Queen of the Clueless #2 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 15

"...I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it? Because when his friends are around, nothing. It's like I don't exist."

"Do you think he's being mean about it?" I asked, discreetly checking my phone for the time. My next class was in ten minutes. "Because he could just be, I don't know, a guy. Sometimes they just act silly around girls."

Mara, the same girl I practiced my powers on recently, the one who was waiting for a phone call from Franco, shook her head vehemently. "No, he's not mean. He's super nice to me, every time. He just never follows through. He'll say he wants to see me at the reality show launch, but then he won't bring it up again next time I see him..."

I might have yawned a little bit, but quickly bit my lip to hide it. See, Mara was pouring her heart out to me just then, as anyone devoted to the Goddess of Love should, but I had heard this before. Apparently, so many students at Ford River—or at least the ones who would summon me—were pining for someone. Unrequited Love City. At first it was easy to sympathize (I was Mayor of Unrequited Love City), but after a few months, it got old.

The answer was simple. Did he/she like you or not? Most often the person who summoned me didn't want to know the answer. They wallowed in the not knowing, because deep down they knew it was all they had.

Mara was cute and all, and she didn't deserve this. Because I knew the answer.

I knew that Franco didn't like her that way. He liked someone else, but if it didn't work out with Sunny (and Tia and Charmaine), then he would actually bother to ask out Mara. He wasn't trying to be hurtful. He was being himself.

As we sat on a bench under the walkway connecting the West and South buildings, Mara told me her tale, and I saw into her memories of loving this guy. From last night's long talk with her best friend, to last week's series of small humiliations when he would ignore her on campus, all the way back to when they first met while campaigning for Student Council together.

I mean, this wasn't an emergency. How long did I want to let Mara feel like this?

Also, I had a class in eight minutes.

I gripped her wrist, so quickly that she let out a little yelp. "Mara," I said, looking right into her eyes, "Franco doesn't like you that way. You're Plan C at best. You're going to forget this crush you have on him, and enjoy the rest of the school year, and by this summer you'll wonder why you ever devoted this much energy to him."

Petite Mara seemed to shrink even more before my eyes, but she didn't resist me.

I was her goddess.

"Okay," she said, her voice small. "That makes sense."

"It does. And you have a class right now, don't you?"

"I have to go," she said, smiling weakly.

There was something about her as she walked away. She looked defeated. She'd feel better in the morning, I knew it, once she realized what a burden I had lifted from her shoulders.

"You could have done that better." And beside me all of a sudden, Quin's voice of judgment.

I shrugged, looking up at him like I had it all under control. "Someone needs to tell her to stop. A clean break is better."

He didn't join me on the bench. In fact he looked a little tense. "It was callous. Different people cope in different ways."

I tried to shake that sad look on her face from my memory. "She'll live."

"Hannah, did you command Farrah Flores to spy on Denise?"

I felt my face heat up. "I asked her to find out if Ms. Cabral was seeing anyone."

"Why would you do that?"

Oh wow. He looked this close to angry. I coughed to hide what might be a stutter. "Maybe it's for a project. I kind of make it my job to know these things now, right? Why should it matter to you?"

"Farrah Flores entrusted herself to you on faith. You do not abuse that for selfish reasons."

Great! Callous and selfish and it wasn't even three p.m. yet!

"I wasn't being selfish," I said, with more conviction than I thought I could have. "At some point you're going to have to stop watching over me so closely. I need space to make my own decisions."

"You shouldn't lie to me."

A chill went down my spine and I physically fought not to let it show. "I'm not lying to you."

"Hannah, you can't do this if you don't trust me."

What did Ms. Farrah do? Because the request itself wasn't an invasion of privacy. What was so horrible about finding out if he and Ms. Cabral were a couple? Because if he was hiding something from me, then shouldn't I be making all the fuss about trust?

"Are you protecting her so she won't lose her job?" I blurted out.

Quin's expression changed. I pushed some kind of button. The fact that I got any kind of reaction from him made me tipsy with power, and I let this out too: "Because other students are talking about it, Quin. I mean, if you wanted to protect her, you should be giving this pep talk to a few dozen other people. Just so the rumors don't reach the Dean of Student Affairs. I mean, to everyone else you're still a student."

When I was saying that, I was imagining I was Vida. Confident, cold Vida, who didn't think I was ready for this.

Behind his head, a bolt of lightning streaked somewhere over the hills. It was sunny where we were, but overcast on the other side of the creek.

"Was that you?" I asked.

"No," he said. A second streak of lightning followed, bright enough to change the pattern of shadows on the ground we were on.

"Don't be mad at me for doing what I'm supposed to do," I said.

There was sweat on his forehead, and he looked like he was out his breath. He didn't look like this, ever, not even during a game when he was supposed to be sweaty and out of breath. Sometimes I wondered if Quin forgot that he had to appear normal, ordinary.

I wondered what Quin was like when he wasn't trying to be ordinary.

"You don't know what you're doing," he said instead.

"Maybe you're not a good teacher," I retorted.

The late bell rang. Class seemed like a better place to be in all of a sudden.