Goddess Boot Camp (26 page)

She grunts, like someone just elbowed her in the gut.

“We believe in you, Phoebe,” Stella says. “You just have to believe in yourself.”

I roll my eyes behind the blindfold. As if that’s not a cheesy, movie-of-the-week line. Still, I want to finish this course. To prove that I can handle anything they throw at me—the counselors
and
the gods.

“Okay,” I say to myself. “Think this through. If there’s no way
around
the wall. And I’m not about to make it
over
the wall. Then there’s only one other option . . .”

Suddenly I know exactly what I have to do.

I managed it that night on the beach, when my emotions took the reins, and on the cross-country course the other day. Now I just need to use my mind to achieve the same result consciously.

Placing my palms to the wall, I picture myself on the other side. I focus all my energy on having gotten myself
through
the expanse of two-by-fours. My mind shuts out all other stimuli. No sounds, no touches, no tastes, no smells. Just me, on the other side of this wall.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Someone’s arms wrap around me.

“You did it!” Stella shouts. “Omigods, you were so awesome!”

I reach up and rip off the blindfold. Sure enough, I’m on the other side of the wall, at the end of the obstacle course. Stella’s hugging me and shouting. Adara crosses her arms over her chest and smiles smugly. As if she’s the reason I made it through. Xander is clapping and smiling.

“We knew you would make it, Phoebola.”

Twisting out of Stella’s embrace, I turn to find Mom and Damian standing off to the side. Looking as proud as I’ve ever seen them.

I run into Mom’s arms. “You’re not supposed to get home until tonight.”

“When Damian told me what they were going to put you through this morning,” she says, squeezing me close, “I insisted we catch an earlier flight so we could be here to share in your triumph.”

She sounds so certain, like there was never a doubt that I would make it through this obstacle course. I was never that sure.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I whisper.

As she tucks a loose clump of hair behind my ear, she says, “It killed me to be so far away while you were struggling.” She smiles painfully. “But you’re such a strong, independent girl, I knew you needed to process this on your own.”

“I know.” Besides, it’s not like she could have helped me or anything. This is kind of beyond the realm of her psychoanalytical expertise. And if I’d really needed her, she would have skipped out on her honeymoon in a flash.

I hug her a little tighter.

“Come on,” Damian says, clapping a hand to my shoulder. “Let’s go celebrate. I think you can skip camp for today.”

Emotions are boiling through me. I can’t believe I made it through the whole course blindfolded. I can’t believe I
autoported
through the wall. But most of all, I can’t believe I heard Dad’s voice in my head.

After everyone has gone to bed, I sit down at my desk and power up my laptop. While I’m waiting, I dig into my pocket and pull out the merit badges Stella gave me after dinner. I pin them onto the bulletin board above my desk, next to the ones I’ve already earned. A dozen little badges of honor. I’m still getting used to the idea that my powers might actually be under control.

The beeping and whirring stops and I click open my IM. I don’t really expect my girls to be online—it’s crazy early in L.A. and I have no idea if Cesca even has Internet access in Paris—but amazingly enough, the smiley faces next to both their user names are bright yellow.

Cesca starts chatting before I can even say hello.

PrincessCesca: about time!

LostPhoebe: hi!!!

PrincessCesca: I only have a few

PrincessCesca: have to meet François in twenty

LostPhoebe: François?

GranolaGrrl: new French bf

LostPhoebe: you’ve only been there like a week!

PrincessCesca: not my bf

PrincessCesca: but he is deliciously yummy

I can’t help laughing. Leave it to Cesca to find a hot French boyfriend in record time. She never seems to have trouble attracting a guy—she just never seems to want to hold onto them for very long. Maybe this one will be different.

GranolaGrrl: speaking of bfs . . . what happened with yours?

LostPhoebe: we’re totally back together

LostPhoebe: I can’t believe I thought he was cheating on me

PrincessCesca: wait, what? you and G broke up?

LostPhoebe: only for a weekend

GranolaGrrl: I don’t believe in saying I told you so

GranolaGrrl: but I told you so!

LostPhoebe: I know

PrincessCesca: a girl makes one little trip to France and all hell breaks
loose

I can just picture Cesca, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her perfectly glossed lips in annoyance. It’s been too long since I’ve seen her and Nola.

LostPhoebe: any updates on visiting Serfopoula?

PrincessCesca: my sched is pretty busy

PrincessCesca: but I can always sneak away for a weekend

GranolaGrrl: the grant committee met

For several long, torturous seconds I stare at the blinking cursor. Waiting. Hoping. Waiting. It’s not like Nola to make us sweat like this.

LostPhoebe: and . . . ???

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

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.”

I love that my overactive imagination is rubbing off on him.

“Racers to the starting block,” Coach Lenny’s voice booms through the megaphone, “for the women’s long-distance trial.”

Griffin gives me a squeeze and a shove in the direction of the race.

My heart rate quadruples. People in the
nothos
world may not have ever heard of the Pythian Games, but in this world they’re the equivalent of the Olympics. Making the Cycladian team, competing against the best
hematheos
racers in the islands, is not going to be a cakewalk.

When I step into the starting box, though, my anxiety disappears. This is my home turf—literally, since we’re racing on the Academy course, but also figuratively. Distance running is my world,
hematheos
or not.

Coach Lenny lifts the starting pistol into the air and fires.

I turn on the autopilot, taking off with the two dozen other women competing for the three precious spots on the team. They’re all strangers, mostly older than me and from other islands in the Cyclades. There was no planning and strategizing how to beat the other racers ahead of time. This is just me, running my race. Five laps around the five-mile white course plus one around the yellow.