Chapter Five
The thing about bus rides with students is that they are loud.
I mean, there are only eight of us on this bus, and I’m staring in despondent silence out the window, but somehow the volume of our overlapping voices strains against the walls.
I don’t let that get in the way of my despondency, though.
Nothing could stop me from being maudlin today.
So I’m sitting by myself at the front of the bus, having claimed nausea to beg off joining Melanie and the rest of the cohort where they’ve set up camp, and I’m taking in the views of Greece flashing by.
We’re driving just over an hour to Sounion and the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon.
So far the drive has been breathtaking, and I’m trying to let the natural beauty of Greece take me away from the relentlessness of my thoughts.
I mostly fail at this, but the trying feels worth it.
My thoughts are finally interrupted by the shifting in my seat. I turn to see Melanie settling next to me, smiling. “Cool if I join you?”
I nod, because what else am I supposed to say?
“Thanks,” she says. “The car sickness caught up to me too.”
“Yeah, it’s tough,” I say, turning back to the window. “Watching the horizon helps.”
We sit in silence for a while, and to my surprise, it doesn’t feel awkward. Having her next to me feels natural, companionable, even though we’re not saying anything.
I do my best to stamp out the feeling. I’ve already done more than enough damage after last night. What was I thinking, letting myself hold her hand like that? Ignoring my abstract just to watch a movie I’ve already seen a billion times with a girl I vowed to stay far away from?
I ended up submitting a half-hearted proposal with no specifics about how I’d present my findings on Artemis or her followers.
I have basically nothing to offer the program, and now the fancy fellowship people can see that in clear black-and-white print.
All because I let feelings be more important than what I said mattered most to me.
Her smile this morning, if I let myself look at it for too long, makes me feel like it might have been worth it.
I look away. Nothing can be worth giving up myself. Not even if it feels right in the moment.
After last night, I feel like I’m trapped at the bottom of a well with no clue how to claw myself back out.
I even tried going for a run this morning.
I wasn’t going to make myself commit to keeping up with my track training during the trip, what with how unbearably hot it is here and all the work I’m supposed to be doing on the project, but I thought running might help me clear my head.
My heart rate just kept up with the pounding of my feet against the pavement, each beat shouting about Melanie.
“Did you enjoy breakfast as much this morning?” Melanie asks.
I blink and turn back to her. “Oh. Yeah. Breakfast baklava always hits.”
“I’m coming around to your worldview,” Melanie says.
“What about the coffee?”
She wrinkles her nose. “That I will never come around to. And I overslept this morning, so I didn’t have time to get a frappé.”
“Your life is a tragedy,” I groan. “No one deserves a day of no frappé.”
“That rhymed,” Melanie says with a delighted smile. “Which almost makes up for it. Plus I got one after lunch.”
“Glad I could help.” I meet her eye—always a huge mistake. It’s so easy to lose myself in the flecks of gold as the sun hits her brown irises. I can see her smile reaching to her eyes, and it’s impossible not to return it.
But then her fingers inch toward mine. It’s a small movement, but it’s enough to put a tiny crack in the moment, bringing back all my memories of last night and the regret that comes with them. I blink and pull away, breaking the spell. Retreating is simply safer.
The bus trundles to a stop, and I follow Melanie off the bus.
My car sickness was fake at first, but nausea is creeping into my throat as I stumble down the bus steps and onto the sandy path leading up to the temple.
I take a huge swallow of air, which carries the light scent of salt water.
We’re high up on a cliff, where the temple stands at the top of a hill overlooking the ocean.
The smell of the waves calms my churning insides.
Liam tucks his arm around my shoulders when he gets off the bus. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. I know he can see right through me, but I’m grateful when he doesn’t push it.
Ms. Barlowe gathers us all by the ticket booth, and Ms. Galanis gives us some background on this land given to Poseidon long ago.
The temple was built around 700 BCE, she tells us, and dedicated to the god of the sea.
Amalia scribbles into her notebook, the cover pointedly angled so that no one can see what she’s writing.
As I watch her, I realize I’m not even sure what her project is about.
“So, let’s go see it,” Ms. Barlowe says, clapping her hands together. “This is one of the places I’m most excited about.”
We follow her up the hill, dust kicking around my shoes with every step I take. I walk between Liam and Lucy, letting their conversation happen around me without my joining. Instead, I look up, pretending to be in awe of the sky.
I’m not pretending for long. We’re climbing to the top of the promontory jutting out into the sea.
The sky arcs above us before crashing into the ocean, surrounding us in a deep, all-encompassing blue.
So many shades of the color collide together, creating a depth that fills me with the sudden yearning to throw myself into it.
Not in, like, a “jump off the cliff” kind of way. To be clear. I’m just suddenly struck by the desire to fold myself into the beauty of the world. To love the world and let myself be part of it.
And then we round the corner, and the temple comes into view.
The white marble columns stand on the rocky outpost, watching over the waves below.
The sea extends everywhere beyond it. It’s easy to see why anyone would choose this site to honor the god of the sea.
This whole place would be a temple to Poseidon with or without the ruins standing watch over it.
The columns reaching for the sky seem like a confirmation of something that was already true.
And I’ve spent my whole life, since I could read, learning as much as I could about the classics.
But if I had to pick the moment I fell in love with them, truly all the way in love, I’d say right now.
With the temple in front of me and the sea blazing with sunlight beyond it, I understand all the ancient stories for what they are—the living, kicking proof that people have been alive and loving the earth and trying to make sense of the world and their place in it as long as we have been here.
That’s what these columns mean. I’m just joining my place in that ancient struggle.
“Holy shit,” Liam says next to me.
All I can do is nod. Because yes. Absolutely. Holy shit, indeed.
Side by side, we make our way around the temple. Neither of us moves to take notes, so I know he’s just as enraptured as I am. The meeting of these remnants of long-ago life and the natural beauty of this place are overwhelming in the best way.
“Can you believe these columns were put up literally more than two thousand years ago?” Liam asks as we pause to take them in.
I shake my head. “That’s actually an absurd number. No way I can wrap my head around it.”
People have been writhing over love and the agony of its loss for this long. The thought is the most comforting I’ve had in a while.
I just wish I could know what conclusions they drew.
For that, I suppose I can turn to the stories. I’m doing my project on Artemis, after all. Her conclusions on love are very clear: forsake it entirely and hunt in the woods with your friends by moonlight.
Sounds good to me.
We stay at the temple for a few hours. When we’d first seen it on the itinerary, that had felt like an oddly long time for one temple, but now that we’re here, no one wants to leave.
Liam settles himself on a huge rock to write presumably heartbreakingly good poetry in his journal, while Henry goes back to the bus to unload his painting supplies to capture the moment.
I still have no idea what I’m doing for this project, so I sit on a large rock next to Henry to watch him work. He told me once that he likes an audience. If I were as talented as him, I would too.
“I can’t believe you’re actually capturing how gorgeous this place is,” I say, watching as his paint dots the canvas.
He grins. “I could never do that.”
“I beg to differ.” The colors he’s flecking onto his painting perfectly mirror the way I feel about this place. “How’s your trip going so far?”
I like Henry a lot. Both of us default to being the quiet ones in whole-cohort settings, but in the corners of time when it’s just the two of us, it’s easy to talk.
“Bro. So good.” He gestures to the space in front of us, and I laugh.
“I know. It’s unreal.”
“But…” He trails off, his eyes tugged toward George, who’s standing with his arms folded, deep in conversation with Bodhi.
“But?” I ask.
Henry sighs. “Sometimes I worry. I cannot deal with any more drama.”
“Me neither,” I say, exhaling with relief. At least I’m not the only one who’s worrying about the group.
“This year has been pretty peaceful, so I thought we were okay,” Henry says. “You missed the real headliners.”
“I make my own drama well enough,” I say, and he laughs.
“I just hope we’re all still friends at the end of this.”
“Me too,” I murmur. This is why Lucy’s focus on finding everyone a romantic match is misguided, well-intentioned as she means to be. We should all focus on our friendships, on the bond we have as a group. Anything else is just a danger to that.
“Nothing’s really happened so far, I guess,” I say.
Henry nods slowly. “I just feel like we’re putting weight on the cracks.”
“That was the impression I got too, but Liam—”