Joy

Possible tw: nothing graphic, but there are brief mentions of suicide and teacher/student abuse.

Patricia threw down her pencil with an air of finality. "I'm bored."

I glanced up at her from my seat across the table. "Did you finish your homework?"

"No."

"Then I don't care. If you don't do it now I'll have to listen to you complaining about how much homework you have to do later." I went back to drafting a thesis for my Hamlet essay.

"I," Patricia picked up the pencil and pointed it at me menacingly, "am going to stab you with this pencil."

"Then I'll die of lead poisoning and make it a point to haunt you for the rest of your life."

"You know, the pencil actually uses graphite and not lead, so the worst that would happen is you get a scratch," said Fabes.

I turned my head to glare at him, ignoring the small tingle in my hands. "What if she stabs me in the eye and it pierces all the way through to my brain?"

He grinned, his nose wrinkling up and I died a little inside. "Ignoring for the moment that delightful mental image, I doubt Patricia has the upper body strength to pierce through your skull with a number two pencil."

"Just try me," Patricia groused.

"Could you guys shut up?" Eddie complained. We looked over towards the couch where he'd been laying ever since we got back from school. He'd been so quiet I'd nearly forgotten he was there.

I rolled my eyes. "Patricia, what's wrong with your boyfriend?"

"Would you like me to write you up a list, or will my slideshow suffice?" she retorted.

I returned to my thesis, only to be interrupted a moment later by the sound of the upstairs door slamming and two people arguing as they came down.

"I don't care if you're tired, you haven't gotten out of bed since you got back from school." There was a pause and then, "Well I can't read Egyptian and you need to be reacquainted with the world of the living."

At that point, Amber marched into the living room, an extremely disgruntled looking Nina in one hand, the Book of the Dead in the other. She shoved the book in Nina's hands and then dragged her over to the table with the rest of us. "Nina is a wonderful person get ready to love her." She turned back to her roommate, practically buzzing in excitement. "Go on, do the thing."

After thoroughly glaring at Amber, Nina dropped the Book onto the table and waved her hand at it. We all jumped in surprise as the Book slammed itself open, flipping through pages so fast I thought they might tear until it suddenly paused, dust gently floating up from the pages.

"What the hell?" Patricia demanded, springing up from her chair and walking over to look suspiciously at both the Book and its owner. "Did you do that?"

"No," Nina deadpanned, sounding for all the world as if she wanted nothing more than to get away from all of us. "And the self-flipping isn't really important, it does that all the time. Amber and I were upstairs discussing the box from yesterday when it flew over and smacked me in the head and then opened up to this page."

"It flew over and hit you in the head?" Disbelief and amusement colored my voice in equal measure.

Nina turned empty looking eyes on me, mustering up a glare. "Yeah that's how it gets my attention." She lifted the Book and turned it around, propping it up so that we could all see the page it had fallen open to. "Look familiar?"

"That's the box Eddie opened last night isn't it?" Fabian said.

Amber flapped her hands around. "Bingo. And Nina can translate what it says because apparently she can read it now."

"Since when can you read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?" asked Patricia.

"Since about forty minutes ago," Nina snapped, sounding irritated. Patricia raised her eyebrows and Nina sighed. "Sorry. I'm just, really tired." She set the Book back on the table and looked around. "So who here has heard of Pandora's Box?"

We all looked at each other. "Tell me you're joking," I said.

Nina shrugged, like she couldn't possibly care one way or the other. "More or less. We didn't release all the evils of the world or anything, but it's basically the same concept. You know about the seven deadly sins?"

"I thought that was just a Christian thing," said Fabian.

"Yeah and Pandora's Box is part of Greek mythology," I jumped in. "Are you sure you're reading it right?"

Nina scowled at no one in particular. "Maybe Beset is trying to diversify her cursing portfolio. Do I look like I can read minds?" She rubbed at her temple with the heel of her hands as she took a deep breath. "Look, long story short, we're each going to get a turn being infected with one of the sins, and we'll have to overcome it. Once we've all finished, we'll be done with the room. Eddie got hit last night, so he's up first."

"Remind me what the sins are?" Patricia spoke up.

Nina held up a hand and began ticking off fingers. "Pride, gluttony, envy, anger, sloth, something and lust. I can't remember the last one."

"Greed," supplied Fabian.

Nina inclined her head in thanks. "So, what now? How does Eddie get rid of it?" Patricia demanded, seeming none too pleased about the concept her boyfriend being infected.

"Basically he has to commit some sort of selfless act. Bonus points if it's contrary to his infected disposition, but not required."

"Eddie has to commit a selfless act? Well, he's doomed."

"Amber!" Patricia snapped.

"What? I was joking, of course." Amber flipped her hair dismissively. "Where is Eddie anyway?"

Patricia and Fabian and I automatically pointed to the couch, and Amber flounced over to see Eddie lying down, eating potato chips, completely ignoring the rest of us. "He's been like that since we got back from school," I answered the upcoming question. "If I had to guess, I'd say gluttony or sloth."

"Well let's find out," Amber said with a shrug. She gestured us over and we came to watch as she reached down and snatched up the bowl of potato chips. Eddie immediately made weak noises of protest, his hands sort of flapping as he tried to lift them.

"That's not fair, come on, give it back." He tried to sit up, only to fall back down onto the couch and turn his head so that he was glaring at Amber, before his face fell back into neutral, as though he couldn't even be bothered to be angry.

"Definitely sloth," Amber said definitively. "Nina what do you think?"

There was no answer, and we turned to see that both Nina and the Book had vanished. Amber heaved a martyred sigh before returning Eddie's chips. "She went back upstairs didn't she?" I guessed.

Amber nodded reluctantly. "She's so tired all the time lately, and I honestly don't know what to do about it. I haven't seen her voluntarily leave the room except for school, and when we watched those Harry Potter movies over the weekend."

"Fabian, do you know what's up with her?" Patricia asked.

Fabian looked distinctly uncomfortable. "We haven't explicitly discussed it."

"Why not?" she pressed.

Fabian didn't look too keen to answer, and against my will, I felt hope flair up in my chest. "She's not really talking to me right now." The flair erupted into a showering of sparks throughout my body that I immediately smothered down, struggling to keep my facial expression as disinterested as possible.

"Go and talk to her now," demanded Amber. "Because she just lies in bed all day, staring at the ceiling not moving, and I'm running out of options, and if anyone can snap her out of this you can."

"I honestly don't think she wants to talk to me right now," Fabian protested, and I bit down on my lip, not trusting myself to talk. Don't go, don't go, don't go.

"Well she needs to talk to somebody, and out of all of us I think we can agree you're best equipped. Go."

Don't go don't go don't –

Fabian nodded his consent. "Fill in Alfie about the Pandora's Box stuff, will you?" I felt the sparks of hope in my chest die down as he headed out and his footsteps sounded up the staircase, leaving me feeling cold and empty inside. Patricia and I headed back to the table as Amber went to go and fill in Alfie. I stared fixedly at my computer screen without seeing anything, hands resting on my keyboard, unable to type. Eventually I blew out a breath and slammed it shut. "I'm going to go work on this upstairs."

Patricia made a noncommittal noise, still looking very much like she would like to murder her math problems. I slid my notebook and pencil case on top of my computer, gathered them into my arms and headed upstairs, a faint buzzing in my ears. It's not like I was going to actually eavesdrop, I was just going to accidentally happen to walk past Nina's room, and if I happened to catch a gist of their conversation, well, that simply couldn't be helped, could it? I dropped my stuff on my bed, noting that Mara wasn't there so she was probably hanging out with Jerome, and headed down the hall.

I could see that her door was open, but I couldn't hear any talking. I glanced back over my shoulder to see if Victor was going to pop up behind me, and sidled up to the door, doing my best to look inconspicuous, before casually glancing into the room.

My heart stopped. They definitely weren't talking alright. They were lying together on Nina's bed, Fabian on top of her, kissing like they couldn't get enough of each other. It was like a slow-motion car crash, where you wanted to look away but you couldn't. I watched in horror as Fabian moved his lips away from her mouth and fastened them onto her neck, saw how her body arched underneath him, how she clawed at his back and sighed in pleasure. My eyes started burning as his hand moved up under her shirt.

I jerked away, forcing myself to breathe, fighting back the growing nausea in the pit that was now my stomach. The images felt burned into my brain. I closed my eyes against them as a breathy moan sounded from the room, and I fled down the hall, face burning. I don't know why I'd let myself hope, why I ever let myself hope, why I'd let myself contemplate the possibility that he would choose me over her, want me more than her. Duval had as much as told me no one else would ever choose me, and he was right, no one ever would. Certainly not Fabian, not while she was still around. Almost against my will I felt a surge of hatred for Nina Martin. He had been mine first.

I fell into bed, consumed with self-pity and self-loathing in equal amounts. The memory of his kisses were a poison inside of me that I needed to remove, the ghosts of his hands on me made me want to scrape off my skin and scrub it clean of him. I needed to talk to someone about this, anyone, I needed to tear off the ever-present feeling of shame that wrapped around me like a collar. Unwilling to go downstairs, I grabbed my phone and dialed a number I knew by heart.

Patricia answered on the fourth ring. "Weren't you just downstairs like two minutes ago?"

Had it only been two minutes? "Can you come up here?" My voice sounded much the same as I felt: completely wrung out, drained of anything vital.

"Is something wrong?" Concern filled her question and it sent a rush of comfort through me. Not trusting myself to answer, I hung up the phone, running my finger over the keypad, all the texts he'd sent me running on replay through my head.

I didn't have to wait long before the door swung open and clicked shut. "Joy? What's wrong?" My back was to Patricia so I couldn't see her face, but I could still hear the worry.

"Do you remember how you said you'd be there if I ever wanted to talk about what was wrong with me?"

She didn't hesitate. "Of course."

I didn't even know how to begin this discussion. "There's a file in the bottom drawer of my nightstand."

I heard footsteps and the sound of something sliding open, the rustle of paper. "What's in it?"

I continued to stare fixatedly at the wall, unable to look her in the eyes. "It's the school file on Monsieur Duval. I stole it from Sweetie's office."

"Why?" Patricia asked. "You stole this weeks before he shot the place up."

"That's not why I took it."

I didn't continue, needing her to push me. I had to tell someone, but if it wasn't dragged out of me I didn't know how else to admit it. "Well why then?" I said a prayer of thanks to whatever gods there were for Patricia Williamson, and then another prayer that she wasn't about to hate me. "Joy?"

"Because he kissed me."

I told the story in fits and starts, how he'd failed me on that first French test so that I would have to meet with him, how it had started off small, just hands on my lower back and shoulders, only in private, only ever in private. When it had first started I had stolen the file, desperate to know if he had a wife, or a police record, or anything I could use to get more information on him. How when he had started demanding that I undo a few buttons on my shirt to pass quizzes, how my grade in class became dependent on how much of my skin I was willing to let him touch. How he would send me texts that made me want to vomit, how the first time he kissed me I actually did vomit in the bathroom a few minutes later, and then he kissed me again and how he had been ready to take it farther before he went and shot Nina and got arrested and killed himself. How I had felt weak in the knees with relief when we got the news he had killed himself. Each word out of my mouth felt dangerous as a scorpion, shocking relief when it was finally out of me, blinding terror that it would frighten Patricia away.

When I finished talking, I flipped my phone open to the texts and held it out to her, letting her see the proof with her own eyes in case my word wasn't enough. "I don't know for sure how many others there were, but he's been teaching for five years and there have been at least two other girls during that time, both at different schools. I thought about reaching out, but I couldn't. The first one, Stacy McNamara, was seventeen. She had really religious parents, and when she told them what he was doing they thought it was consensual, and sent her to a convent in Berlin. And the other one, McKenzie DeMarco was fifteen. She killed herself when she got pregnant, and he changed his name after that."

I hadn't looked at her the entire time I was talking, but now I forced myself into an upright position, hugging my arms around my knees and daring to look at her. I was stunned to see that there were tears on her cheeks. "He's lucky he's dead," she said in a low voice that seemed to shake. "Because if he wasn't I'd kill him."

My eyes widened in shock. I had expected… well I don't know what I had expected. Questions and denials probably, demands for proof. Not for her to automatically be on my side, ready to go to the mat for me. Patricia saw my expression and sat down next to me on the bed, a white-knuckled grip on my phone. "What do you need from me?"

I struggled to process this question, my brain straining to wrap around it. "I… what?"

"Do you want to do anything about this? Go to the police or something?"

I shook my head. "No. No I don't want anyone else knowing about this. And besides, he's dead. You can't press charges against a corpse. I just… I don't know. I had to talk about this." I had been expecting myself to start crying, for my hands to shake and my voice to crack. Not to just feel tired and raw and stripped naked. I wanted to curl into a ball and hide from the world. "You can't tell anyone about this. I mean it. Not the police, not Eddie, not Sweetie, not Mara, no one."

Not looking exactly thrilled, Patricia nodded and I wanted to collapse in on myself with relief. "You should talk to someone though."

I let myself smile. "I'm talking to you aren't I?"

Patricia rolled her eyes. "A trained someone. A therapist, or the school guidance counselor."

"Yes, because the trauma counselors they brought in last week to help us deal with the shooting were just all kinds of helpful."

Patricia sighed, but allowed the matter to drop. I wanted to end the conversation there, I wanted to talk about other things, like complain about homework, or look through a magazine and ogle Robert Pattinson, instead I opened my mouth and asked the exact question I didn't want to know the answer to. "Patricia is it me?"

She didn't seem to understand what I was asking. "Is what you?"

I shrugged despondently. "Is it me? Out of all the students in the school, he picked me. He said no one else would ever want me —" Patricia started shaking her head but I persisted "— and I just need to know, is it me? Is there something so inherently wrong with me that only people like him will ever want me? Is that why Fabian —"

"Joy NO." Patricia grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to look at her. My throat felt scraped open and it was suddenly hard to breathe. "Joy, listen to me. There is nothing. Wrong with you. Nothing. People like him are sick, and twisted, and it has everything to do with them and nothing to do with you because there's nothing wrong with you. I mean, yes, you sleep in too late in the mornings and you have an unhealthy obsession with romantic comedies and you were Team Edward over Team Jacob but other than that."

At some point I'd started laughing, and then I was laughing so hard I was crying and she was hugging me through the tears and the laughter and I finally felt that dark pool of shame in my stomach, the one that seethed and spat like a nest of venomous snakes, I felt it begin to unravel.

Throughout the next few weeks of November, things seemed to reach a balance in Anubis house. Nina's purple friend, Satet, put up some sort of barrier so that only Nina's blood magic, or whatever it was, controlled when we entered the other plane. After a few days of being almost completely stationary, including taking a sabbatical from school, Eddie broke free of sloth. Jerome and Alfie were horsing around and accidentally pushed Patricia down the stairs, and when Eddie found out he'd immediately run over to see if she was alright. He proceeded to complain that we hadn't snapped him out of it sooner and now his leg muscles were completely atrophied. Fabes and him bickered about it constantly, but I could tell he was just relieved Eddie was back on his feet again. We got Alfie through greed, when he did something for Jerome – he wouldn't tell us what – and now, we were standing around the room for the third time, all of us giving the box on the table in the center a wide berth.

It was a bit of a shame really, because the box itself was quite beautiful. Carved out of black obsidian with swirls engrained over the sides, it looked like something that should house someone's treasured keepsakes, not the seven deadly sins.

"Remind me again what happened to the puzzles?" Alfie complained.

"Those were physical challenges," Fabian spoke up. "This one and the others are more mentally focused."

"Fabian," Alfie said pleasantly, "What's the definition of a rhetorical question?"

Fabes opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it with a click, glaring at Alfie.

"Guys can we just get this over with?" asked an exhausted sounding Nina. I turned to look at her. I had no idea what was going on with her lately. She would spend hours out on campus, doing I-don't-know-what, coming back around dinner looking like a wreck. When she wasn't ghosting around, she almost never left her room anymore, but Fabian had been going up to 'talk' to her more and more. I tried not to think about what that meant. And even though she had purple bruises cut under her eyes and it looked like she hadn't brushed her hair in a week, I still felt a flare of hatred, and had to look away.

Eddie shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I went first, I got sloth. Alfie went and got greed. We're off the hook. You guys should draw straws or something."

Patricia folded her arms. "Why don't we just 'not it'?"

There was a crackle of silence and then everyone was suddenly yelling "Not it!" at the same time, everyone except for –

"I don't get it," said Amber, looking confused. "Does this mean I get to pick who opens it?"

We all glanced at each other, silently debating who would explain the concept, before expectantly turning to Alfie who scowled. "Sure, sure. Make the boyfriend be the bearer of bad news."

"What bad news?" Amber asked.

Alfie gave a placating smile. "Ambs. Babe. Honey bunches."

With each endearment, Amber's eyebrows rose higher up on her forehead. "Yes?"

"It's your turn to open the box."

"WHAT?" she squawked. "Why?"

"Well, because the person who's it has to open the box, and everyone else called 'not it'. You didn't say 'not it', so you're it."

Amber looked mutinous. "Only if I get to choose the person after me." We all gave various assents and Amber placed her hands on her hips as she marched over to the box. "I want it to be clear I am doing this under protest."

She reached the table and we all took a step back as Amber placed her hands on the box and flipped open the lid. It was the same every time. Balls of light exploded outwards, flaring up in a rainbow of colors, before dying down and levitating a foot above the box, slowly moving in a circle, not a trace of color on them. At first there had been seven, but now there were only five and I found it impossible to ignore the irony of how there were seven of us, and seven sins. I saw Amber tilt her head in concentration, examining the glowing spheres, and felt Patricia lean down next to me. "Want to take bets on what you think she's going to get?"

I shrugged, running through the list of remaining vices. "Envy. You?"

"Pride. Eddie says lust."

My quiet laugh was abruptly cut off and we all held our breaths as Amber raised a delicate hand and tapped the orb closest to her. With Eddie, it had been neon blue, and with Alfie a buttery yellow. With Amber, the light from her sphere exploded down her arm and suffused her in bright orange, shuddering over her entire body until the glow faded away, and the remaining four orbs returned the box, which swung its lid shut with an innocent click.

We knew from past experience that the sin would take about six hours to start working in earnest. So Nina pulled out a notepad, scrawled the symbol, pulled out a safety pin and pricked her finger before squeezing a few droplets of blood on the page, which made most of us turn away. When it was my turn, I put my fingers on the symbol, making a point to not look at Nina, and closed my eyes.

There was the brief sensation of floating, and then wind whipping everywhere around me, tearing at my hair, a flash of heat and then my eyes opened up and I was lying on my back in Fabian's room, Patricia, Eddie and Amber already there. Patricia offered me a hand and I took it, being pulled up and out of the way just in time for Alfie to take my spot. Fabian and Nina showed up a few seconds later, and we quickly dispersed ourselves.

Later, while I was brushing out my hair and Mara had just left to go take a shower, Patricia looked up at me over her computer screen. "How you doing?"

I glanced over. "What?"

Seeming slightly reluctant to pursue this line of conversation, Patricia shrugged before continuing. "Ok don't take this the wrong way."

"Too late," I winked.

"I've been thinking about that other girl, McKenzie DeMarco. The one who killed herself and I just wanted to make sure you're not going… you know."

"You want to make sure I'm not going to slit my wrists in the shower?"

"I wasn't going to put it quite so graphically, but yes."

I smiled. "You're sweet to worry, but you shouldn't. I would never do that."

"But if you do ever consider it you'll come to me first?"

My smile grew bigger. "Patricia. I promise, I am not going to kill myself because of what he did to me."

Seeming more or less reassured, she went back to her computer and I refocused on my hair. I meant what I said, I had no intention of killing myself. Besides, I was doing better lately. The thought of French class didn't make me want to vomit, and later, when Victor dropped his pin and we all went to bed, I didn't even hate myself.

AN: college still sucks. Happy Thanksgiving! Almost. Coincidentally, it's almost Thanksgiving in the story too. Which will be acknowledged. More or less. You'll see. And per request, future chapters will have more Peddie. I've been depriving you I know. I'm very sorry.

PS: Omg you guys, I have officially made it to 200 reviews. I could cry.

Favorite, follow and review please. Let me know whose POVs you'd like to see.