PrincessCesca: dish already, envirofreak
PrincessCesca: I got a hot date
GranolaGrrl: I
GranolaGrrl: won’t
GranolaGrrl: be
GranolaGrrl: there
My heart dips into my stomach. I know it was a long shot, but I was so counting on her coming, so looking forward to her visit.
PrincessCesca: damn
GranolaGrrl: until August!!!
LostPhoebe: omigods, yay!!!
PrincessCesca: well played, bi’atch
GranolaGrrl: you two can’t have all the fun ☺
PrincessCesca: gotta run
PrincessCesca: e-me the dates and I’ll be there
PrincessCesca: luck in your race tomorrow P
LostPheobe: thx Cesca
LostPhoebe: have fun with François
PrincessCesca: always XOXO
GranolaGrrl: night
Cesca’s smiley face goes blank. I’m always sad to say good-bye, but this time I’m more excited about them coming to the island at the end of the summer.
LostPhoebe: you know the Pythian Games are in August
LostPhoebe: if I make the team you guys can come
GranolaGrrl: of course you’ll make the team
GranolaGrrl: *victory* is assured <wink>
I smile at Nola’s Nike joke. Even though Damian let me tell my girls about the whole descendant-of-the-gods thing, we’re still not supposed to chat about it online. He’s convinced someone is going to intercept the transmission and spill the hematheos secret to the world.
He’s way paranoid, but I do not want to be on his bad side.
GranolaGrrl: I’m glad things worked out with Griffin
GranolaGrrl: he’s your perfect match
LostPhoebe: I think so too
GranolaGrrl: you better get to bed
LostPhoebe: yeah, gotta get up early
LostPhoebe: love you
GranolaGrrl: love you!
We sign off and I shut down the computer. I give the merit badges one last look before I tuck in. For the first time since Damian told me about the test, I’m feeling pretty confident. All I have to do is get through tomorrow’s trials and then everything will be cake.
“Ground my powers.”
Griffin rolls his eyes at me. “I am not grounding your powers,” he says. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. You can control them on your own now.”
I’m not so sure. I mean, yeah, I completed the obstacle course yesterday with flying colors, but that’s because I was totally concentrating. I didn’t have anything else on my mind. Like, say, the freakin’ Pythian Games trials!
This is the biggest race of my life, so I might be a little distracted.
“Please,” I beg. “Just for this race. Just to make sure I don’t . . . accidentally use them.”
“You won’t.” He presses his lips to mine. “Besides, I told you, I can’t.”
“But what if—”
“I know you’re worried about accidentally using your powers,” he says. That’s the understatement of the millennium. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about your dad’s record. How you’re afraid to read it.”
The record has been sitting under my bed ever since I got home from meeting Damian in the courtyard that night. Every time I catch a glimpse, it’s like it’s taunting me. Tempting me to face my fears. But I’m far too chicken.
“First of all,” he says, “I never knew your dad, but I can’t imagine a parent that selfish could have raised such an amazingly compassionate daughter.”
I give him a half smile, because I think he’s definitely overstating my compassion. After the way I’ve treated him and overreacted in the past, I think I’m currently pretty low on the compassion scale.
“And second,” he says, oblivious to my unspoken self-deprecation. “I want you to consider this: Would you give up the people you love for a cross-country win?”
“Of course not!” How could he even think that? “I would never—”
Griffin holds up a hand to stop me. “That’s my point,” he says. “I’ve never known anyone who loved their sport as much as you. If you wouldn’t make that choice, I can’t imagine your father would.”
My rant deflates. He’s right. I love running more than almost anything. But only almost. I don’t love it more than Mom or Griffin—or, on a good day, Damian and Stella. Dad must have loved us more than football.
“You’re right,” I say slowly, smiling. “I don’t think he chose football over me and Mom consciously or otherwise.”
My insides are calm—maybe for the first time in a long time. When Dad died, I remember being so very angry. At him, at Mom, at whatever deity or act of nature had taken him from us. At myself, too, for the possibility that I’d taken him for granted while he was alive. Then, when I found out that he was hematheos, that he was smoted for that, the anger had returned. Maybe I didn’t even recognize it, but it was there. Bubbling under everything.
Griffin made me see what I couldn’t—that the anger had come from fear.
Now, even though nothing has changed except my perspective on the situation, the anger is gone.
Maybe I’ll even read the record—someday. It suddenly doesn’t seem like such an important decision. I know and love and trust my dad. I don’t need to read a trial transcript to know that.
“Good,” Griffin says, tugging me to his chest and slipping his arms around my waist. “Because you have a race to run, and you won’t win if you don’t focus. And if you don’t make the team, Coach Lenny will blame me. He’ll probably make me run to Beijing and back.”