Cupid’s Match

All anyone can talk about at school during the next few days is Cupid’s party, Jack’s weird crush on Laura, and Cupid squaring up to Jason in the Love Shack.

It means Cupid is constantly surrounded by people. Girls, mostly. And he basks in the attention. He struts around the school, his dark blond hair messy like someone’s just run their fingers through it, his jeans, rolled-up shirt sleeves, and black leather jacket looking professionally rumpled. Yet every time he sees me—passing through the corridor or hanging with Charlie and James by the picnic benches between class—his blue-green eyes lock onto mine. And every time they do, the force of his gaze knocks something loose in my stomach and heats the blood in my veins.

It’s anger, I tell myself. Anger that he’s been dosing Jack with Ardor arrows. Anger that even though Cal is ignoring me and following Chloe around like an irritating shadow, he’s really at school to babysit me. Anger that I’ve been unable to confront Cupid about what he did.

What am I supposed to do? March up to him in the middle of his new entourage and start yelling about cupid arrows and love gods? Everyone’ll think I’ve gone mad. Plus, with Cal hanging around it’s clearly a terrible idea.

So why do I want to do it so much?

On Thursday, the day before Cupid’s party, I catch sight of him in the corridor as I prepare to help Charlie put up more flyers for the Forever Falls dance. I grit my teeth. He’s chatting with Chloe, and they seem to be getting along well, which will probably please Cal. He says something and she throws her head back in laughter, red hair shimmering down her back. His eyes slide past her and meet mine, though, the corner of his lip quirking.

I fold my arms across my chest.

“Flyer,” Charlie says.

“Huh?”

“Pass me a flyer!”

“Oh . . . right. Sorry.”

She gives me a hard look as I hand her a slip of pink paper.

“What’s up with you?” she says. She looks over her shoulder. “Oh. I see.” She wiggles her eyebrow. “I don’t blame you, girl. He is pretty fine.”

“Charlie!” I hiss, my eyes darting to where James is counting coins by the vending machine.

She shrugs and turns to pin the flyer to the notice board. “You’re allowed to look, Lila,” she says, lowering her voice. “You’re allowed some element of excitement in your love life from time to time.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

Before she can answer a shadow washes over us.

“Aren’t you supposed to be my mentor, Lila?”

Slowly I turn and find myself facing Cupid’s chest. Heart thudding against my rib cage, my gaze travels up his denim shirt to meet his eyes.

“Is there something you need help with?” I ask, tone even. Because I can’t say what I want to say—not with Charlie here. I can’t mention the obsession arrow or what I saw him do to Jack.

He runs a hand across his mouth. “I saw you at the Love Shack the other night,” he says.

My eyes hold his. “I saw you too.”

A smile spreads slowly across his face, as though I have confirmed something he already knew. Charlie looks between us, confused.

James approaches, Coke in hand. “Hey, dude,” he says. “Everything okay?” His tone is light but there’s a hint of something harder behind it.

“This your boyfriend?” asks Cupid without looking at him.

“Yes.”

His gaze slides lazily to James, then Charlie, then back again, and the smile on his face broadens, like he knows the punch line to a joke yet to be told. Raising his eyebrows, he starts to back away.

“I’ll see you at my party tomorrow,” he says. “I’ve a feeling something pretty legendary is going to happen. You won’t want to miss it, Lila.”

He turns and heads down the corridor.

For the rest of the day I try not to think about him. I fail miserably. He knows I saw what he did to Jack, and he knew that I wouldn’t say anything in front of James and Charlie about it. I should have said something.

It makes my blood boil that he thinks he can antagonize me; that he assumes I’ll let him get away with manipulating my classmates. And it sets my mind reeling as to why he’d do something like that in the first place.

If soul mates are real and I’m matched with someone callous and cold and reckless, what does that say about my soul?

By the next morning I’m so worked up that I decide to play my mentor card and speak to him properly, even if it is dangerous, or irrational, or totally going against Cal’s wishes. I need answers. And I need to wipe that smug, irritating smile off his face.

My plan is thwarted when he doesn’t show up for history class.

“I heard he always skips school the day of his parties,” Charlie says at lunch as she takes a bite of her sandwich. “To set up.”

I try to act nonchalant, but I’m disappointed, frustrated even, that I didn’t get to confront him.

I gaze across the cafeteria as Charlie reels off the list of people going to Cupid’s party tonight, and I spot Cal sitting in the corner by himself trying to poke a straw into a juice box. He looks miserable and I feel a pang of pity. I catch his eye and gesture that he should come over. He merely shakes his head in response.

Charlie is throwing out ideas for her next school blog post when a sudden screech sounds from the courtyard. Cal jerks up, his expression alert, as a freshman bursts through the double doors.

“He’s going to jump!”

Cal and I lock gazes before he races out of the room. I jump up alongside Charlie and we get swept outside with the mass of students eager to see what is going on. Behind us, a lunch monitor barks at us all to settle down as she tries to figure out what’s going on. No one listens; her voice is drowned by the chaos. When we’re packed together on the dry grass among the picnic tables, Kelly points up at the school roof and screams.

It’s Jack.

He’s teetering on the edge.

“Laura!” he shouts. “Laura, I love you!”

As I scan the crowd for Cal, Laura gets pushed forward through the group.

“Jack,” shouts Laura, her voice shaking, “this is insane. Get down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Laura!” he shouts again, grinning too widely. “I love you, Laura!”

He takes a step closer to the roof’s edge and spreads out his arms. Charlie’s hand grips my arm tightly. My heart is racing.

“I LOVE YOU, LAURA!”

He takes another step. Then, closing his eyes, he leans forward. Silence reigns as everyone holds their breath. It seems to happen in slow motion—Jack falling through the sky, his arms outspread like a manic angel. There is a sickening thud.

And then the screaming starts.

School closes early. Charlie and I go to her house, which is only a block away. Now, as we lie on her bed, the sound of sirens drifts through her open window. They’re probably putting up police tape now.

It is rumored that when the ambulance arrived Jack was still breathing. After it happened, the courtyard was so full of screaming panic that I couldn’t see for myself. Nor could I find Cal among the crowd.

I glance at Charlie. She lies on her stomach staring at the phone on her pillow, waiting for any news about Jack. I stare at the ceiling, where the glow-in-the-dark stars Charlie stuck up there as a kid still interrupt the perfect white.

I find myself clenching my fists as I think of Cupid holding up the red-tipped arrow at the Love Shack. He did this. He hit Jack with an arrow, and now the poor kid might die.

Suddenly Charlie’s phone buzzes. She swipes it up and reads, staring intensely at the small screen for a few moments before sighing.

“Relief sigh?” I ask cautiously.

She nods. “He’s broken both of his arms and his neck, and his condition isn’t great, but . . . he’s stable.” Charlie smiles. “They think he’s going to make it.”

I feel the tension inside of me release slightly. Quickly I glance at my own phone. Two missed calls from Dad, an R U OK? from James, and a text from Cal.

“I don’t know how he survived it,” Charlie says, pushing herself up and leaning back against her pink pillows. “He must have put his hands out at the last minute to cushion the fall. He’s lucky he didn’t hit his head too hard. If the roof had been any higher . . .”

I read the message from Cal:

Lila, whatever Cupid is planning will come to a head at the party. If Jack wasn’t the grand finale, then I dread to think what is. May I again remind you: HE IS DANGEROUS. DO NOT ENTERTAIN THE IDEA OF GOING TO HIS PARTY. This is my responsibility. Cal.

I stuff the phone back into my jeans pocket then sit up. As I shuffle up to the headboard to sit beside Charlie, I take a look at the room I’ve come to know so well: deep-pink walls covered with movie posters, cushioned window seat, and white desk with her laptop open in the center. Scribbled Post-it notes with ideas for the school blog are stuck around the screen. I smile. Charlie will make an excellent journalist. She always knows everything before everyone else.

“I wonder what possessed him to do it,” she says, looking at me with wide brown eyes. “Before Laura mentioned him on Monday, I never would have guessed he even liked her.”

I debate whether to tell Charlie what I know—about Cupid and Cal and the arrows and the secret paranormal race of matchmakers. No. She’ll think I’m going crazy.

“I guess you never know what’s going on inside someone’s mind,” I say instead.

Charlie shrugs then suddenly beams—transformed back to her old self.

“Well, it’s good news the party’s still on, at least. I think we need to cut loose after today. I’ll get Marcus to drop us off. What do you think?”

My memory flashes back to Cupid’s ocean-colored eyes challenging me across the sticky dance floor. I think of Cal’s text, warning me that Cupid is dangerous. Then I think of Jack hurtling through the air, arms outstretched like a falling angel.

I need to know why he did this.

If I go, I’m like a lamb walking into a lion’s den. But if I don’t, I know Cupid will find me anyway. So I’m going to make sure it’s on my terms, not his.

I smile tightly, my brain screaming at me for what I’m about to say.

“Sure,” I say. “Just let me call my dad to tell him. I’m in.”