Chapter Three #2
“What?” I ask, folding my arms. A soft summer breeze rustles past us, stirring the dust layered over the rocky surface of the plateau. I let the gentleness of the air wrap around my skin, soothing me enough that I dare meet Lucy’s gaze.
“Melanie’s cute, huh?”
I take an interest in the Doric columns that make up the Parthenon’s peristyle.
The timeworn white marble towers over us.
The wind whistles through the empty spaces between them, dust swirling up to the open space above, where the roof once sat.
“Do you want to comment on the British Museum controversy in your project?”
“Duh,” Lucy says. “Not an interesting-enough subject change. Do you like her?”
I wince. Even before I broke down in the bathroom in front of Lucy, I was never super into crush culture.
The way people’s real feelings get turned into sleepover entertainment, the teachers who make jokes on social media about playing matchmaker with their seating charts, the entitlement people feel to pester one another about who they like.
It’s always struck me as kind of weird. The last thing I want right now is to be interrogated about my (very platonic) feelings for Melanie, for them to be twisted into something more so that Lucy can have her fun.
But this take has gotten me in hot water before, namely when I almost had to out myself in a seventh-grade game of truth-or-dare because no one would let it go when I didn’t want to talk about my crush. As if that should automatically be public information.
“She seems really cool,” I say in a measured voice. “I’d like to be her friend.”
Lucy sighs. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I get that it’s scary. I just think you could let yourself live a little.”
I want to seize this opening and run with it.
I want to tell her how sorry I am for letting our friendship fall by the wayside.
But the thought of actually saying that out loud feels akin to picking up a beehive and smashing it on the ground.
A bee swarm attack sounds preferable to unleashing the sting of a conversation about my feelings.
Besides, I don’t agree with her. I live just fine. I don’t need to risk my heart on a summertime fling when there’s no way to know if she’s the right person for me or how things would turn out. If it’d be fun or if I’d go home irreparably damaged by the weeds of a toxic romance.
I’ve heard enough of Lizzie’s high school dating stories to know that things can go badly. I’m not risking that.
Worse yet, I could get outed as a certifiable loser who can’t even get through a meal with a potential crush without spiraling on the bathroom floor. I don’t need anyone—not Melanie, not anyone she might tell if she ever got close enough to me to find out—to know about that.
So I settle for shrugging.
“Just don’t shut yourself down reactionarily,” Lucy says in response. “You deserve better from yourself than that. You deserve to be open to the world.”
None of that makes sense to me. What if I think Melanie could be the one for me, but it turns out I’m making a huge mistake?
But arguing about it with Lucy is a path that leads straight to verbal quicksand.
So I nod politely, like I do when my mom starts lecturing me about how math is more important than the classics and I should spend as much time on algebra as I do on the myths. As if.
“You’re probably right,” I say.
She beams. “So I can help with Melanie?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She gives me a withering look, and I gesture at the literal Parthenon right in front of us. “Isn’t there enough going on this summer?”
“Trying to limit the pleasures life has to offer?” Lucy squeezes my arm. “That is not a vibe the ancient Greeks would have approved of.”
I shake my head as I let her lead me the rest of the way around the temple. I’ll let her say whatever she wants, but when it comes to putting myself out there, I have no intention of listening.
—
Liam has somehow written two pages’ worth of poetry in his notebook by the Parthenon.
I left him unattended for ten seconds, and he spat out a masterpiece.
Even though I barely drifted away from Lucy’s side, her notebook is full of scribbled ideas.
Amalia walks down the tree-lined road to the Acropolis Museum with a stack of notebooks in her arms, the top one open to the middle so she can add more writing.
I brought my study materials for the day, of course, but my notebook has yet to leave my tote.
The bag slaps against my side as I walk, reminding me with every bounce against my hip of how behind I’m falling.
I don’t get how they can all do this so easily.
Just put aside whatever’s worrying them for the day and focus on what’s in front of them.
My view of the space in front of me is always marred by the thoughts that spill over from my constantly whirring brain.
I tried explaining it to Paige once, but I don’t think she got what I meant. It barely makes sense to me, so I can’t blame her for not getting it. Just further proof that I’m quite unfixable.
We’re making our way down the paved path from the Acropolis to its accompanying museum.
The path is lined with greenery, livening the air with the sweet smell of summer leaves.
I’m grateful for the trees, which cast sun-dappled shadows along the walkway, rescuing us from the beating rays of the midday sun.
It all feels like the Platonic ideal of a summer day. The sun illuminates a crisp blue sky, wrapped around the greenery of the earth. Even the sweat slipping down my neck feels sweet, cooling me with every breeze that rustles past the leaves to us.
“We’re going to have a couple of hours in the museum,” Ms. Barlowe says as we pass under a huge column to reach the glass front doors. Next to me, Lucy strains for her first look into the museum. Melanie, I notice with disappointment as I scan the group, has disappeared.
“We booked you audio tours, which Ms. Galanis is getting right now, and then we’ll set you loose,” Ms. Barlowe continues.
As soon as Lucy gets her hands on an audio guide, she disappears into the museum.
I know she’s making a beeline for the caryatids.
Liam hauls his art supplies out of his canvas bag, ready to be one of those cool art students painting in a corner of a room.
As I follow my cohort inside, I’m struck not for the first time by how impressive my classmates are.
So many of them have already uncovered their niches as artists, as scholars, as writers.
As someone who’s armed only with a passion for Artemis, I’m intimidated as hell.
Liam always tries to remind me that I’m the only freshman in the program when what he calls my imposter syndrome kicks in.
(I call it my accurate self-assessment, but he’s not having that.) But he’s only a sophomore and already writing some of the greatest mythology-inspired poetry I’ve ever read. So who is he to talk?
It’s cool inside the museum, the sunlight filtering through the dark tinted windows, a relief from the already climbing outdoor temperature.
I dab at the sweat lining my brow as I trail after Liam.
We decide to start on the third floor, where the gallery is set up with the original Parthenon frieze.
As soon as we get there, I’m floored by the beauty of the space.
The frieze blocks are laid out along four inner walls to mirror their original positioning in the Parthenon, and statues from the Parthenon pediments are displayed in the wide-open space around the frieze.
Through the glass walls, we have a perfect view of the Acropolis, the frieze blocks watching over their first home.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
Liam nods. “It’s actually hitting me today. That we’re here.”
The sheer age of everything we’ve seen today is overwhelming in and of itself.
The Acropolis has been standing watch over this city for more than two thousand years.
It was that long ago that skilled artists’ hands carved into the marble blocks we stand among now, so many years later, to admire their handiwork and the stories they told.
Ancient history never fails to give me chills.
Liam wraps his arm around my shoulders, and I turn into him to return the hug. He doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking, because I know the same gratitude is running through my mind. I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be here, in this unbelievably special place, with my best friend.
“Let’s find you some Artemis,” he says with a grin.
As we make our way around the frieze, I try to add as much as I can to my notebook. It somehow isn’t much. Every time I reach for my pen, my fingers freeze up, paralyzed by doubt. Everyone else in my program is so good at what they do. How can I ever hope to measure up?
It’s enough to make me wonder if I should bother entering the decathlon at all or just admit defeat now. Give in to my parents and focus more on math, let my dream of the classics shrivel.
It’s the kind of thing I wonder if I should talk to Paige about.
She’s huge on telling me that I can always reach out if I need to talk, even from Greece!
But first of all, bothering her outside of our sessions feels akin to sending food back at a restaurant because they forgot I asked for no cheese.
I’d sooner choke down the parmesan on my pasta than bother someone who’s just trying to do their job.
Besides, she would just tell me to enter anyway. Face my fears! Woo-hoo! If it were that easy, I wouldn’t need to talk to her in the first place.