Chapter Three #3
We wander slowly through the rest of the museum, and I make Liam stop at a statue of the face of Artemis.
I have no idea what I’m doing for my project yet, but I snap a million photos of the statue on my phone.
I love photography, even if my only equipment is the camera app, and I do my best to capture the worn edges of the statue, the way it’s been broken down over its long history.
While I have my phone out, I also take a picture of the Acropolis framed by the modern metal framework outlining the window of the museum.
“Gorgeous,” Liam says, leaning over my shoulder to watch me work. “You should do a photography project.”
The idea occurred to me as soon as I found out we were coming to Greece, that I would be able to look directly at these ancient places and their artifacts myself—and point my camera at them.
But Liam’s an artistic genius, and Lucy is already incorporating a visual piece into her project.
Next to them, anything I do will fall completely flat.
“Maybe,” I tell Liam. “Could be cool. Thanks.”
I hate the way my brain functions a lot of the time. My inner monologue is just nonstop whining. The last thing I want to do most of the time is speak any of it aloud. No one needs to hear my complaining.
Not even Paige!
Unfortunately, Liam knows me better than Paige does.
“What’s up?” he asks as we make our way through the rows of marble statues, pausing to read every informational placard.
“I’m just nervous about the project,” I admit. “The competition piece is getting in my head a little. Like, knowing I’ll be judged against everyone else.”
“I hate it,” Liam says. I look up at him, surprised. Liam is on the soccer team and does Model UN. He’s not exactly a stranger to competition or being judged against his opponents.
Seeing my expression, he shrugs. “We should be able to uplift each other’s research and knowledge, not be pitted against each other. In this context, competition helps no one.”
He’s not wrong. I’m already feeling so worn down by the idea that we’re all going to be judged not just on how well we do, but whether we do better than our peers, that any ability I had to think of an idea is totally fried.
It doesn’t help that part of me can’t stop wondering where Melanie went.
But I can’t fix any of this now.
Instead, I try to throw myself into the museum as we keep touring.
Everything we pass is a marvel, and I have to drag myself away from every statue and artifact to make it to the next one.
It’s the perfect, necessary reminder of why I’m here.
I didn’t come to Greece to rank myself against my friends or fend off crush accusations left and right.
I’m here because my whole life is about studying the classics.
I love the way these stories still feel so alive, even thousands of years after they were first told, and as I stand here among some of the most precious pieces of art they inspired, that’s never felt more true.
I just need to put everything else to the side and focus on the love of art that brought me here in the first place.
—
The timing of this trip is impeccable. Never has there been a better excuse to get out of a summer full of wedding planning and college-dorm-room packing.
Until now.
“What do you think?” Lizzie asks. She’s holding two swatches of blue fabrics up to her phone screen on FaceTime. I’m afraid to say they look absolutely identical because, based on the feral look in her eyes, I’m sure she’ll go all Miranda Priestly monologue on me if I do.
“The one on the right,” I say instead.
“My right or yours?”
“Uh. Yours.”
She lifts one of the blue fabrics, and I nod, pulling the thin white blanket on my hotel bed up higher around my waist.
“This and then carrying white flowers?” Lizzie says.
It’s possible that agreeing to be a bridesmaid was the worst choice I’ve ever made in my life. At least the color of the dress is pretty. A light blue in gauzy fabric to match her late-summer wedding vibes. Andrea and I will look adorable.
“It’s perfect,” I tell Lizzie. I’ve learned these are the only words that will turn off any given debate. If you ask me, she’s the one who should be talking to Paige. But of course, my parents approve of romance-related periods of foolishness.
“Thanks.” She sighs, flopping back onto the plush green armchair that sits in a corner of her living room. “This stuff is killing me. Did you know picking out napkins is a thing?”
“Can’t you just bring some paper towels and call it a day?”
This is a joke, but joking near wedding planning has been classified as a life-threatening activity that should only be attempted by a stunt double. Lizzie rolls her eyes at me.
“Honestly, Natalie, this is going to be a nice event. I’m getting married. You only do that once.”
Unless you get divorced is what I don’t say.
Not because I don’t like Mason, her fiancé.
He’s fine. I mean, he’s just some guy, but he’s fine.
It’s the multithousand-dollar flower budget I object to more than anything else.
That and the inherent performativity of the contemporary wedding industry, but if I bring that up at this point, I’ll probably be excommunicated from my family.
So a baby blue bridesmaid’s dress it is.
“How’s everything else going?” I ask Lizzie.
She huffs, her eyebrows scrunching. “Work is an everlasting nightmare. And they have no sympathy for how stressful wedding planning is.”
I resist the urge to groan. My sisters have always been many milestones ahead of me.
With Andrea, who’s only three years ahead of me, it’s mostly fine, but Lizzie is a decade older than I am.
When I was younger, she felt like a cool, aspirational, auntlike figure.
Now that Andrea is leaving for college, it feels more like my entire family has grown up and moved on.
And I’m still stuck in high school. For three more years.
“What else do you have to do?” I ask, instead of delving into any of that with Lizzie.
She explains the politics of seating arrangements, and to be fair, I don’t envy her having to figure out how to seat our family, given Aunt Stacey and Aunt Pam’s latest feud.
I just wish she’d also think to ask about my trip.