Awakened: Artie's Story - Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

“Artie!” Mom called up the stairs, “Seph and Caly are outside waiting for you!”

“Coming” I yelled, grabbing by bag as I took one last look in the full length mirror by my bedroom door before jogging down the stairs.  I hustled into the kitchen, grabbed an apple, kissed Mom’s cheek, said hi to Sophie and was out the back door in less than 30 seconds. 

“Hey, guys.” I shouted over Fergie singing about being clumsy and hopped in the backset of Seph’s VW Bug.  Her mother got it for her for her last birthday and we all love it.  Seph drives us everywhere now.  Callie reached over and turned the stereo down and twisted in her seat.
“So, tell us everything!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I replied.  Caly and Seph shared a smirk.

“Yeah, right.” Seph said. “When we last saw you, you were getting pretty close and personal with Al and then last night we had the mother of all storms.  You’re trying to tell us that those two things aren’t related?  We may look seventeen, but we are not naïve!”

“Damn straight.” Caly added. “The way we figure it, Daddy Dearest found out about your less than pure intentions toward Mister Basketball-Man and had a hissy fit.  Or maybe you and Al have already taken steps to, ummm, change your status?” She wiggled her eyebrows at me as Seph giggled, turning out of the driveway and heading toward the center of town.

“Not even close!”  Damn it! I was blushing!  “There has been no change to my status, Cal, all we did was kiss.”

“Oooo! Snogging in the school, I like it!” Caly replied as she turned in her seat to face forward again.

“Snogging?” I asked, “Seriously, Cal, put down the Harry Potter books and join us in this world.  Anyway, it wasn’t anything big.  We kissed for maybe 5 seconds before Hermes interrupted us.  He’s the one who flittered his way over to Zeus and let the cat out of the bag.”

“So,” asked Seph, “How was it?”

“Good?”  I couldn’t keep the question out of my voice. Seph and Callie laughed again.  They were starting to piss me off. “Why is that funny?” I asked.

“Sweetie, don’t ask us if it was good of not.  You should know. Did your toes curl? Did you get a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of your stomach? Did you feel anything?” Caly, the kissing slut asked.  “It was your first kiss, Art, there must’ve been something.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.  Fuzzy stomach?  What’s that supposed to feel like? 

“It was exciting and new and fun.  Why does it have to more than that for me to want to do it again with Alistair?” I asked.

Seph pulled into a space downtown near Heavenly Grounds, the coffee shop run by Mr. LeFleur, one of the mortals that keeps the town running.

“It doesn’t have to be anymore than that.” Seph said, smiling. “That’s great.  You let us know if you need us to run interference with Hermes or anything, K?”

I nodded and hopped out behind Caly. Enough about Al, I thought, I need my caffeine fix!

***
I was leaning into my locker, rifling through a pile of magazines, loose leaf paper, text books, make-up and scarves desperately looking for my history book.

“I know it’s in here.” I mumbled to myself when I felt someone behind me.  I straightened up and spun around, ending up nose to Adam’s apple with Al.

“Hey, babe.” He dropped a kiss on my nose. “I was thinking about you last night.” He moved over to lean against the adjoining lockers.  “Crazy storm, huh?” He was a picture of relaxation. I, however, was a mess.  My pen had exploded in biology and I had somehow managed transferred a smear under my left eye and my wonderful latte from this morning had decided at one point that it would be happier on my sweater than in my mouth. On top of that, I still hadn’t found my flipping history book!  I took a deep breath.

“Hi, sorry I’m a little spacey at the moment.  My history book has gone MIA and my pen and my latte and…” I trailed off.  No point is rehashing the morning.  “Doesn’t matter.  And, yeah, that storm was crazy.” I swallowed, hoping Al didn’t put two and two together and come up with ‘Artemis has a crazy father and I should ditch her now.’

The first bell rang as a warning for us to get our butts into class. “I gotta jet.” Al said, “but I’ll catch up with you later.” 

I nodded and he leaned in for a kiss.  I tilted my head up and noticed the fire extinguisher out of the corner of my eye start to twitch in place.  I forgot about Al’s face getting closer as I watched the extinguisher pop all the screws holding it to the wall out simultaneously and come dropping down.  Al’s lips were about 4 millimeters from mine when it fell on top of his head, knocking him out cold.  He went straight down, his nose snagging on the neck of my sweater.  He landed in a heap and I jumped back.  This is not good…  I jogged down 2 doors to the nurse’s office, told Nurse Sally what happened, brought her to Al, who was waking up and holding his head. 

“You ok?” I asked.

“Huh?  What happened?” 

Al’s eyes were sort of glazed over.  Giggling echoed down the hall.  I turned to see who had witnessed this embarrassment but only caught the door to the girls’ bathroom closing.  Whatever, I thought, better if I don’t know. That way I don’t know who to blush in front of.

“Sorry about that.”  I told Al, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder.  I couldn’t wait to get away.  I got a pass from Nurse Sally for being late for class and heading to history, without my book.