I'm With Cupid (9 page)

Marcus could barely see straight when he flopped onto his bed. It felt like his eyes were the wrong shape, like someone had dented them. He supposed Caspar's fists had done that…and more.

Every inch of him hurt so badly that he never wanted to move again. But he knew things were only going to get worse once his parents found out what had happened.

A little while later, there was a knock on his door. “Marcus?” his mom called. “We picked up some dinner on the way home. Come eat.”

“I'm not hungry,” he called, his voice barely more than a groan.

“What was that, honey?” she asked. Then she tried to open the door. “Why is this door locked? You know the rules. Open up.”

“I-I can't.”

“Marcus, open this door right now. I'm not joking.”

It was no use. There was no way to hide this from his parents. Maybe if he explained things to his mom first, she'd get his dad to go easy on him.

He sighed and forced himself to sit up, every inch of his body creaking like it was made of old wood. Then he stumbled to the door and pulled it open.

His mom took one look at him and screamed. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I got into a fight.”

“A fight? What fight? Who were you fighting with?”

“I wasn't fighting anyone. The guy was fighting me.”

“But why?”

“There was a cat and I was trying to save it and…” Marcus shook his head. Even if he could explain what had really happened, his mom wouldn't believe him.

“This is ridiculous. I'm calling the school—”

“No, Mom!” he said. “This wasn't at school.”

“Then where was it? And who did this to you? Who?”

This was it, his chance to turn Caspar in and get him in trouble. Then maybe all of Marcus's problems with the dumb bully would be over.

But before he could say anything, his dad appeared in the doorway. “What the heck happened to you?”

“He said he got into a fight over a cat,” his mom said.

“A cat? Why on earth were you fighting about a cat?”

Marcus shrugged, figuring it was better not to try to explain.

“Did you throw the first punch or did he?” his dad asked. It figured that he'd care about something like that.

Marcus thought back. “I guess I did,” he said finally. “I mean, I pushed him. After that, it was kind of a blur.”

“So let me get this straight,” his dad said. “You pushed him once, and then he did this to you? And you stood there and took it?”

“He attacked me. Then he—”

“And not once did you try to defend yourself? Not once did you fight back? Haven't I taught you anything?”

“I did what you wanted!” Marcus cried. “You're always telling me to stand up for myself. I tried, and it didn't work, okay?”

“Marcus, your father is not condoning violence,” his mom broke in, which was laughable since that's
exactly
what he was doing. “But if you're going to provoke a boy, then you need to be ready for the consequences.”

Marcus couldn't believe it. “Are you saying I deserved to get beaten up?”

“No, of course not,” his mom said, but the look on his dad's face told him differently.

“Get yourself cleaned up,” he told Marcus. “Then come eat dinner.”

“I'm not hungry.”

His dad puckered his mouth so the scar underneath it—a “souvenir” from his hockey days—looked even whiter than usual. “Hungry or not, it's dinnertime. So you're going to come to the table and sit with us until we tell you that you can go. Understood?” He stormed out of the room without another word.

His mom gave Marcus a sad smile. “I know he's tough on you,” she said softly, “but it's his way of showing you that he cares.” She tried to brush Marcus's hair away from his bruised cheek, but he flinched away. “Promise me you won't get into any more fights, okay?”

That was an easy promise to make. Marcus never wanted to feel this way again. “Okay.”

She gave him one last pitying look and left him alone.

A second later, Ann-Marie appeared in the doorway. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Did you get thrown in a trash compactor or something?”

Marcus flopped back on his bed. “No, but I spent all day smelling like trash. Just like Mom.” In fact, he probably still smelled terrible since he hadn't had a chance to change out of his garbage clothes.

He waited for his sister to make fun of him or to tell him that he should have stood up for himself like his dad had. Instead, she ducked out of the room and came back a minute later with a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts. “Put these on your face,” she said. “It'll bring the swelling down.”

“Thanks.” It figured that Ann-Marie would even be the perfect sister when he was hurt, but he couldn't hate her for it at the moment. He was just glad that someone in his family wasn't counting how many punches he'd managed to get in before Caspar had kicked his butt.

He expected Ann-Marie to leave, so he was startled when she sat on the bed beside him and said, “I'm worried about Grandpa Joe.”

Her voice was low and sad. Marcus and Grandpa had always been so close that he sometimes forgot that Ann-Marie loved him too, in her own way.

“Why did he have to get sick?” she went on. “First Grandma Lily and now him. It's not fair. Dad's parents are the worst, and they never even get colds. They'll be around forever!”

Marcus had to laugh, although it hurt his ribs. “Remember last year when they made us eat eel on Christmas? Who eats
ee
l
?”

She giggled. “It was like eating a shoe. Except at least a shoe smells better!”

They both laughed again, and then finally they fell quiet. “I miss having him around,” she whispered, and he knew she was talking about Grandpa again.

“I know,” Marcus said. “I do too. But he'll be okay.” The words sounded like a lie as they came out of his mouth. And when he glanced over at Ann-Marie, he could tell that she had heard it too.

“Lena!” Hayleigh said at lunch the next day. “Abigail and I had the best idea!”

“What is it?” Lena asked, slowly unwrapping her sandwich. She knew better than to get excited about Hayleigh's ideas. A lot of times they involved glue guns.

“I know you usually do props and sets for the play,” Hayleigh said, “but what if you did costumes with me this year? You're really good at sewing because of all that quilting stuff you do, and that way, we'll all get to be together.”

Lena forced herself to smile. “Thanks, but I don't think I can do backstage this time.”

“What?” Abigail exclaimed. “But you always do the play.”

“I'm too busy this year.” With everything going on with her dad and her powers, she had enough to think about. But if she were being honest with herself, it was more than that. Lena was happy for Abigail—she really was—but she couldn't stand to go to play practice and see her onstage while she sorted through smelly old costumes.

“Is this because of Marcus?” Abigail asked.

Lena swallowed. “What do you mean?” Had her friends noticed that something strange was going on?

“I know you said you're not together or anything, but you've been spending a lot of time with him.”

“Yeah,” Hayleigh chimed in. “I saw you with him in the hallway yesterday during homeroom.” She giggled. “I was spying on you guys through that little window on the door.”

“We were only out there because of Brent Adamson,” Lena said. “He was sick. We were trying to help him.”

Abigail laughed. “Oh yeah! I heard he threw up in gym this morning and had to go home again.”

Poor Brent. He'd taken one look at Lena during volleyball and gotten sick all over his sneakers. She really hoped the hex she'd accidentally put on him wore off soon, or one of them would need to switch classes.

“But seriously, Lena,” Abigail went on. “If there's something going on with you and Marcus, you can tell us. I mean, you did kiss him and everything.”

Lena felt her cheeks get even redder. If only her friends knew how many times she and Marcus had actually kissed. Not that any of those times actually meant anything.

“He's had a crush on you since forever,” Hayleigh said. “Remember when he kept drooling over you last year during that math project? No wonder you had to do all the work.”

“He wasn't drooling! And he did lots of work. He didn't talk much during our presentation because he's shy.”

“Yeah, right,” Hayleigh said. “I don't know why he didn't ask you out last year. Maybe he was afraid you'd say no.”

Lena opened her mouth and closed it again. What if Marcus
had
asked her on a date last year after their math project was over? What would she have said? And would the answer be different if he were to ask her out now?

She shook her head, trying to clear it of all those pesky, confusing questions. “You guys know how I feel about all that mushy stuff.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. “Just because your dad keeps drilling anti-love things into your head, it doesn't mean they're true.”

“Of course they're true. It's science!”

“So does that mean me liking Emery Higgins isn't for real?” Hayleigh asked.

Abigail's mouth fell open. “Since when do you like Emery? What about his braces?”

“You know I like shiny things,” Hayleigh said, waggling her eyebrows. “And he helped me clean my locker after some puffy paint exploded in it yesterday. He's nice.” She turned to Lena. “Are you saying that's all fake?”

“Yes,” Lena said, but she could hear the doubt in her own voice. She wasn't sure what was true anymore. After everything that had happened the past few days, she was starting to wonder if there
were
things that science couldn't explain. And Hayleigh seemed happy as she started babbling on about how sweet Emery was. Who was Lena to take that away from her? In fact, part of her was a little jealous. What would it be like to let yourself feel that way about someone without worrying that it was all a lie?

She found herself scanning the cafeteria for Marcus, but she couldn't find him. She wasn't sure where he ate lunch now that Pradeep had moved away. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Marcus all day, not even in math.

She grabbed her phone to send him a message, but she saw that there was one waiting for her from Eddie.

Good news, kid
, it said.
The party is on for this Friday. Same time and
place.

She couldn't believe it. Eddie had come through! She only had to survive the rest of the week, and then everything would go back to normal.

That's great!
she wrote back.

A minute later, her phone beeped again.
Just in time too
, Eddie had written.
We have been getting reports of failed matches and stubborn souls all day. The sooner we get you two back to normal, the better.

Lena swallowed. How many of those failed matches and souls not wanting to leave their bodies were her fault? Zapping her dad had been an accident, but she'd known that using her power on Brent Adamson was a bad idea and she'd done it anyway. All of Eddie's talk about the balance of the universe had sounded hokey, but maybe there was more truth to it than she'd realized. The longer their powers stayed swapped, the harder it would be to make everything right again, not just for her and Marcus but for everyone.

• • •

Lena was soggy from the rain by the time she pulled her bike up to Marcus's house and knocked on the door. She'd looked for him all day at school and finally figured he must have stayed home sick.

As she waited for someone to open the door, Lena realized she'd never been inside Marcus's house. When they'd worked on their math project together, he'd always insisted they meet at her place. One time, she'd had to drop some papers off at his house, but he hadn't let her get past the porch, almost like he was embarrassed to let her in.

When the door finally creaked open, Lena stared in shock at the bruised face peering back at her. “Marcus? What happened?”

“Long story. What are you doing here?”

“I didn't know if you'd gotten Eddie's message. You said your phone wasn't working.”

“Oh yeah. I got it.” He didn't sound nearly as excited as she would have expected. In fact, he looked sad and droopy, like all the energy had been sucked out of him.

“It's good news, right?” she said. “Maybe the party really will switch things back.” She decided not to mention the other stuff Eddie had told her. Judging by how he looked, she was pretty sure Marcus couldn't handle any bad news right now.

He only shrugged in response.

“Come on,” she said. “What happened?”

“I had a disagreement with a meat grinder,” Marcus said, but neither of them laughed.

“Can I come in?” Maybe if Lena could get him to sit down and talk to her, she could figure out what was going on.

But Marcus shook his head and said, “Um, my house is kind of a mess right now. How about we sit outside?”

“It's raining. Besides, I don't care about that. You should see how much fur is at my house. Professor's been shedding like crazy.”

But Marcus was already out on the porch, shutting the door behind him. Now that he was outside, she could see how bad his face looked.

“Who did this to you?” she asked.

Instead of answering, he plopped down on the rickety porch swing, which was only half-protected from the rain by an awning. But Lena wasn't going to give up that easily.

She sat down next to him. “I won't judge or anything. Just tell me.”

“Caspar Brown.”

“That Neanderthal? Didn't he set a teacher's hair on fire last year? I forgot he even went to school with us.”

“You probably never see him because he keeps getting suspended. But he lives down the street, so I run into him all the time.”

“Why did he do this to you?”

“I was trying to keep him from attacking a cat, so he attacked me instead.” Finally, he told her the whole story, about the cat, about his glowing fingers, about shoving Caspar. The words came out in a tumble, and the whole time, he kept his eyes closed like he didn't want to see who he was spilling his guts to.

“Wow,” Lena said when he was done. “Do you think that means the power works on animals too?”

Marcus's eyes snapped open. “Don't you get it? I killed that cat!”

“You don't know that. You didn't actually see it die, did you?” He gave her a slight shake of his head. “So it could be okay. But if you did collect its soul, that means you helped it. It was almost dead anyway. And it was in pain.”

“No,” he said. “I tried to help it, and I did the opposite.”

“Marcus, you didn't do anything wrong,” she said slowly. “I'm the one who's messed up with my dad and with Brent. I'm the one who should have known better than to zap people. But what you did wasn't like that. You were trying to help.”

They sat for a long moment in silence. Lena wasn't sure if what she'd said had gotten through to him, but he seemed calmer than before.

“You know what the craziest thing is?” he asked softly. “All day, I've been hearing meowing. At first I thought it was the neighbor's cat, but then I heard it when I was in the shower. As if I don't feel guilty enough!” He glanced at Lena. “You don't have to say it. I know I sound crazy.”

She had to admit that what he'd said did sound crazy, but she wasn't about to say that to him. “Guilt does weird things to people,” she said instead. “When I was little, I stole my mom's quilting shears and then lied about it. I had nightmares about getting chased by scissors two nights in a row. Finally, I woke my mom up in the middle of the night and confessed everything.”

“I didn't think you had it in you to be a delinquent,” Marcus said, cracking a smile.

Lena shrugged. “I was working on my first quilt, and the safety scissors my parents gave me were so dull that they were driving me crazy. I guess it's a good thing I didn't think to steal a steak knife or something.”

This time Marcus actually laughed, his mood finally lightening. Then he turned to her with a curious look on his face. “You never talk about your mom. I think this is the first time I've ever heard you mention her.”

Lena shrugged. “She left when I was in fifth grade.”

“I kind of remember that. You didn't come to school for a couple of weeks, and we all thought you had the plague. I was expecting you to have pockmarks and stuff when you finally came back, but you just looked really sad.”

Lena sighed, remembering. “I was so depressed that I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks. She moved out one day, no warning or anything. Funny how her job was all about helping sick people not be in pain, and then she left me and my dad just like that. She didn't care about hurting us.”

“I'm sorry,” Marcus said.

She hated the pitying look on his face. And the last thing she wanted to think about was her mom when everything else was already hard enough.

“What you did with the cat, it was brave, Marcus. You could have just left it there, but you did your best to help it.”

Marcus let out a bitter laugh. “I wish my dad saw it that way. He thinks I'm the biggest loser ever born.”

“You're not a loser.”

“I don't have any friends,” he said.

Lena looked at him and found herself saying, “I'm your friend.” She realized it was true. Maybe she didn't know Marcus as well as she knew Abigail, but he felt like the only person she could trust right now. Plus, it hurt her to see him so upset. Somewhere along the way, she'd actually started to care about him.

He let out a long sigh. Then he got to his feet. “Do you want to come inside? I want to show you something.”