The Youngest Hawthorne

12. What Do I Do?

“After all these years, you finally let it out,” she says when we’re driving to the House.

“I didn’t-”

“I don’t want to hear excuses, right now, y/n.”

“Fine. But when is Xander off?”

“His blocks end at two today.”

“But that’s like another three hours away!”

“And? He’s not leaving early just so you guys can mess around at the House while everyone else is at school. You’ll be looking online at what you missed in your classes while I attend to business.”
When we get home, I don’t look at my classwork, at least not right away. After Will uses some sort of demigod magic, my ankle is all better. Then I do a little Google search of my name, and the picture of me giving Xander a hug is right there. Who could have posted this? I look a little deeper, and find out that it was a boy named Noah. He’s the quiet type, and doesn’t have enough followers to get the message out, but Olivia found out, and told Elaina, who reposted it everywhere, so now everyone is saying that I’m dating Xander. Which I am, but it was supposed to be a secret.

I slam my laptop, trying to remind myself to breathe. I could really use a distraction. Then Piper walks into the room.

“Ok, what’s going on?” She asks, sitting next to me.

“I’ve kept the fact that I even knew the Hawthornes a secret for years, and now, everybody thinks I’m dating Xander! And I am, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep it a secret, or-”

“Calm down.” Something in the way she says it, makes me want to do it. I take a deep breath, and stop panicking. “How did they find out?”

“This boy got a picture of us before school, and everyone assumed that we’re dating, after another girl found out about it and showed it to everyone.”

“And why is it so important to keep it a secret?”

“Being even remotely connected to the Hawthornes is dangerous. You have to get assigned a bodygaurd, and even then, people will always act different around you.”

“Hey, you’ll be ok,” she says. There it is again. She can make me feel so much calmer, just by saying it.

“What are you doing with your voice?” I ask.

“I’m guessing that you’re hearing the charmspeak. It can influence people to do what I want. I only use it when I need to, to convince enemies that they don’t want to attack us, that works more than you’d think, or to calm someone down when they look about three seconds from a whole panic attack.”

“Huh. It must be nice, having powers like that.”

“Most of the time. I actually used to use it to convince people to just let me have stuff, so my dad would pay attention to me. It was a whole thing. I stole a BMW before I came to Camp Half-Blood.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. My dad’s this famous movie star, so I had to do crazy things to get his attention. But I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

“Huh.”

“So what will you do till Xander gets home? I can tell you’re dying to talk to him.”

“I don’t know. I was too busy panicking to think about that.”

“Why don’t we go play a game? I heard there’s a room somewhere in here with a bunch of them.”

“I think I can get us there. Though me getting lost was kinda what started this whole thing.”

“I trust you. But we probably should bring a third person who can help remember which way we came by. Annabeth would be best, but she’d also destroy both of us in any game involving even a little bit of strategy. I would go for Percy next, but he’s still at your school, so we couldn’t take him. How about Jason?”