My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

All You Need Is Love (Part 1)

M&Ms pelted me painfully. I jumped around, trying to dodge them, and flailing my arms to knock them away. I didn't see Hannah because I was too busy protecting my face from candy coated missiles.

"You. Are. A. Giant. Bag." Apparently, she had not yet reached warm fuzzy reconciliation mode.

"Ow! I'm sorry. Quit it."

There was a momentary lapse in abuse. I thought she'd accepted my apology but I heard a crinkle, and candy once more flew. "Did you stock up just to attack me?!"

I grabbed the corner of her comforter, held it up like a shield, and stretched out one hand, letting my palm glow. "I can hurt you."

"Rule number one." A pillow whacked against my head. "No hurting humans!"

Tentatively I lowered the blanket, wincing as she smacked me full in the face. "Is this because of the apocalypse?"

Hannah lowered the pillow. She glowered at me.

I held very still. In case she was going to pounce and tear my throat out.

She breathed heavily. But she looked as fabulously Hannah as ever. I noted that, while her jeans were a cuter cut that she used to wear pre-Pierce, she had on one of her punny science T-shirts, instead of the stylish tops she'd started to wear. This one read "Zoologists do it with animal instinct."

I tamped down a hopeful smile. I wanted to believe that she'd put the shirt on for me. A nod to our pre-boyfriend, pre-goddess days.

"I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt," I said. "I'm sorry."

Hannah scowled deeper. "I know that. Do you think I'm stupid? Because I'm not a high and mighty goddess?"

Right. Not mad about the apocalypse. "You're worth a billion of any god."

Her glare softened a bit, but her fingers tightened on the pillow.

I put every ounce of sincerity I had into my face. "Everything I said to you. It was horrible. I'm so so sorry. I'll do anything to make it up to you."

She gnawed on the corner of her top lip. At least she was thinking it over. Then she smacked me again. "You cut me out of your life. I was stuck here not knowing if my best friend was alive or dead."

"You remembered me?"

She froze, the pillow held in mid air. "What? Of course I remembered you, idiot. We had a fight. I wasn't lobotomized."

I sank onto her bed, relieved beyond anything. "You don't understand."

I heard her clothes rustle as she sat back, waiting. "Then explain it to me."

So I did. For the first time, I told her everything that had happened since the night Bethany stabbed me. Everything I had felt. All the way through my time in Hades. Into the rift and the burning garden.

I must have talked for hours. By the time I finished, we had moved to the cafeteria. Had eaten lunch and seen the room empty out. French fry remnants sat on the plates between us. I'd been fortified with caffeine and sugar.

Occasionally, a teacher wandered through. But they left Hannah and me alone. I guess she had some kind of free pass from classes today, since I was back.

It made me appreciate how supportive this school really was. I'm really home.

I looked at Hannah. I'm not sure what I was expecting from her. Sympathy or horror or forgiveness. Whatever it was, I certainly didn't think she'd be staring at me like I was stupidest person ever. "Nice look."

"That's how I look at morons," she said. "And you're the poster child."

I kicked at her leg. "For what?"

She kicked me back. "Not believing in yourself. Not loving yourself. Gawd, Sophie, it took you almost getting killed to realize that?" She tossed her hair out of her face. "Pathetic." But she said it with love.

A laugh bubbled out of me. Surprised. "Ingrate."

"Annoying." She tossed a fry at me. "And I get the last word because you were really really mean to me."

I could live with that.

"Are you gonna move your stuff back in or what?" Hannah was back to glowering.

"Yeah. Give me five seconds. Jeez."

Hannah pushed her chair back. "I want to hit biology class. But you're here now, right? For good?"

"Yeah."

She stood.

I did too. Then the two of us rushed each other in a mutual crushing hug. When she spoke, there was a waver in her voice. "Don't ever do that again. Any of it."

"Promise."

I practically skipped up the stairs to our bedroom. I was giddy at the thought of unpacking. I flung open my door and skidded to a stop at the sight of Kai sitting on my mattress.

Man, he was in über poker-face mode. "I've been thinking about you and I," he said.

"Okay." Thinking about us was good.

"And how the two of us caused the apocalypse."

My heart sank. That wasn't the kind of thinking I wanted him to do. That was the kind of thinking that led to talks ending in, "I think we should just be friends." Suddenly my skin felt like it was the wrong size.

I sat down across from him on Hannah's bed, matching him perfectly in give-away-nothing blank expression, and waited.

He fidgeted, almost as if he were nervous.

That was sweet, but no way was he going to cute his way out of this. He'd come to me. And if he didn't have anything genuine to say, then maybe there really was nothing left for us to say at all.

Under the sleeve of my sweater, I stroked a finger over my tattoo. My reminder that I'd be okay eventually, no matter what went down in the next few minutes. But also my hope for our love and happily-ever-after.

Kai watched me, but couldn't see the tattoo. After a long, massively awkward silence, he spoke. "On a scale of one to ten, one being, 'of course I could never hurt you, my beloved', and ten being my imminent phospherocious destruction, where, exactly, do I stand?"

"Thirty seven."

He nodded. "That's pretty good. I thought you'd be angrier at me."

I waited for something more. This time, I wasn't giving him an inch.