Chapter Thirteen
Desperation

Thank God Veteran's Day was over. It meant two equally amazing things.

One: No more Star Spangled Banner at seven in the morning.

Two: Since Luke had somehow gotten his suspension reduced, today was his first day back. This was good because since Clarisse was taking her own sweet time getting into Chris' heart, I was going to have to start working on Luke by myself.

I mean, no wonder I was so good at getting into character for Popular, my musical theatre solo. It was like, the story of my life right now. I just had to try and help people who were so inclined to ignore my advice and continue on in their ignorant ways. They'd never find popularity, or love, or whatever.

And I needed to get with Luke fast. I'd been single for like…weeks. A girl like me had a reputation to keep up, or pretty soon rumors would be flying about how I'd pledged myself to a convent. In fact, this was the longest I'd stayed single since fifth grade.

And making out with that swimmer boy at the party didn't count. I didn't even know his name. And besides, he'd been pretty quick to run off after just a few minutes. He was probably just intimidated by someone as amazing as me.

"Hi, Lea. Hey, Ethan. Love the shirt, Katie!" I chirped as I strutted down the hallway. My shoes were a half size too small and starting to really pinch…so I was trying to be overly perky to keep it from showing on my face.

"Hey, Luke. Good to see you back." I winked and made sure to walk just a smidge too close to him so our arms brushed when we passed each other. "Thalia's been looking pretty bummed without you."

I know what you're thinking: why would I say that? Well, everyone knew he shied away from commitment. Like, he was a junior and Thalia was his first actual girlfriend. I'd be able to break that habit for him, but right now, a clingy girlfriend would be enough to make him run screaming in the other direction.

"Yeah? Cool," he said, not even giving me, wearing a skirt that was five inches shorter than the dress code, a second glance.

She'd brainwashed him more than I thought.

Like it or not, I was definitely still going to need Clarisse's help.

Swim practice had run late, so one of the older guys gave me a ride home. I thought it meant I was finally forgiven for losing the meet at Degis, but it turned out he just wanted to interrogate me.

"You know you're the only single guy on the swim team, Jackson?" he said. I think his name was either Jake or James.

I guess I'd never really thought about it. "No. Why?"

"We decided to warn you not to go for Silena anymore. She's easy, but…like, everyone's dated her. Everyone."

Was there anyone who didn't know about that? Grover had come up to me today and asked me about it. I guess I should have told him, since I'd more or less ditched him when Silena jumped me on the way to the bathroom.

"Okay. I won't." I wasn't going to, anyway. It wasn't like I'd never been to a coed school before. Any school with girls had someone like that, and you learned to stay away unless you were desperate.

Wait…did they all think I was desperate?

"We came up with a list of girls for you since you're new and all." Thank God he was pulling in my driveway. "The Gardner twins are really cute, and Lea Bostun has a thing for swimmers. Kasey Forester is okay too…as long as you don't mind girls who are high maintenance."

I suppose I should have been flattered that they cared, but really…I hadn't even turned 15 yet. I didn't want a girlfriend. "Umm, thanks," I mumbled, stepping out of the car. "We can talk more about it after practice tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure."

Our house was pretty nice, even before you compared it to the dumps we'd lived in before. It was three stories, which I loved, since I had the top floor all to myself. It made it easier to ignore Smelly Gabe.

Mom already had supper on the table. Spaghetti, pancakes, mashed potatoes…and all of it was…blue?

What the heck was going on?

"Hi, honey," Mom said, kissing me on the cheek. She must have noticed I was confused. "Oh, I was just craving all this. And it looks so much nicer blue, doesn't it?"

No comment.

Gabe strutted into the room like he was king of the universe or something and wrinkled his nose. "What the hell, Sally? You said we were making tacos tonight, not this blue shit." I clenched my fists. How could she let him talk to her like that?

"It's just food dye," Mom tried to explain.

"Food shouldn't be blue. If we sold blue food at Gas and Grub, would anyone buy it? No, it makes it look like it has a fucking disease. Now get your ass back in the kitchen and make something that's not blue." I could smell alcohol on his breath from five feet away.

Now would be the perfect time for her to stand up to him. It would have been amazing if not easy.

But he'd said worse things, and she'd never stood up for herself.

Mom turned around and headed back in the kitchen. I could hear her messing around with pots and pans. Really?

I wished we were still living in an apartment in New York with a crazy cat lady who sang in the shower way too loudly for a neighbor.

We had been watching some random action movie, had being the key word.

Somewhere between the opening credits and the first fistfight, Luke had lost interest in the plot and started dropping little hints about what he would like to do.

First, his hand had slowly shifted from my knee to the inside of my thigh, where he lightly started tracing circles. I bit my lip – it felt good…a little too good. And we were in my room, all alone, on the bed…

I laced my fingers in his and put his hand back in his lap. "Stop."

I tried to go back to watching the movie, but the plot was mediocre at best. All I saw was a lot of violence and blood with a delicate girl screaming perfectly on cue every few minutes. Yawn.

Apparently Luke was thinking the same thing again, because he started kissing my neck. "This movie sucks," he breathed. "Let's do something else."

I tried pushing him off. "Really, Luke? I said no."

"Why are you being such a bitch?" he whined, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at me.

"So I'm a bitch because I don't want to sleep with you?" The movie had hit the cliché quiet spot where the hero and the girl have their quiet moment together where they tell each other their most hidden secrets. In other words, it was suddenly really quiet after nonstop shooting and explosions.

"Well, why don't you want to?"

Maybe because my chest had grown a cup size in the last week, the puppy mill commercials on TV made me cry, and I couldn't get in a car without getting motion sickness. Maybe because when I was cleaning through a box of mom's clothes, I'd found my birth control pills wedged at the very bottom…and I realized I hadn't taken any since the day she died.

But I couldn't tell him that. My period was only four days late. I was worrying about nothing.

"I just don't want to. I have my period." I wished I did.

He immediately paled. That was the kind of reaction I'd expect from someone who grew up without any sisters. "Well…umm…" He was obviously embarrassed. "I'm just gonna go back to watching this movie that sucks and pretend we didn't just have this conversation."

We both pretended to watch the movie. Lots of explosions, lots of the hero making out with different women. Slowly, almost tentatively, he slid his hand into mine. I decided not to pull away – the gesture seemed innocent enough.

"I'm sorry," he finally said sheepishly. I didn't answer, but my resolve to stay mad was quickly slipping. "Thalia…umm…listen, this is embarrassing, but…I had a fight with my mom before I came here and she kinda made it clear she didn't want to see me back for a while, so…"

"Really? Is it your raison d'être to piss her off in any way possible?"

He raised an eyebrow. "So you learned to speak French while you were in California?"

More like I was just an Adam Lambert fan, but that wasn't the point. He was trying to change the subject. "What was this fight about?"

He shrugged. "Can I spend the night here?"

"You can stay in the guesthouse if you tell me what the fight was about."

He sighed and stood up. I thought for a second that he was going to walk right out, but he just started pacing back and forth. "I'm failing half my classes, but whatever. I can fix that. But then she started going on about how everything is your fault."

"My fault?"

Luke shrugged. "I'll tell you if you don't make me stay in the guesthouse."

Touché. "Whatever. Fine."

"She says that you were a bad influence when we were little." I tried hard not to snort. She had it the wrong way around. "And then she started going on about how you just decided to leave with no excuse or anything." He started talking faster and faster. "And then apparently I started throwing myself away because I didn't care about anything and now you're back and think you can just act like you never did anything wrong…"

I bit my lip. Do not cry. Then he'll know something is wrong, I said to myself. "You know I don't know why we left."

"Yeah."

"And I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Someone was feeling talkative.

"Yeah?"

"I'm tired. Let's go to sleep."

If I hadn't been feeling completely drained, I would have yelled at him for trying to change the subject…again. "Fine." I shut the TV off. "You can stay in here."

Nell wouldn't like it, but she couldn't really complain. It wasn't like we were having sex. In fact, we were never going to have sex again if I could just get my stupid period.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

I had an impossible to ignore feeling that everything was going to hell.