fake | tratie | EDITING |

| twenty four |

"Connor? What are you doing here?"

"I think the better question is, where were you for the past few hours?" Miranda inquired.

My friends crowded around us, all with impassive faces. My palms started sweating as I wondered what they were up to. With everything piling up so quickly, I didn't want to deal with whatever scheme they had worked up.

"I had lunch with Ben. He was in town and came to visit."

"That doesn't matter, I don't care." Connor's eyebrows furrowed with irritation, and he raised his hands when Natalie shot him a look. "Hey, I'm sorry! I'm just here to tell Katie to stop making my brother miserable."

I leaned back, disbelieving. "Excuse me? Your brother is the one making me miserable!"

Connor crossed his arms and pouted. "Ever since this morning, he's been acting funny. And not the usual, cunning, Stoll funny."

Miranda rolled her eyes and ignored his statement. "Look, we just want to know what's going on, Katie. I thought you and Travis were doing okay?"

I'm not going to cry in front of Connor. I swallowed my urge to break down, opting instead to gnaw on the inside of my cheek and rap my knuckles against my leg. "Travis and I... no. We're not okay."

Natalie pulled me to sit on a bottom bunk with her, and the others gathered around us. Connor stood farthest away from me, radiating protective energy for his brother.

"What happened?" Calypso prompted.

I thought about not telling them. Especially Connor. It was weird having him in my cabin, so nevermind opening up in front of him. But he seemed to want to know what was going on more than the rest of them.

"Did he do something stupid?" He laughed, trying to get at least a smile out of me and break the tension in the cabin. "Typical. I'll tell him to apologize and you can go back to being a lovey-dovey barf fest."

All of us looked at him with question until he shrugged. "I never thought I'd say it, but I prefer Travis being with you to how he's acting right now. He just, like, crashed all of a sudden after breakfast, and he won't talk to me."

I pursed my lips, letting the silence hang in the air.

"He used to love hating you, but I think now he can't ever go back to that." Connor's words cut my pride. "He's liked loving you too much."

I shouldn't have cared how Travis felt right now, but my curiosity got the best of me. I mentally kicked myself for being too caring about other people. Miranda always complained that I never thought of myself, but I couldn't help it. I decided talking it out would do my conscience some good, anyway. "He was talking to Ashley at breakfast. He tried to talk to me, but he seemed reluctant. And then..."

"He was talking to Ashley?" Connor interjected, earning a jab in the stomach from Piper.

"Continue, Katie," Piper said.

I shook my head, hardly processing what I was saying, even after thinking it through all this time. "Ashley told me it was all a prank. She said... she reminded me about the archery contest we had a while back, and said that dating me was- it was his prank."

Not a word fell into the gaping pause that superseded. I awaited the inevitable chastising for listening to Ashley in the first place, but it never came. Instead, Natalie piped up.

"I hate her."

Connor defended, "You really believe that? Travis is stupid, but not stupid enough to ruin to only good thing going for him. He'd never pull something like that."

"How can I trust him when he can just be charmspoken away from me?"

Piper's eyebrows cinched together. "What do you mean?"

"Ashley said all she had to do was flirt with her charmspeak, and he was hers." The longer I talked, the deeper into the hole of despair I fell into. "She said if his feelings really were loyal to me, it wouldn't have worked."

Natalie and Piper exchanged glances.

"What?"

Piper threw her hands in the air. "Ashley can't charmspeak!"

What?

"You do know that not every Aphrodite kid can do that, right?" Natalie said.

I couldn't wrap my mind around the news. Ashley couldn't charmspeak? Why did she tell me she could? That meant Travis didn't have to be coerced into conversing with her that morning. And then, why was Travis...

"Why would Travis be talking to her if she wasn't forcing him to, then?" Connor finished my thought aloud.

"Maybe she doesn't need the charmspeak," I pondered, disheartening myself. As I said the words, I sunk into myself.

Of course. I still couldn't piece together why Ashley would lie about her charmspeaking abilities, but if she couldn't use it... the only plausible reason was that Travis wanted to talk to her. And that meant Ashley was telling the truth: he wanted her more than me.

Ouch.

"I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this," Calypso spoke after remaining silent for the majority of the conversation.

Connor grinned. "Yeah, there has to be something! Who'd wanna be with Ashley?"

Miranda's fired-up eyes softened when they landed on me. "Listen, all I know is that you were happier than you've been in a long time when you were with him. Why don't you give him another chance?"

"Let him at least explain himself," Connor added. "I'll bet he was threatening her or something."

It sure didn't look like it to me, I recalled the scene. He'd been passionate in his words, that much I could tell. And not in a bad way.

Ugh, stupid brain. I didn't know what to think anymore.

"Travis wouldn't do this to you," Connor continued, certainty in his tone. "We share everything. He really likes you."

My friends all muttered in agreement.

I hadn't been sure about Connor crashing my chat with my friends, but now I was grateful. Having a personal insight on Travis helped me feel better, if only a little. His sincerity extended as far as any other Hermes kids', but for unknown reasons, I trusted Connor. Why would he have been in the cabin otherwise?

Why had I ever let Ashley control my thoughts without question that she may have been wrong?

"Now, get out there and figure everything out with him," Connor finished his valiant confidence-booster. "I'm sick of this gushy talk when you should be straightening things out with Travis."

"Yeah!" echoed the chorus of my pumped-up friends. My heart leapt with them, hope building up inside me.

A single speck of motivation sparked in my brain, and I stood up to make things right. Maybe Travis was scrambling to give me an explanation, and I hadn't given him the chance yet. Everyone followed me to the door, giving me words of encouragement. Ashley had to have been lying. I was an idiot to think otherwise. She was obviously just jealous. I couldn't let her come in between Travis and me, not when I'd only just begun trusting him.

I could trust him!

The surge of emotions I was met with once I opened the door nearly floored me.

Travis stood in the middle of the pathway, fists balled up, yelling at the top of his lungs.

Yelling at Ashley.

+ + + + +

Oops, I wrote this within five hours of posting the last chapter.

Also, what is it with my thing for cliffhangers? I seriously need to stop because I'm sure the effect is wearing off, lol. Sorry I keep doing that.

I can't believe there are only THREE more chapters in this book. Plus the epilogue. Then it's... over. :(

I can't say thank you enough to y'all for reading <3

- mckenna