Lpov

'I just want him back.' I said desperately, my body shaking as my mother stared me down. 'You can make him love me again. I'll do whatever you want, just-"

'Quite sniveling.' My mother said furiously and I felt anxiety welling within me her disgusted expression. 'It's pathetic. Are you really crying over that stupid son of Apollo?'

'Mom, I-'

'Enough Lorelei.' She spat and I winced. 'I don't want to hear any more of your complaining. I have no interest in helping weak, whining little girls who thought they knew better than the goddess of love.'

Her eyes narrowed as she lifted a hand, a glowing chain appearing in her open palm, the pendant glittering as it dangled between us.

I felt a pang of shock go through me. Was that what I thought it was?

She seemed to know what was on my mind, because the look she gave me was amused. Beautiful, but cruel.

'If you want him, then go get him.' She said softly as my gaze fell on the locket. 'You know what it costs.'

"Lore?"

I jumped at the sound of my name, then swore as I dropped the box of sprinkles I was holding. They scattered across the counter and the corner marred the cakes frosting, before hitting the marble and busting open.

I stared at mess in disjointed shock as sprinkles rained to the floor then looked up to see Jake looking at me in concern.

"Yeah?" I asked distractedly, wondering why he was looking at me like a particularly sensitive bomb that was about to go off.

"You ok?"

His tone was hesitant as he looked around. The kitchen that looked as if a tornado had hit it.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you're stress baking."

He glanced at the island in the center of the room, then at the counter in front of me that were full of various things like muffins, cookies, and cupcakes, as well as other treats I'd made throughout the day.

"Gods how many ingredients did you blow through?"

"The store isn't that far," I said shrugging. "It's not like I can't replace-"

But he cut me off.

"Leave some sugar for the rest of the world." He said flatly. "Jeez Lore, is this why you haven't been answering your texts all day? Because you've been spiraling?"

"Baking is not an unusual hobby."

"No. But trying to bake enough to feed a small country in the span of twenty four hours is." He frowned. "What's setting you off?"

"Nothing." I said brushing a strand of hair out of my face, only to realize there was frosting on my fingers. The strand had faded from black to a pale purple hours ago and I'd been unable to get it to change back.

"Right." He said with a snort spotting the change in color. "You're a mess Loo. Go take a shower, I'll get started on… this."

He gestured towards the explosion of ingredients strewn across the kitchen.

"Jake, you don't-"

"Go."

He pointed towards the stairs.

"Then we're talking."

"Fine." I said quietly throwing him a look he was clearly not impressed with before making my way out of the kitchen and towards the floating steps that lead to the second level.

I'd always hated these stairs, even since my father had been able to afford this place. With the gaps between each step, I was convinced I was somehow going to break my neck on them, especially since I'd started wearing heels.

I looked around the house as I walked, wondering why it seemed that the more money people had, the emptier their homes seemed to be. The modern art that hung on the wall was neutral and, in my opinion, lifeless. The hall full of blank, dark colors and clean cut furniture that made me feel like I was stuck in some sort of show room or magazine spread, rather than an actual house.

I didn't really remember our old apartment much, but I did remember there had been more photos. More photos and more fun.

'More love too.'

The thought came from out of nowhere and I almost laughed at the irony of it.

I pushed open my door and felt a little better at the disarray of colors and fabrics strewn over the room, but it was fleeting.

Ignoring the mannequins with half finished projects, and the patterns strewn across my bed, I grabbed one of my fluffiest towels then walked to the bathroom next to my closet, turning the water to about as hot as it could go.

When I finally made it back downstairs in a t shirt and sweats, I saw that Jake had put a decent dent into the mess of the kitchen, but had been distracted by a plate of snickerdoodles.

"Thanks." I said pulling my hair back with an elastic and looking around the kitchen, and he nodded.

"I'm taking these home with me."

"The cookies?" I asked curiously, noticing he'd already finished half of them and he nodded for a second time.

"Alright." I said with a shrug, sitting on one of the stools at the island.

I knew I should have been dealing with what was left of the mess, but the thought of it left me exhausted.

Only now that I was thinking about it, did I realize I hadn't had any food today, and despite the counter full of baked goods in front of me, the thought of eating made me feel sick.

"So," Jake said grabbing one of the muffins and eyeing me with a knowing expression as he leaned against the island opposite me. His gaze darted towards my hair no doubt to the color I'd been unable to banish. "What's with the 'Betty Crocker' break down?"

"I dunno," I admitted looking around at all the food. "I just felt like I couldn't sit still."

"And you've been ignoring your phone because…?"

I didn't answer.

The truth was, I was avoiding my phone because I was afraid to look at it.

I didn't know what to expect after my conversation with Dex last night, or the flood of dreams and intrusive memories that had plagued me since. At this point, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do.

I wanted to talk to him, but had no idea what I would even say. I was almost relieved this morning when I realized he hadn't texted me, but found myself increasingly disappointed as the day went on and I hadn't heard from him.

Then angry with myself. Angry that even a part of me wanted to talk to him, angry that I was too much of a coward to reach out.

But most of all I was scared. I was scared that maybe, I had finally managed to run Dex off after I'd somehow managed to completely mishandle every situation with him. Afraid that once again, in the eyes of my mother, I'd royally screwed everything up.

Under all of it however, was the fear of the possibility that all of these things I was feeling, only stemmed from the fact that when it came to spending time with Dex, I'd allowed myself to feel too much.

I'd thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle this. How many people had I been able to get to chase after me? Even when it directly went against their own interest.

But I han't expected to like him.

Before I knew it, it was almost eleven o'clock at night, and the last of my weekend had vanished in a blur of stand mixing and Disney music, while pretending cell phones weren't a thing.

Jake seemed to know what was on my mind.

"I can't help but feel like this is related to a certain camper from cabin 9." He said glancing over his shoulder to the place on the counter where my phone was resting face down.

It had been like that for hours.

"What happened?" he asked frowning and grabbing the device. "I thought you said you had fun yesterday."

"I did." I admitted which only seemed to confuse him.

"You know you're sort of weird Lore." He said frowning. "You might be the only person I've ever met who's upset about having a good date."

"It wasn't a date." I asserted, but he waved the statement away.

"Lunch, then the arcade, then dinner, and he walked you home."

He gave me pointed look.

"Technically it was your house."

"Don't be dumb." he said, ignoring my interjection. "Guys don't do that for girls they don't like. Especially guys like Dex."

"That was like our every Saturday for years."

"And yet I was free yesterday." He said emphasizing the word. "We could have hung out." he continued with a shrug. "You could have gone home. You could have done anything with your time. It's not the same."

His words hit me like a ton of bricks and a sinking sensation was going through me as once again, the gravity of the situation I was in reared it's ugly head.

I sighed and put my elbows on the counter top of the island, and put my head in my hands.

"You're right." I said quietly.

I'd been prepared to tolerate Dex Cartwright as a means to an end. I hadn't really been thrilled about any guy after Caleb, apart from Jake, but even I had had to admit he was good looking. Asking about him around camp, I'd gotten pretty much the same information from everyone. He was big, could fix or build just about anything, and he generally didn't like to talk. This I'd been fine with. After all the stupid things I'd done, I didn't really feel like talking much either. However, maybe that was where I'd gone wrong.

Dex might have been blunt, but deep down, he was much nicer than people seemed to realize. And in his own weird, sarcastic sort of way, he didn't seem to care what I looked like. I hadn't expected spending time around him to be actually sort of... fun.

"This was a mistake," I continued shaking my head. "I never should have involved Dex, it-"

"Your mistake was losing your head over Caleb." Jake said calmly, breaking my line of thought.

There was no judgement in his tone which I was grateful for. Jake had never judged me no matter how reckless my choices had been over the years. But there was a matter of fact manner in his tone that told me that in his opinion, this situation wasn't about to go away.

"You shouldn't have gone running to your mother over a guy who showed you how little he cared about you. And no, you shouldn't have gotten other people involved. Especially Dex."

"So what do I do?" I asked pressing the palms of my hands against my eyes.

"That's up to you." he said and I looked up.

He was holding out my phone and, out of habit more than anything, I took it.

I noticed there were several texts, mostly from Jake, but unlike the last week or so, none were from Dex.

It was hard to describe the feeling that accompanied this revelation, but it wasn't pleasant.

"But if you like this guy, you've got to figure your crap with your mom out. She's not going to leave it alone."

"I don't want to talk to her." I said quietly.

"And you don't have to." He agreed. "There are other ways of dealing with that thing and you know it." He gestured towards the locket that was resting above the collar of my t-shirt and while his tone was neutral, he gave it an ugly expression. "But you can't live in purgatory forever. She's already pissed you found a loophole, she won't put up with it forever, and you can't keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For gods sake Lore, your powers right now are hardly even yours." his eyes darted to the streak in my hair before glancing back at me. "And the ones you can control, you hate using."

I looked down at my hands.

"I know." I said quietly. "I just… I don't want to hurt anybody."

"You're hurting you." he said and while I didn't look up, I could hear the concern in his tone. "And it isn't exactly like your way around the problem is all that great either."

I winced thinking about all the screaming and crying and couples arguing, directly as a consequence of my actions.

"It's not my fault if people are being terrible."

"Yes, but just because someone's stupid for hanging of the side of the cliff doesn't mean you have the right to just push them off. Even if they're being dumb."

I didn't answer this and there as a moment of silence between us that wasn't exactly heavy, but it wasn't all that fun either.

"You're my best friend Lore." He said eventually. "And if you want to screw over every last person like Caleb or Heather out there fine. I support you. Have a field day. But they're not the only people that get caught in the crossfire. And Dex is a good dude."

He hesitated before saying.

"I know you pretty well Loo, and if he ends up hurt, I think you're going to have a hard time forgiving yourself for it."

I didn't answer this, but mostly because he was right. What else could I really say about it? I'd landed myself in such a stupid situation, over someone who in the end, hadn't cared all that much about me. Not like I thought they had anyways. And now I wasn't the only one who was going to have to pay the price.

For weeks I'd been trying to avoid it. Trying to mitigate the suffering and channel it in the directions of only the people that deserved it, but Jake was right. It wasn't a long-term solution, it never had been, and now in a lot of ways things were a lot worse.

"There is another route we can take with this." He reminded me, but I shook my head.

"No one's been able to do it, Jake."

"You know I'd help you."

"It's too dangerous. If something happened-"

"Then I'd be happier dealing with the consequences of that, than seeing someone I care about so miserable all the time."

I sighed.

"I'll think about it." I said quietly, while privately wondering if I'd ever think anything was important enough to me to risk the safety of my best friend. Even if he thought breaking an ancient curse sounded like fun some sort of fantastical adventure…

"Good." He said with a nod. "Now get off your ass and help me finish cleaning this place up."

"Alright." I said with a grin, sliding off the stool and grabbing a role of paper towels from the pantry.

The kitchen was pretty big, but with two people, it didn't take long to clean what was left of the mess. Despite this, it was almost midnight by the time we were done, and the food was wrapped to bring his team's next practice.

"Where's your dad?" he asked finishing the last muffin that hadn't made it into one of the goodie bags.

"No idea." I said with a shrug. "Probably at some after party celebrating his 'triumphant return'."

"Yeah I was watching yesterday too." He said with a frown. "People seem pretty excited he's back. Are you ready for that?"

His tone was hesitant leading me to think he already knew the answer to this question.

"No." I admitted.

It was already hard enough to keep a low profile as a child of Aphrodite, especially if your mortal parent was famous. Something that, unfortunately, happened a lot amongst my siblings. Trying to keep a low profile, while being forced to do my best impression of the perfect daughter of Aphrodite though… I didn't know how that was going to work.

"Well." He said. "Worse comes to worst. I've got a couple of old paint ball guns I can dust off if we need to take out some camera lenses."

I laughed at this.

"I think that might get us arrested."

"But it would send a message."

"That's a good point." I said thinking on the suggestion. "And a good back up plan."

Within really meaning to, I glanced at my phone and must have noticed because he said.

"You know you can always be the one to reach out."

I shook my head however.

"No, it's probably better if I don't."

I'd meant what I'd said last night. I'd wanted Dex to think about if he really wanted to be around me, but also, if he did want to be around, that I was selfish enough not to try and stop him.

I didn't have to be the one pressing the issue though, and as I walked towards the pantry with the container of flour, a small, bitter part of me hoped that he wouldn't call. I knew it would probably be better for Dex if he and I never spoke again, and a mix of emotions went through me at this thought, the predominant one being regret.

Almost immediately, however, it was eclipsed with fear upon the identification of the feeling and I had just a moment to feel my heart skip a beat in panic before a wave of cold washed over me.

It was accompanied by a spike of pain radiating from my temple, and I staggered. I heard the glass of the container shattering before I realized I'd dropped it.

"Lore!" Jake shouted in surprise as I winced and put a hand to my head, but I waved him off almost immediately as I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm fine." I assured him.

My head throbbed again, but this time it wasn't nearly as bad.

"What happened?" he asked frowning and as I looked down, I saw there was flour and shards of glass everywhere.

"Nothing." I said shaking my head but when he glowered at me, I continued. "I'm alright. I think I might have been feeling a bit too empathetic for my mother's liking."

He looked confused for a moment, then seemed to realize what I meant because his expression went from concern to disgusted.

"You've got to get rid of that thing." He said furiously. "Stay here."

He moved towards a closet in the hall and coming back with a dust pan and broom.

I held the dust pan and he swept up the worst of the glass, muttering to himself all the while.

"Jake," I started trying to keep my tone reasonable but he shook his head.

"Don't defend your mom Lore what she's doing is cruel."

"It was my stupid decision."

"Screw that!" he almost yelled and I jumped, surprised at the anger in his voice. "Your dad had just left, people had been harassing you for months, and then your boyfriend ripped your heart out when you needed the ones who were supposed to care about you the most. You were not in a place to be making any decisions and she knew that. She's thousands of years old!"

I waited for my mother to appear and murder Jake on the spot for the comment about her age, but shockingly, it didn't happen.

"She took advantage of the situation." He said darkly. "Just so she could get you to do what she wanted. And I don't know what's worse. That she had the ability to curse her own daughter, or try and justify it as some sort of lesson."

His expression was still angry, but his eyes were full of concern.

"You don't get to see someone that's drowning, and think you're a good person because you threw them a life raft while refusing to let them onto the boat. It doesn't work like that. You don't hand someone a curse like this, and get to package it like hope."

Before I could even begin to form a response to this, a set of headlights flashed through the window, and we both looked out to see a very expensive car pull into the drive next to Jake's truck.

"Well this is going to be fun." He muttered with a grimace, crossing his arms over his chest in irritation as the front door unlocked.

Almost immediately as it swung open, I heard laugher and was surprised to see not my father, but an extremely attractive woman step into the house with him not two steps behind.

Both were dressed for a nightclub and holding hands, but froze in apparent shock when they spotted me and Jake. The woman, who I recognized to be a somewhat well-known model in this area, merely looked surprised, but my father looked apprehensive.

She couldn't have been more than ten years older than I was...

"Oh," he said clearly caught off guard.

He then spotted Jake, and immediately switched from English asking why he was here, a habit of his when he was embarrassed or upset, and didn't want people to know what he was speaking to me about.

"I'm murdering her, clearly." Jake responded sarcastically and I couldn't help but give my dad half a shrug.

"Not gonna work," I said flatly. "I taught him French."

"I didn't realize you'd be home." He said quietly, avoiding my gaze and a look of comprehension dawned on the girls features.

"Is this your daughter?" she asked excitedly looking between the two of us as more head lights appeared from the driveway. "Oh my gosh she's even cuter in person than all the pictures."

My dad winced at this and I felt a wave of anger flood through me, pushing out any sense of courtesy as I snapped.

"Funny. I don't think the same can be said for you."

"Lorelei." My father snapped as a look of offended surprise crossed her features.

It wasn't true, the girl was gorgeous and I was sure I would pay for the insult down the line, but right now I didn't care.

"I'm going to Jake's." I said walking grabbing my bag from the hook by the front door and he sighed.

"Did you get the tickets I sent you?"

"No," I said sourly. "Maybe if you'd been here to give them to me and not your manager, they wouldn't have been lost. Have you checked the garbage disposal?"

He started to switch back to French, but I cut him off.

"I've got school tomorrow. Have fun with your party."

I then stepped outside dodging more attractive girls and athletic looking guys, several of which called out to me and I ignored. One tried to grab me, no doubt to try and throw me over his shoulder like some of my dad's teammates used to when I was little, but I ducked out of his reach easily and Jake, not far behind me, pushed him back towards the rest of the group making their way towards the door.

"Guess we're driving on the lawn." Jake said with a bleak laugh as we reached his truck, and saw that several cars had blocked him in almost all the way to the security gate.

"Feel free to do some donuts while you're at it."

He grinned.

"Lore, I know you're in bad mood, but I just got my car waxed. I'm not getting mud on it because you want to piss off your dad."

"Fair enough." I said with a sigh.

Music was already thumping in the house.

I jumped into the passenger seat of the truck as Jake fired up the engine and put the car into gear.

He pulled out of the driveway, on to the lawn and around the cars as I looked in the side view mirror back at the house, disappointed but unsurprised to see my father hadn't come back out.

Dpov

I didn't talk to Lorelei for almost a week after we'd gone to the arcade together. After our conversation and the apparent view she had of herself, I figured Lorelei probably expected me to reach out to her, and having gotten so used to talking with her, I almost had several times. But each time I opened our text conversation, or thought to give her a call, something had me hesitating and I wasn't sure why.

It wasn't like I didn't want to see her, and if she'd reached out, I wasn't going to not respond. But the way she'd been talking before heading in for the night gave me the impression that she was conflicted about a lot of things at the moment, and I kept telling myself that if that was the case, Lorelei needed to figure them out for herself.

So many things about her just didn't seem to add up, but it wasn't my job to try and make sense of someone I just barely knew. I'd spent years trying to figure out my ex-girlfriend, and it never seemed to work. The last thing I wanted to go for another round. But despite this, the part of me, no doubt inherited from my father, that couldn't help but tinker with things had been sent into over drive which was weird, because never before had it been directed at a person.

At least not like this.

I was certain if I knew more about her, I could make her behavior make sense, but it all seemed so contradictory I couldn't seem to find any sort of motivation that would explain half the things she'd done or said. Talking about herself however, seemed to be the very last thing she wanted to do, and after a week of no contact, I wasn't sure talking to me was something she wanted to do at all.

And that was why when her laptop had finally been fixed, I let Michael send a text from the shops reminder service rather than contacting her myself.

She hadn't responded to the message, not that that was unusual for any customer really, but I found that through out my shift at the tech shop, I was getting increasingly preoccupied. I kept finding myself doing something I never did, and making excuses to go up front, wondering when and if she was going to show up for her laptop, or if she was going to continue avoiding me.

Not only did this have the unpleasant effect of uncertainty, but it also came with the added bonus of interacting with almost every person who walked into the store. Most of them were nice, but I didn't really like talking to people, especially about technology they didn't understand and after a thirty minute conversation with one lady, who couldn't seem to fathom why the Playstation game she bought her son wouldn't work on his Xbox, I was about ready to quit.

Then, as I was looking through our inventory list, the door opened and I looked up to see Lorelei stepping through it, and I found myself thinking that the day probably hadn't really been all that bad.

She looked a little different than I was used to seeing her, her dark hair in a loose braid under a baseball cap, jeans and a t shirt with, and this was what I found the most unbelievable, sneakers. They didn't look to be a name brand either, and even seemed to be a little beat up.

It was all very girl next door, and I had to admit, it caught my attention.

Lorelei the super model was easy enough to adjust to. It easier to remember to keep some distance when she was killing monsters with accessories and appeared to be a person with whom I had very little in common.

Knowing now however, that at least some part of her was well and truly a game geek like me, and now turning up looking like a girl that would feel if not at home, than at least comfortable in the garage with my mother and I on a build, well… that was hard to ignore.

Lorelei wasn't short by any means, but as she walked to the counter, I realized how much of a difference it made in her height without the heels. She looked like an actual high schooler for once, and I thought it suited her.

I wasn't sure what to say to her, we hadn't talked for a bit and while I had a million things I'd wanted to ask her over the week, they all suddenly seemed to have deserted me. I debated on saying hi, or asked how she was doing, but none of that actually made it out of my brain. Instead, I said.

"Stop doing your make up next to your laptop."

This seemed to catch her off guard.

"What?" she asked confused as I pulled it from under the counter and set it between us.

"I had to open it while doing some of the repairs. Don't try and tell me you didn't spill foundation on the keyboard."

"Ah," she said a little ruefully. "Well I guess it's not really worth denying it huh?"

"No, it's not." I said amused then gestured to her outfit. "What's with the normal girl disguise?"

She looked down at herself then shrugged.

"Believe it or not Dex. It's not really fun to get stared at all the time."

"So you're saying you don't like being treated like some sort of exhibit at the zoo?" I asked sarcastically, pretending to make my tone thoughtful and for once, my joke seemed to land because she grinned a little.

Her answer, if possible, was even more sardonic in response.

"No." she said shaking her head. "Not really."

Her hair slipped past her shoulder, and it was then that I noticed something odd. The end of it had faded to a bright blonde.

"That's new." I said gesturing towards the braid and I was surprised when she looked a little tense.

"Yeah. It does that." She said quietly and I was surprised to find she almost sounded annoyed.

"On, it's own?" I asked in surprise and crossed her arms over her chest, apparently uncomfortable at the question.

"Sometimes."

"That's…"

"Weird?"

Her tone was apprehensive as was her expression, though I wasn't exactly sure why.

"Interesting." I answered honestly. I looked at her for a moment, genuinely curious as I asked. "Does that happen to your siblings?"

"No." she said flatly then seemed to rethink her response. "Well, theoretically I guess it could, but I'm a little unique in that respect. It's easier for me than most of them."

"What to change your hair?"

I hadn't realized this was a power the Aphrodite siblings had. Having been told however, it made sense.

"To change any of my appearance." She said with a shrug then smiled, apparently a little embarassed. "I used to have a lot of fun with it. It's probably why you didn't recognize me in the arcade."

"Is that why your siblings tease you about your hair color? Because you can change it?"

"Not entirely." She said in a tone that told me I was on the right track, but she didn't want to admit to the full situation. "But I suppose that's part of it."

"So what?" I asked suppressing a laugh as the full impact of what she was saying hit me. "You were just walking around looking like a completely different person?"

"Yeah sometimes." She said scratching the back of her head awkwardly. "It kind of drove them crazy I think. My mom too."

"Ok," I said still trying not chuckle as the door opened and two guys about our age walked in. "I have a lot of questions and not nearly enough time to ask them. Are you free this afternoon?"

"Yeah." She said sounding a little surprised at the question.

"Ok, cool. We can go back to the back to the arcade, and you're going to explain all of that to me. And I don't care if you don't like personal questions." I countered before she could protest. "That is too big of a bomb to drop on someone without giving any sort of context."

"Alright." She conceded and while she didn't exactly sound happy about the arrangement, she sounded at little amused as the new comers made their way towards the register, no doubt to ask about a repair job or pick up a game that had been on request.

"Good." I said with a nod and started the checkout process for her computer, when I noticed one of the fields for the customer information was blank.

"What's your last name?" I asked frowning at the screen, only just now realizing that in the entire time we'd been talking, she'd never mentioned it.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second longer than most people would have causing me to look up, and I was surprised at her expression. She looked upset, even a little anxious and I was startled at the way even more color seemed to have faded from her hair.

"You alright?" I asked in alarm, but one of the guys who'd walked in had taken the pause in the conversation to say.

"Do you guys do controller repairs?"

Before I could answer however, his friend, who'd been standing not too far from him did a double take when he spotted Lorelei.

I recognized the jersey he was wearing to belong to the local team she'd seemed to be a fan of, and unlike Cole, when he'd noticed her last weekend, it didn't seem to be her looks that caught his attention.

"No way, are you-"

Faster than selection on a character customization screen, Lorelei blinked and I watched fascinated as her eyes instantly switched from blue to brown. It was amazing how small a change affected her appearance.

"Oh." The boy said looking a little surprised, then embarrassed. "S-Sorry I thought you were someone else.."

"I get that a lot." She said grabbing her laptop and looking away from the boy.

Her eyes were already back to blue.

She reached into her bag and seemed to pull a few bills out at random and placed them on the counter between us.

Two one hundred dollar bills, and a fifty.

"This is way too-" I started but Lorelei shook her head, cutting me off.

"Keep it. I'll see you later Dex."

"But-"

"Just… just call me when your shift is done." She said and without waiting for an answer, she walked out of the shop looking as if she couldn't have gotten away fast enough.

We all watched her go, the guys looking just ask shocked as I was, and the first one seemed to have forgotten his question, as they looked around the store at the used consoles and games, talking quietly between themselves.

It was obvious who they were talking about. And when they were looking at the rarer, more expensive locked in the display near the register, I caught part of their conversation.

"I dunno man, I think it was her," the first one said holding up his phone for the boy in the jersey to see.

"I'm not sure," he said sounding unconvinced. "In all these photos, her eyes are blue."

"She could be wearing contacts."

I felt a strange surge of apprehension go through me at this, wondering if the two really had recognized Lorelei. And, if she had some ability to change her appearance, this was exactly the reason why she'd done it.

The two exited the store, still debating amongst themselves and I wasn't sure why I felt so unsettled until I spotted the name on the back of the jersey of the second boy, and something seemed to click in place in the back of my mind.

And suddenly, a lot of the things I'd been wondering about Lorelei, were making a lot more sense.

Why out of all the places I could have run into her, it was a school full of rich kids with loaded parents. Why, even though she didn't seem to be that big of a sports fan, she'd been obsessively watching the game last weekend, and when I'd mentioned what had happened to one of the players, she'd looked like a deer caught in head lights.

What had she'd said last weekend? That her father had been working...

That was why she'd wanted me to walk her back to Jake's and I felt a stab of guilt go through me, remembering her expression when I'd laughed at what had happened to the player. Looking back, it wasn't very funny. She'd looked like she'd been punched in the gut.

No wonder she hadn't put her last name down on the customer information. How had I been this stupid not to realize it before? How many times had I seen her initials on the scoreboards last weekend at the arcade?

L.E.

Hardly knowing what I was doing, I took my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it, then pulled up the app for the web browser.

I started to type in the letters of her name before I hesitated.

What if I was right?

Lorelei didn't like people know about her personal life. She'd made that clear and if my suspicions were correct, I was starting to understand why. This wasn't really my business. If Lorelei did have a famous father, was it fair for me to try and figure it out? Or was it something I was supposed to let her tell me on her own?

Would she have even told me?

'Screw it.' I thought and continued to type. I had to know.

Lorelei Ellis

It seemed forever for the search results to come in, but when they did, there were many, and immediately I knew I'd been right.

I clicked the images tab and there it was. Photo after photo of what was obviously a younger Lorelei, either in a stadium crowd, or with her father, almost always wearing the same familiar jersey.

I scrolled through the results, feeling a strange jumble of emotions filtering through me. Mostly shock but a little guilt as well, knowing how much she probably would have hated what I was doing.

Most of the photos appeared to be several years old, ranging from adorable kid to obvious teen, and even more noticeable, however, was the apparent pattern in the photos.

The older she looked, the more uncomfortable and unhappy in the picture she'd seem to become. As a kid she was clearly looking at the field, as she got older however, it was clear the cameras were on her mind.

I tried to ignore the article titles noticing there were very few photos that seemed to be from recent years. There was one title however, that had caught my attention.

'What happened to little Lorelei? Soccer's sweetheart gone sour.'

I hesitated, debating on if I wanted to click on the article. It was one of the few results that seemed to have a recent photo of her. It looked as if she and her father were arguing.

'No.' I thought, shaking my head and locking the phone.

It was clear that for whatever reason, Lorelei didn't want to talk about her mortal life all that much, or her dad. I wasn't about to violate even more of that boundary just because I could. I didn't have websites writing about me, but was sure I'd hate it if I did. And it would be hard to want to be around people who'd read about me on the internet, not knowing what they might or might not have read. If any of it was true.

No, if I wanted to know something about Lorelei, I could ask her. I at least owed her that respect.

"You ok dude?"

I looked up from my phone screen, to see Cole was frowning at me. I hadn't notice him walk out of the backroom, and I barely heard him as he continued.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah," I said nodding. "Yeah I'm fine."

"Alright." He said sounding unconvinced and I was only left with my thoughts for about another minute before I said.

"I gotta go."

"Now?" he asked a little surprised looking around the store.

It wasn't busy, but I still had another hour or so before my shift ended.

"Yeah, now." I said, not entirely sure what I was doing. "If anyone asks, just tell them I'm not feeling well."

"Um, alright." Cole said clearly a little freaked out as I ducked out from behind the counter and made my way towards the store's exit.

I knew why he sounded so weird. I'd never blown off work before, I'd never even so much as taken off because I was sick.

But my brain felt like someone had stuck a wedge between a system of gears that had all jerked to a stop as I tried to take the situation in. It felt as if my thoughts and emotions were crashing into each other, causing neither to function properly.

Why hadn't Lorelei told me about her father?

I mean… I had laughed about what had happened to him, and she had looked pretty upset about it, but she could have told me before that. Was that why the guy had recognized her? Is this what she was so afraid of answering personal questions before?

This new information explained a lot, but it seemed to cause more questions than it answered. And what was the deal with her mother? Lorelei never explained why her mother was angry at her. Was that why her siblings seemed to have such issues with her? Was that why she was having a hard time controlling her ability to change her appearance?

What was going on?

It had been a while since she'd left, and as I pushed open the shop door I found myself wondering if there was any hope of catching up with her.

I had just decided my best bet was to call her, when I felt a vice like grip on my shoulder, and my phone was plucked out of my hand.

I turned, automatically throwing a punch at whatever monster had grabbed me, only to have it caught mid swing.

"Nice try Hammerhead," Jake said with a smirk. "But no."

He released my fist.

"We need to talk."

"Give me my phone."

"No." he said gesturing towards his idiotic truck that was idling by the curb. "Let's go."

"I'm not getting in that thing."

"I wasn't asking." He said pushing me towards it.

"Jake, knock if off, I need to-"

"Talk to Lore, I know." He said. "She's at my house. That's where we're headed."

"You know about her dad?"

At this he laughed, but it was bleak.

"I know more about Lore than Lore does." He said stiffly. "I'm her best friend. And I know you want to talk to her, but I want to talk to you first."

"Why?" I said stiffly.

"Because." He said with maddening patience. "You and Lorelei have the collective emotional intelligence of a sea sponge. Trust me on this one. You're going to want my help. Otherwise this is going to get messy."