Bailey Morgan [2] Fate (2 page)

“Geeks?” I said finally.

Delia nodded, tucking a strand of chocolate-brown hair behind one ear. “Geeks,” she confirmed.

I was overcome with the image of Delia meditating and chanting “Ommmmmmm,” and then opening her eyes, having seen the light.

“Geeks.” I said the word again, and Delia just smiled brightly.

Still not quite sure about her intended meaning, I pulled into the high school parking lot and drove down to the front, which was reserved for seniors, the exalted status my friends and I had finally achieved the month before. As I parked, Delia elaborated and allowed me another glimpse into enlightenment.

“Geeks,” she said definitively, “are the new jock.”

As I digested this piece of information and Delia and I climbed out of my car, an SUV flew past us and
into the space next to ours. The driver didn't bother to slow the car until the instant it came to a complete and sudden stop.

“Zo's here,” I announced needlessly. Delia snorted. Zo Porter had a need for speed that hadn't decreased since the days the three of us had spent riding our bikes around the neighborhood. Nowadays, Zo was a whirlwind on the track and a thing to behold behind the wheel of a car.

“And you think
I'm
a bad driver,” Delia said.

“You
are
a bad driver.” Zo hopped out of the SUV and delivered the comeback at the same time. “I, on the other hand, am efficient.”

“I think I can say with a high level of certainty that efficiency has never been so well and truly terrifying.” Annabelle Porter was the fourth of our group, and the one of us subjected to Zo's “efficiency” most often since the two of them were first cousins and actually shared a car. “Nothing like a good brush with death to wake you up in the morning.”

Zo ignored her cousin's sarcasm. “That's my motto.”

“I thought your motto was
All sweatpants, all the time,”
Delia said, tapping her chin thoughtfully and taking in Zo's current outfit with a knowing smile.

“Actually,” Zo said, mimicking Delia's posture and tone exactly, “my motto is
bite me.”

There was a single-beat pause after that statement, and then I started laughing. Delia and Zo were in a constant state of argument, and they had been ever since
the three of us were five years old. The absolute joy and affection with which the two of them exchanged barbs were as familiar to me as the ferocity with which they would demolish anyone outside our group who dared to do the same. Zo was fiercely protective, and Delia wielded more social power than the rest of us combined. Together, they were nearly combustible—and a force to be reckoned with.

“Speaking of mottos,” I said, playing peacekeeper even though the two of them were as happy arguing as they were not, “Delia had a revelation last night.”

“A revelation?” Zo was skeptical.

“Yes,” Delia confirmed, deciding to enlighten them. “Geeks are the new jock.”

Whatever Zo was expecting, it wasn't that. As for Annabelle, she simply blinked twice, took in the information, and processed it. In the years since the seventh grade, when Annabelle had first moved to town, I'd discovered that it was almost impossible to take her off guard. Of the four of us, A-belle was the sensible one, the reliable one, and the one most capable of going with the flow in her own uniquely Annabelle way.

Delia grinned at Annabelle's and Zo's reactions and continued lecturing with a solemnity that didn't match up with what she was saying at all. “Geeks are a virtually untapped subset of the male population, but if you think about it, they're really hot.” Without pausing in her impromptu dissertation on geekitude, Delia reparted Annabelle's hair on the side instead of in the center and stepped back to appraise her work. “I mean,
think about it, history is littered with hot geeks. Jason Mraz. Seth on
The OC
back before he got lame and the show got lamer. That one guy on
Beauty and the Geek.”

Delia's idea of “history” didn't exactly match up with the common definition of the word. Since she lived on the cutting edge of all things trendy, last year was “history” and three or more was practically ancient.

“Sarcastic,” Delia continued decisively. “Soulful eyes. Mussy hair. Geeks are hot.”

Delia, as befit her position as one of the most sought-after girls in the senior class, was a verifiable expert on hotness, and she had a slight tendency toward choosing boyfriends with the same trendsetter finesse with which she mercilessly designed each of our wardrobes.

“Let me get this straight.” Zo's voice was absolutely devoid of inflection, but the look on her face was nothing short of incredulous. “You want a geeky boyfriend?”

“Geek is chic,” Delia said. “And besides, it's different.”

It was just like Delia to randomly decide to eschew A-list guys in favor of their comic-book-lovin' counterparts. It would be even more like Delia once the rest of the school decided that geek was definitely the way to go. I'd known Delia my entire life, and I still wasn't sure how she managed to put the It in It Girl without even trying.

It's the boobs.
Zo offered a silent response to my question. She knew me well enough to know exactly what I was thinking, just by looking at the expression
on my face. At any given moment, I could read her thoughts just as well.

Of course, the fact that I was actually psychic didn't hurt.

Delia's breasts have magical powers,
Zo thought, knowing I would pick it up and smiling wickedly in my general direction.
If Queenie's ta-tas say that geeks are chic, then by next week, they will be. All hail the magic of her mighty C cup.

I bit back a grin, not wanting to let on that Zo and I were having one of our by now infamous psychic conversations.

Delia, proving herself remarkably perceptive, was instantaneously suspicious of my grin stifling. “Are you guys having another silent conversation about my chest?” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips with characteristic dramatic flair.

“Ummmm … no?” I tried not to sound conspicuous and failed in a major way.

Zo fared slightly better. “Don't flatter yourself.” She rolled her eyes and punctuated the movement with a poke to Delia's side.

“Translation,” A-belle said wryly. “Yes. Bailey and Zo are indeed having another psychic boobies convo.”

After a split second, the four of us started cracking up. Annabelle was the last person in the world anyone would have expected to utter a sentence involving the phrase
psychic boobies.
But somehow, she'd managed to say it with an absolutely straight face, as if
boobies
were a scientific term, right up there with
empirical
and
statistically significant.

A group of freshman boys walked by and gave us some very strange looks. Well, technically, three of them gave us very strange looks, and the other two stared at Delia's cleavage, which just made me laugh harder.

“Come on,” Annabelle said finally, recovering her composure before the rest of us did. “We're going to be late for class.”

“You can tell us more about the geek thing at lunch,” I told Delia.

“Only if the two of you promise to stop mind-talking about my boobs.” Delia crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

“We promise,” Zo and I chorused.

Delia's boobs. Delia's boobs. Delia's boobs.
Zo sent me the silent message, and it was actually physically painful to bite back the laughter bubbling up in my chest.

“Oh. My. Gosh. You're doing it again!” Delia smacked Zo, who just kept laughing.

After a valiant effort at pretending we weren't, I finally let my giggles go, and as the four of us walked into the building and to our first hours, I couldn't help but wish that this moment and, more importantly, this year would last forever.

I so wasn't ready for high school to end.

My first class was study hall, which just goes to show you how cruel life can be. The fact that the school required me to get up at 7 a.m. so that I could be there by 7:45 and sit around doing nothing for forty-five minutes was nothing short of sadistic. And the worst part of it was that I couldn't even complain about how unfair and cruel life was, because, well … I
was
life. Everything that happened in the world, every twist of Fate, that was me. My doing. My work.

So why exactly was it that I was stuck in study hall, instead of living it up in a mansion with a young Brad Pitt look-alike as my personal cabana boy? After two full years as the Third Fate, I'd come to accept my quandary. Technically speaking, I controlled the fate of the world, but in reality,
I
didn't control anything. Fate
Bailey and Real Bailey were like two separate people, and the second I crossed over to the Nexus and touched that metaphysical fabric, instinct and the power that ran in my veins took over. I couldn't consciously control what I wove. I just did it the way it had to be done. There was only one choice, only one dance meant for my hands each night. I didn't make up the movements.

They just came.

Hence me not having any cabana boys, any cleavage, or a date for the first dance of the year. Talk about déjà vu. Two years ago, before I'd ever heard of the Sidhe or paid any attention to Greek mythology, I'd been in more or less this exact same position. Then, a few days before the first dance of sophomore year, Annabelle, Delia, Zo, and I had gone to the mall, and unlike the other billion and one mall trips we'd made over the years, this one had changed everything, at least for a little while.

Absentmindedly, I reached for the small of my back, brushing my fingertips over the tattoo whose shape and appearance were forever burned into my mind: two crescent moons laid over a sunburst. The combination looked somehow simple, despite the intricate design. In a language that no living person today spoke, the symbol meant life. Separately, the moons and the sunburst had different meanings. The sun was a glyph that meant fire. The moonlike symbol was harder to define, but according to Annabelle's linguist (because of course A-belle had a linguist the way other seniors in high school had manicurists), it meant knowledge.

In practical terms, the tattoo was the mark of Life, the Third Fate. The symbols for fire and knowledge represented the powers that came with that position. Knowledge was the reason that Zo and I were able to have psychic boobies convos. I could hear people's thoughts and—if I really concentrated—make them hear mine. Occasionally, I could even control what other people were thinking, but I'd learned my lesson on that front. No more mind control for me. As for fire … well, let's just say that since I'd become the Third Fate, I'd had to keep my temper completely in check, because otherwise things had a tendency to get kind of heated. Literally.

“You have a tattoo?” The person in the chair behind me was apparently not studying any more than I was. Study hall was such a joke. “You don't seem like you'd have a tattoo.”

I didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, so instead I just turned around, met the guy's eyes, and shrugged. Mr. Sits Behind Me in Study Hall didn't need to know that I hadn't exactly chosen to have this symbol permanently inked into my skin. Self-consciously, I tugged on the edge of my shirt, obscuring the tattoo from sight, and then turned back around.

Temporary.

The word echoed in my mind. Once upon a time (also known as two years ago), my friends and I had bought temporary tattoos at the mall, put them on, and acquired supernatural powers that we'd used to battle
an evil fairy princess named Alecca. It was touch and go there for a little while, but ultimately we won, and as a result, I'd become the Third Fate. Eventually, my friends' tattoos (and their powers) had faded. Mine hadn't.

Temporary.

It was ironic. My tattoo wasn't supposed to last, but it did, and high school was supposed to last forever, but here it was, senior year. People were applying to colleges. My friends and I were thinking about our futures, and part of me couldn't deny the fact that after this year, the four of us might not be together. Annabelle was smart. Really, really smart, and lately she'd been talking about schools that didn't exist for me outside of
Gilmore Girls
reruns. Delia was daydreaming about New York City, and Zo and I were pretty much in denial about the whole thing.

Temporary.

Maybe that was just the way life was. The things that were supposed to last forever never did. Things were always changing. Every night, I wove, and life went on.

Bah.

“What's it of?”

“Huh?” I winced at the way the nonword sounded as it left my mouth. I wasn't exactly articulate in the morning. Or, you know, ever.

“Your tattoo. What is it?”

Was it me, or was the guy behind me inordinately interested in my tattoo? I turned around again to get a
closer look at him, trying to remember his name and if we'd ever actually met. He didn't look all that familiar. He had mussy hair and a half-smile on his pale face. Thinking of what Delia had said that morning, I glanced at his eyes and wondered if they qualified as “soulful.” If they did, I might just have found a new conquest for my geek-lovin' best friend.