Runner Girl

Chapter Fifteen

As I watch, the cheer coach shifts and shimmers, and instead of the familiar pink track suit Coach Cypri had been wearing, now she's dressed in a flowing crimson robe with gold clasps at the shoulders. She looks like she walked out of an old painting, and I stare at her, not understanding what I'm seeing.

She sighs and snaps her fingers, and suddenly a burst of pink and red hearts appears, circling her body like a halo before fading away into nothingness. I blink at her stupidly.

"Oh, come on, you really aren't that dense, are you?" She stands up, her gown drifting around her like sea foam, and crosses the room to perch on the edge of the desk right in front of me. "Think, Lana. I gave you a golden apple, and now I'm showing you this. Don't you know anything about classical mythology?"

All at once, the answer crashes into my mind, but I shake my head, denying the utter weirdness of it. "You aren't seriously trying to say that you're...Aphrodite?"

She laughs. "It doesn't usually take mortals so long to figure it out, once I decide I want them to know. You're slow, sweetheart, but you aren't stupid."

I stare at her with my mouth hanging open. What kind of creepy alternate reality did I stumble into? "So the dance—"

She cuts me off. "You won the apple and you told me what you wanted. You're welcome."

I pause, trying to sort through my swirling thoughts and emotions. My cheer coach is a goddess. She used some kind of magic to reverse my most embarrassing moment. My cheer coach is the goddess of love. "What are you doing in a high school?"

She tosses her head back and laughs. "That's your question? Of all the things you could ask me, that's the thing you want to know?" She shakes her head, still smiling. "I knew you were different the moment I met you."

I bristle, not sure if she means it as a compliment or not, but the goddess in front of me shrugs. The air shimmers, and she's back in her track suit. I blink, wondering if I've imagined all this, but a couple of hearts are still hovering in the air near her face, like glitter, and I swallow. I'm really sitting here talking to a mythological being. "Well, why?" I ask. I mean, why would a goddess hang out at a high school? It's more than a little weird.

Her face clouds. "My son seemed to like high school well enough, so I thought I'd see what the hype was about."

Her son. "What, like, Cupid?"

She snorts. "He belongs to Venus. Eros is mine." She waves her hand dismissively. "That doesn't matter right now. What are you going to do now that you've found out?"

I bite my lip. What should I do? "I can quit the team, if you want."

Her blue eyes bore into mine. "Is that what you want?"

I pause, but then I shake my head. "Not really. But it is a little weird." A thought occurs to me, and I pause. "Do the rest of the girls know?"

Aphrodite smiles. "They may suspect. They know that as long as they work hard for me, they never have a bad hair day, and they have an easier time getting dates than some girls, but no, none of them explicitly know who I am. As you say, it might be a bit hard to explain."

I nod. "So if I stay on the team, should I act like I don't know?"

She shrugs elegantly. "That's up to you. But whatever you decide to do, don't lie. I can't abide liars."

Her tone is careless, but a warning prickle of fear runs down my back. "I won't say anything," I tell her, meaning it. "But you asked me what I'm going to do now. What do you mean?"