Oh that? It’s just a birthmark.”

  “You had this back then. They branded you when you were enslaved.”

  C. J. considers this. A birthmark he’s known his whole life has its own origin story. That might be enough to put a damper on his mood. But it’s not.

  “It’s fitting…because I’ll always be a slave to you.”

  I gasp, awash in newly awakened emotion. We move to the bed, but I make sure things don’t go too fast or too far. The ramifications wouldn’t be quite as severe as they were in ancient Egypt, but this is still fraught with danger. If my parents catch us, we won’t live to tell the tale.

  21

  York High has a wrestling match coming up against Falmouth, so we head to an all-you-can-eat buffet to accommodate C. J.’s and Hector’s different weight-class goals: C. J. needs to weigh down, and Hector needs to weigh up.

  Bernadette and I watch on in amusement as C. J. sets a few ruffly greens and a limp piece of fish on his plate while Hector loads his high with thick steaks and buttery mashed potatoes. I ladle clam chowder into some bowls, and Bernadette grabs some oyster crackers.

  We take our seats, and Bernadette and I embrace the moment. We’ve always talked about going on a double date with two studly boyfriends, and that day has finally arrived. While Old Country Buffet didn’t figure into any of our discussions, we’ll take it.

  “So, how do you guys know each other?” C. J. asks, looking over his plate with disdain and settling on a drooping spear of asparagus.

  “We all went to middle school together,” Hector explains.

  “Then he moved to Falmouth, and we became mortal enemies,” I add with a grin.

  “But I couldn’t fight my love for Bernadette,” he says, looking at her with undeniable affection.

  “Although I think he used to have a little crush on Annabeth. He won’t admit it, but I have my suspicions.”

  “Bernadette, why are you always stirring up trouble?” Hector says chastisingly, though he doesn’t deny her accusation.

  “It’s my way,” she says with a laugh.

  If Hector had any feelings for me, he certainly never let on, which is fine. Things are the way should be. Hector gets up to grab another plate and places a hand upon each of my shoulders.

  “Well, C. J., if Bernadette and I ever break up, you may have a fight on your hands.” Hector walks away, not knowing that his silly comment, his innocent touch, might have set off something inside of C. J.

  But as I look at my boyfriend, his mouth hardens, and his eyes narrow. He tries in vain to laugh it off, but clearly he thinks Hector’s gone too far.

  It’s flattering. Jealousy shows he cares.

  Wearing my blue-and-white pompon uniform, I enter the brightly lit field house. I reach the mats that are presumably laid out for a wrestling meet, but the place is strangely empty. Usually, having the largest field house in the state is a point of pride for all of us Wildcats, but right now I wish it were smaller. There are too many dark corners in which to hide, too many strange hallways in which to lurk.

  “Is anybody there?” I ask, my voice jumping off the walls.

  Gabriel appears, as though on cue. He’s wearing a spandex wrestling uniform, and every muscular bulge on his body is visible. He mutely walks up to me
and grabs my sweater and pulls it over my head, leaving me with nothing on top but a paper-thin turtleneck.

  And I like it…

  Gabriel takes my hand and pulls me to the ground, where we playfully wrestle before he lifts me up and gently throws me onto a pile of soft mats. I roll back next to him and reach over and pin his arms above his head. We kiss, and a thousand explosions go off within my body. His hands travel up under my skirt, but I push them away. They search out a new target under my top while he breathes in my ear.

  I moan as he runs his hands over my bra. I want him so badly, I feel for him so deeply, it almost hurts. Only he can stop my aching. And so Gabriel reaches behind my back to unfasten the hook. I caress his cheek with my hand while he effortlessly undoes my clasp.

  “Funny seeing you here.”

  I tumble back into reality. I’m still in my uniform but seated in the rickety field-house bleachers, flanked by Kerry and Bernadette. Gabriel squeezes in between me and…his new girlfriend.

  At first, I’m too discombobulated to respond. I stammer helplessly, and I’m sure I look like a complete idiot. How can I be having another sexual fantasy about him? Why won’t my libido learn? Seeing him here, in the flesh, fresh off the heels of my latest…It makes me want to give him a play-by-play. It also makes me want to act out everything I just envisioned. Is there anywhere we could go right now?

  I’m a daydream cheater. A head-trip harlot. But does it really count if it only happens in your mind? I tell myself it doesn’t, but then that would minimize the things that have only gone on in my mind, which are numerous. So I’m torn. I gulp with agitation. It doesn’t seem normal to be so preoccupied with Gabriel when I finally have C. J.

  Unless Gabriel is making it happen. With black magic…

  This has to be a wild flight of my imagination, I remind myself. Mrs. Lansing was right. Gabriel is good. I can’t let him be defined by his past life. It wouldn’t be fair.

  “I was being facetious. Of course you’d be here. To cheer C. J. on.”

  I should’ve mentally prepared to see him at this meet. The wrestling team is on a winning streak. And even with what little I know about the sport, I can attest to the fact that C. J.’s very talented. I’ve seen him wrestle as both Sethe and C. J., and he’s a force to be reckoned with in both lives.

  Because we’re all packed into the seats like sardines, I’m sitting so close to Gabriel that I can’t avoid touching him. Every time I do, it’s like receiving a searing jolt. I try to lean away, put some space between the two of us, but I can’t. Being pressed against him stirs things in me I wish would stop stirring. I need to keep my breathing light, so I don’t start panting. I’m going to have to deal with it.

  Both teams arrive in the gym, ours in full striped uniform…the very uniform I just imagined Gabriel wearing…

  “I have to admit; I’m not a fan of the onesie,” I say.

  Gabriel laughs heartily.

  “The correct term is singlet,” he points out, in much the same way a college professor would.

  “Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to. Were you ever on wrestling?” I ask.

  “Yeah right. You think I want to get cauliflower ear?” he responds, jeering.

  Sometimes, we are strangely simpatico.

  “Falmouth, you’re going down! Especially you, Hector!” I cry from the stands. Hector searches me out and, once he spots me, waves congenially.

  Even from the bleachers, I can tell that C. J. seems irritated that I acknowledged his opponent, even though it was not in a positive way.

  Was I flirting, and I didn’t realize it?

  I don’t think so.

  Bernadette stands up, and we do give a rousing cheer in C. J.’s honor. He nods at us vaguely, like he can’t be bothered to fully respond. While C. J.’s behavior embarrasses me, I decide not to let it ruin the night. But of course I can’t forget it—I’m kind of an expert in overanalyzation. Or is it overanalyzing?

  The meet begins, and we have to sit through several other matches before Hector and C. J. are up. This is sheer misery, because I enjoy wrestling even less than football. Why is it that so much of my high-school experience is made up of sporting events I care so little about?

  Finally, C. J. and Hector take their places. We all cheer for C. J., crying out his name, and I turn to my bleacher-mates.

  “I like to call him ‘The Seige,’” I say, bragging. “You know, like, from C. J.?”

  Bernadette rolls her eyes.

  “I came up with that myself, but no biggie,” I say, milking my rare flash of brilliance while I can.

  The match begins. C. J. and Hector stand facing each other inside a circle on the floor. The referee blows a whistle. They shake hands and keep tapping each other’s shoulders while hunched over. They shuffle back and forth in an apelike manner, hanging low to the ground. I prefer stick fighting. To me this lacks elegance, finesse.

  C. J. dives down, grabbing Hector’s feet and lifting him over his head and behind him. C. J. then twists around and pushes Hector down to the ground before grabbing him around the waist. Hector keeps trying to free himself from C. J.’s hold but doesn’t manage to break away.

  They keep interlocking, fumbling, traveling out of the designated circle. The referee blows the whistle again, and the boys move back into the center of the ring. But Hector doesn’t have a chance. C. J. is on top of him practically the whole time, hugging, grasping, rolling around, pawing, lunging.

  When C. J. and Hector go back to their place in the middle of the circle, Hector looks up at me. It’s quick, short-lived…meaningless. Well, it’s meaningless to me, and yet it some somehow flips a switch inside of C. J. A switch that never should’ve been touched. He’s angry. Make that furious.

  C. J. flies at Hector and takes him down. He puts him in a headlock, and Hector tries to drag out of it. C. J. won’t let him go and punches Hector in the gut. This quickly devolves into a fistfight. They start knocking each other with full force, though C. J. is more the aggressor. He pummels Hector and won’t stop. Maybe he can’t stop. I watch in horror as the referees rush in, trying in vain to intervene and pull them apart. But C. J. is determined to hold on.

  Finally, C. J. is hauled away by the refs as Hector falls to his knees, screaming in pain. Blood is spurting from his mouth, but not like it normally should. Instead it’s gushing out from his lips like a geyser! Hector’s ruby-red blood is splashing on everything around him. I didn’t realize the human body could spare so much and still keep going. I feel faint. My stomach rolls in nausea, in horror.

  The last time I saw this much blood was at Abu Simbel…which makes me wonder. Could Gabriel be the true culprit, but he’s using C. J. as a front?

  Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

  Hector, pale as a ghost, bends over and spits a mouthful of cracked teeth on the ground. A hysterical Bernadette runs to his side, and they both disappear with the Falmouth coach, presumably to get him emergency dental treatment.

  How can this have happened? And who was to blame?

  At the Desert of Maine, Gabriel looked like he was at fault. But here, he simply looks concerned and upset. Either Gabriel doesn’t know the extent of his own powers, or C. J. doesn’t know his own strength. And now, I’m left to turn to Gabriel for answers while we wait idly for the halftime to begin.

  “Does C. J. have a history of jealous behavior?”

  He looks me in the eye, and I can tell he doesn’t even want to say this, though he does. “There was no reason to. He never gave another girl a second look until you came into the picture.”

  Assuming there was no foul play on Gabriel’s part, C. J. let his feelings for me take over and hurt my friend. I’m beginning to worry that I blindly let him into my life without knowing his full story. I based my feelings on what I knew of his past without giving much thought to the present.

  Did I assu
me too much? Have I relied so heavily on the good will surrounding Sethe that it blinded me to C. J.’s flaws?

  Bernadette never comes back, so the formations in our routine have a gaping hole in the front. We do our best to perform, unaffected, but it’s daunting after what happened tonight. Although Kerry is, as usual, able to pull it off. But I’m nothing more than a hollow smile, a shell of my normal performance self.

  Ultimately, there are no real repercussions for C. J. because he’s the star of the team. He merely gets a slap on the wrist, and some serious PR spin is set in motion. The episode is completely rewritten, the explanation being that Hector has hemophilia and, with his thin blood, is prone to endless bleeding and weak gums. While this excuse sounds transparent, everybody seems to buy it. Except for Bernie, that is. I suppose people believe what they want to believe.

  Except for me, of course.

  When I privately question him, C. J. insists that he just got carried away, that it wasn’t anything personal. And Hector doesn’t dispute the blood disease story or press charges. It turns out there’s some sort of unspoken rule among wrestlers—whatever happens in the ring, stays in the ring. And sometimes things get out of hand. But this was beyond the norm…beyond the natural.

  I don’t understand how somebody who went so far as to risk his life for a compatriot in one incarnation could conduct himself so reprehensively in this one. It’s perplexing. Just how much has C. J. changed? And why? Is Gabriel turning him to the black arts? Is it just regular teen jealousy? ’Roid rage?

  Bernadette calls me to update me on Hector and informs me that he’ll be OK, but he’s got some healing to do. I’m relieved, but I’m also sick over the whole incident.

  “I hope you didn’t let C. J. down easy.”

  “I haven’t let him down at all. I don’t know what to say.”

  “I do: ‘It’s over,’” Bernadette announces, her voice seething with anger.