Marco

Getting up bright and early for my appointment with the therapist my dad had arranged for me to see during my "break" from school did nothing to improve my mood the morning after Rachel told me she had no real interest in me and had only been using me because of my incredible sex appeal. Or at least that was how I chose to interpret it.

"So tell me about the girl," Dr. Jameson said, taking out her notepad and pencil.

I had no idea why my dad had chosen a woman therapist. I shifted in my chair. What are you supposed to do with your hands while talking to a therapist? I tried folding them and putting them on my lap, but I was fidgeting and tapping them on the armrest again within a minute.

"What girl?" I asked. Dr. Jameson looked like one of those school teachers that you knew not to mess with.

She smiled at me. "The girl that you had the issue with at school. What's her name?"

Her name is The Last Fucking Thing I Want to Talk About. "Rachel."

"How do you know Rachel?"

Fighting alien invaders together. The usual. "Well, we've always gone to school together. And she's my best friend's cousin. And her best friend is dating my best friend." And she's dating this bird that I watch TV with sometimes.

"Have you always been interested in her romantically?"

"No." And the good news is, now I am no longer interested in her at all. Because it is entirely her fault that I have to be in therapy talking about her the morning after she broke my heart into tiny little pieces. Again.

"When would you say you began to notice her romantically?"

It was getting harder to plan my answers over the mantra of I hate her, I hate her, I hate her that was running through my head. "Look, this is really unnecessary. There is nothing going on between me and Rachel. She has a boyfriend." I threw that last part out there like having a boyfriend was the same thing as having a steel chastity belt.

"Marco, therapy is not going to help you if you are resisting the process," Dr. Jameson said with a smile.

I sighed and snuck a glance at the clock hanging on the wall behind Dr. Jameson's desk. There were still 35 minutes left in my session.

Dr. Jameson studied me with a look that felt more probing than the questions she was asking. "I would like to understand your relationship with Rachel."

I snorted. "That makes two of us."

Dr. Jameson raised her eyebrows slightly. "Would you like to elaborate on that?"

"Not really."

"Can you tell me why you hit her?"

"No. I absolutely cannot answer that question." Dr. Jameson made a note on her clipboard. Therapy was going to get old very fast if she was going to spend the entire two weeks asking me why I hit Rachel. Particularly because it had never happened. Now, if she wanted to ask me about why I had let myself be shot and killed for Rachel, I might have been on board. That was a question I would like to have answered myself.

"Marco, I would like you to describe Rachel to me, starting with her physical appearance."

I paused for a minute to try and figure out if it was a trick question before I answered. "She has blond hair, blue eyes. She thinks she's taller than me, but we're actually the same height. Sort of. She's thin." I listed the most basic of descriptions.

"What's her personality like?"

"She's kind of a bitch." I blurted out.

Note on the clipboard. Damn it. "Really? How so?"

"Well, she wants everyone to think that she's so tough…and she is, she's really strong, but she wants everyone to think that nothing ever gets to her."

"Why do you say that she is strong?"

"You know, she can handle a lot…"

"Can you give me an example?"

For some reason, a normal teenage problem never even occurred to me. Not that I really remember anymore what normal teenage problems are. Zits? Is that it? Instead, I was thinking about David. David was this kid that we temporarily used the blue box on to make another Animorph. Long story short, he went rogue on us, almost ruined several missions, tried to kill Tobias, Jake, and Ax, and basically became an all-around huge threat to our existence.

Cassie was the one that actually came up with the solution to dealing with David. We didn't want to kill him, although in retrospect, it might have been the kinder alternative. Instead we trapped him as a nothlit—a rat, to be exact. David will live out the rest of his life as a rat. If he's even still alive. I did some research on rats, and many rats in the wild only live about a year, due to the high number of predators they have. We trapped David over two years ago.

In order for us to trap David as a rat, someone had to stay with him past the two hour time limit to make sure he didn't escape. It ended up being Rachel and Ax. They volunteered to do it so that the rest of could maybe sleep a little better at night without David's screams for mercy in our heads. Ax is an alien cadet, trained to be a warrior, and I assume trained to handle that kind of thing. But Rachel was born a warrior. She has some kind of strength that the rest of us don't. I hated David, and I don't know if I could have done what she did.

And even though I wouldn't go so far as to say that she was unaffected by it, she has been the best of all of us at pretending to still be a normal teenager. Her grades are a hell of a lot better than mine anyway. She has to be sacrificing the few precious hours of sleep that we get in order to do homework, and yet she always looks fresh and awake and….

"Marco?"

I snapped back to attention. "Uh, sorry. What did you ask me?" I asked Dr. Jameson.

"Let's try a different question. How do you feel about Rachel?"

Shit. "Well…um…what do you mean?"

Dr. Jameson picked her pencil up in preparation. "You've said there is nothing going on between you and Rachel. But you admit that you have known her for years. It seems like she is more than just an acquaintance. So how do you feel about her? Do you view her as a friend? A potential romantic interest? Or do you dislike her?"

I definitely disliked the question. But somehow I didn't think that would be accepted as an answer.

I considered my answer. How did I feel about Rachel?

On one hand, I had taken a bullet for her. I had chosen to die rather than watch her suffer. But it had been a split-second decision. More of a reflex. Could I really be sure that I wouldn't have done the same thing for Jake or Cassie or even a total stranger?

And, to be fair, she had dumped me. Well, I guess she didn't really even dump me because in order to be dumped, I always assumed you needed to be dating. Anyway, dumped isn't a strong enough word. Crushed is more accurate. She crushed me.

Plus, she likes to punch me a lot.

And it would be easier. It would all be so much easier. Maybe I could even feel less guilty about the whole thing—it is one thing to be temporarily seduced by blond hair and an amazing body when it is coming right at you, it is something completely different to be actively pursuing a girl when her boyfriend is, supposedly, one of your friends. Particularly when you only have five friends. And one is an alien.

Rachel was done. She made sure to tell me that to my face.

So I could be done. I could let this all go and make myself feel nothing for her. Maybe I had never even felt anything to begin with.

Tobias could be happy. Rachel could be happy. And I could be…indifferent. Indifferent sounded good for now.

I looked up at Dr. Jameson. "She's just a girl," I said. "She's just some pretty girl."

After therapy was over, being suspended wasn't so bad. My dad was probably supposed to make it into more of a punishment, but my dad and my stepmom both work days. So I went to the mall.

I was in the food court, eating a bean burrito, when I heard a guy behind me that sounded like he was really enjoying his Cinnabon. Like, really enjoying it.

"Mmmmmmhhhhmmmm! I love Cinnabons. Bons. Bonnnnnnnz. Yes! It is so amazing in my mouth! Mouth-thuh. Yes! Yes! Such an explosion of pleasure in my mouth!"

Shit. That could only be one person.

I turned around slowly in my chair. Sure, enough, there was Ax, in his human morph, tearing into an unsuspecting (but I hope consenting) Cinnabon while making X-rated moans. If I had to label it, I would go with "cinnagasm". Tobias was slumped forward, resting his head on his hands, with a look of complete and utter defeat.

I gathered up the wrapper from my burrito and slowly stood up, hoping I could slip away before they noticed me, when…

"Marco! Marco, it is I, Aximili! Marco, you must come share in the pleasure of my Cinnabon!"

I practically ran over to Ax and Tobias's table, only to make Ax stop shouting my name and inviting me to join him in his pleasure. I crashed into the chair next to Tobias, hoping it would be easier than looking him in the face.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be watching the elementary school?" I asked.

"No need," Tobias said. "The school is closed until Monday while they try to make sure there are no more wile animals running around. And the Yeerk pool entrances are already constructed and ready to go, so there is nothing going on."

"So basically we managed to stop them until Monday," I said with a sigh.

Ax had finished the majority of his Cinnabon and was now licking the extra frosting directly out of the cup. So he chose not to join in on the conversation.

"Unless someone comes up with a plan…I'm not sure what we can do," Tobias said. "Ax hacked into the city records and checked out the blueprints for the building. If they put the Yeerk pool entrances where we assume that they did, then there is no way to destroy the entrances without destroying the entire elementary school."

"And Jake is still against blowing up the elementary school?"

"As far as I know. I hear that you can go to jail if you get caught for that kind of thing."

Obviously no human jail could hold an Animorph. But it could blow our covers as "Andalite Bandits" if local teenagers were caught destroying a building with a brand-new Yeerk pool entrance. And that is the kind of story that they like to run on the local news channels.

"Hey, Marco?" Tobias said.

I played it cool. "Yeah?"

"That leather outfit thing the other day? Not cool."

I laughed weakly. "Oh, yeah. That. You're right, that was not cool. I will definitely not do that the next time that I'm trapped in Rachel's body."

Tobias raised his eyebrows.

"Which hopefully is never." I added. "Because, you know, Rachel…yuck. Gross."

Tobias did not look impressed.

"I mean, not yuck. Yum! NO, not yum! I mean…"

Tobias was looking more and more like he wished he was in his hawk body so he could tear me to shreds with his talons. Or at the very least, poop on my head.

I sighed. "I think I should just stop talking now."

"I think that would be best." Tobias agreed.

"YUMMM! Yes! Cinnabon!"