Chapter Fifteen
Ms. Barlowe is so excited about our dinner plans that I feel guilty for the amount of tension hanging heavily in the warm summer air above our group as we make our way to the taverna she’s rented out for the evening.
“It’s trivia night,” she crows as we all take our seats in the pairs she’s assigned.
Mercifully, I was instructed to sit at a table with Lucy, who is the closest thing I still have to a friendly face in all this mess.
I rest my elbows on the sticky plastic covering the blue-and-white checkered tablecloth, my chin buried in my cupped palms.
Ms. Barlowe and Ms. Galanis set themselves up at a long table stretched out toward the back of the room, in front of the door to the kitchen.
They have their usual clipboards in front of them, pens clicked and at the ready to judge us.
Liam sits as far as possible from me with Amalia, George, and Henry settled between us.
Bodhi, as the front-runner, has been paired with Melanie, who was once again called upon to even out the numbers.
Ms. Galanis comes around to give each team a whiteboard and Expo marker as Ms. Barlowe explains the rules.
“I’ll read out the question, and you’ll have thirty seconds to write your answer on the board. Every correct answer is worth one point. The first pair to get to ten points wins.”
Simple enough, yet the tension that ropes through the room makes it feel impossible to proceed.
The partnerships seem intentional enough that I wonder, with embarrassment, how much Ms. Barlowe is tuned into our drama.
She’s either seen enough to keep me away from Liam and Amalia away from George, or she’s the luckiest partner-maker on the planet.
“Let’s begin with the first question.” Ms. Barlowe turns to Ms. Galanis, who returns to their table at the front of the room with a deck of index cards in tow.
“Which epic hero was the son of Peleus?” she reads off the first card.
Lucy and I give each other a nod, and she pulls the whiteboard toward her to write Achilles in her neat handwriting. Ms. Barlowe’s timer goes off, and we all hold up our boards, starting the game with an even tie.
“I think speed should count,” George calls from his table.
Ms. Barlowe gives him a stern look. “I’m not afraid to institute my rule from my days teaching elementary school. Anyone who argues with me about points will lose a point.”
George leans back in his chair immediately.
“But that said, speed will count in the lightning-round tiebreaker, should we need it,” Ms. Barlowe assures him as Ms. Galanis readies herself to read the next question.
Between rounds, the taverna staff brings out steaming plates of food.
We’re soon alternating between writing our answers on the board and sharing plates of pastitsio.
The warmth of the pasta spiced with a tender meat sauce should comfort me more than it does.
But all I can focus on is the distance between Liam and me.
I keep trying to catch his eye between questions, but he stares steadfastly forward, as if I don’t even exist. I shrivel under the lack of his gaze. Without Liam, I’m not sure how to be.
So I gorge myself on more pastitsio, hoping the warmth it offers will help.
“What social phenomenon derives its name from ostracon, or pottery shards?” Ms. Galanis asks.
Lucy looks at me with blank eyes, but I know this one. It’s one of Liam’s favorite fun facts.
“That’s right,” Ms. Barlowe says, nodding at my board as her eyes sweep the room at the end of the round. “Ostracism, named for the pottery shards used in the ancient Athenian voting process to cast out a member of the community for ten years by popular vote.”
It’s a question that suddenly feels oddly pointed.
We’re all doing a pretty good job of voting one another off the island these days.
The extremity of our emotions, all clashing against one another, feels overwhelming.
I think back to my anger at Liam in the library yesterday over the idea that I’d done this all for no reason. Of course I had a reason.
We all do, I realize. Everyone here is reacting to their internal shit as much as the situation around them. During this summer, all of us are lit matches being met with fuel.
I just wish I knew how to douse the flames.
—
Given that I have no friends and no girlfriend and nothing but my starring role as the focal point of the cohort’s new gossip train, it’s easy to focus on my project this morning. In fact, I’m so inspired that I beg Ms. Barlowe to let me skip today’s outing so I can keep working.
The truth is that I’m much more inspired by the idea of being alone, far away from anyone in the cohort, than I am by my project. But it gets her to say yes.
So I pretend to sleep in as Amalia gets ready for the day, and I don’t even leave our hotel room until an hour after the bus was scheduled to depart.
I burrito myself deeper into the fluffy duvet, even though it’s way too hot to indulge in blankets, and I don’t emerge until I can feel a bead of sweat dripping down my spine.
I shower off the sweat and head to the hotel pool, where I’m sure I’ll find lots of inspiration for my project, should Ms. Barlowe ask what I was doing there.
The other hotel guests must be out sightseeing too, because I find the little pool mercifully empty.
It’s nestled in the hotel’s picturesque courtyard.
I’m surrounded by plants, the sweet scent of the jasmine climbing the white wooden fence around the cobblestoned area flavoring the air.
I glide into the water and let myself float across the surface, closing my eyes as the sunlight fans across my face.
And to give myself some credit, I do think about my project. I certainly don’t want to think about anything else that’s going on in my life right now. My friendships, my love life, my family…It’s all grim at the moment. At least I can do something about my project.
Hypothetically.
I dunk myself underwater, enjoying the humming silence.
I’ve always loved the way water dulls the edges of all my senses.
It almost does the same to my thoughts. At least now they’re ringing with all the pieces I have for my project.
The endless photos. The random snippets of information I’ve scribbled as I pretended to be busy during our tours. The stories I love.
I break the surface of the water, sputtering. A half idea has finally come to me. I heave myself out of the pool, the smell of chlorine clinging to my skin as I wrap myself tight in a towel and drop onto a lounge chair.
I can put together a virtual museum exhibit focused on the relationship between the ancient world and our lives.
It’s been the through line of the summer.
Not just in the photos I’ve taken of ancient sites nestled within the bustle of modern streets, but in the echoes of the myths I feel in my own present dramas.
I prop my laptop open across my thighs and start brainstorming a list of ideas.
I can use the photos to make virtual display pieces and link each of them to a story.
Andrea is gearing up to be a computer scientist, and I’m sure I could get her to help me with codifying my design.
I just have to come up with the visuals and write the pieces to link them all together.
I’m so excited that I actually open my text app to send an excited message to Liam, or Melanie, or even the cohort group chat. I finally have an idea!
And then, embarrassingly, I remember that I have no friends at the moment. I’m entirely, soul-crushingly alone.
I sit back in the lounge chair, staring past my computer screen into the void beyond. The shimmering blue of the pool blurs in my vision. There has to be someone in this world I can talk to.
I blink, and the world refocuses.
Still dripping water from my fingertips, I click over to Paige’s name. It’s been a while since I’ve texted her, and our message history is buried under all my more frequent-flier texting friends.
Natalie: hi Paige. Any chance I can take you up on that emergency session offer?
There’s nothing to do now but wait for her to respond. And keep working on my project.
So I do.
—
“It’s nice to see you.”
Paige is, by all accounts, way too happy to see me. She always has a sunny vibe about her, but today it’s turned up to a billion. I can feel her anticipation of a breakthrough seeping out of her pores.
“It’s nice to see you too,” I admit. It’s possible I hate on Paige too much. Like, yeah, she’s way too chipper. But right now, with my mood in the sewer, it’s sort of nice to be reminded that joy still exists in the world.
“So, how’s the trip going?” Paige asks, leaning toward her camera. “What prompted you to reach out to me?”
I sigh, shifting on the rickety chair by the desk in my hotel room. I’m freshly showered, my hair still wrapped tightly in a bath towel to stop it from dripping onto the shoulders of the ancient band T-shirt I stole from my dad to use as pajamas. Nothing about me screams mental wellness.
“I’m having a struggle,” I tell her.
“What with?” she asks.
“Well.” I take a deep breath. “I met a girl, and we sort of started dating, but then I freaked out and broke up with her and also had a huge, possibly friendship-ending fight with Liam, and also I think I fundamentally don’t belong in my family.”
I stare into the camera at Paige, daring her to respond. She nods slowly, and I brace myself for some therapy-speak that’s just going to make me feel even more alienated from humanity at large.
She tilts her head to one side. “So, an idyllic Greek paradise, then.”
A snort of laughter tears out of my surprised throat. “You could put it that way.”
“That sounds hard,” Paige says, turning serious. “I’m glad you reached out.”
“Same,” I admit. Even saying everything out loud has made me feel lighter. Like someone else has picked up the other side of my baggage, and we can walk together for a little while.
“Do you want to tell me more about what happened?” Paige offers, and I nod. “Where do you want to start?”
So I fill her in on the “dog chasing its tail” thoughts that led me to end things with Melanie before they could even really get going and the fight with Liam that happened on the way.
“Oof,” Paige says. “It sounds like those intrusive thoughts have really been messing with the trip.”
The phrase intrusive thoughts bumps against me, and I suppress a wince.
“I don’t know. I’ve been having a hard time with, like, OCD as a concept,” I tell her. “I don’t think it applies to me.”
“Which is exactly why I don’t prioritize diagnoses,” Paige says.
It’s not the first time she’s explained this to me, but if I’m honest, I wasn’t super listening last time.
Denial just seemed safer than auditory processing.
“I’m not here to label you. I mean, it’s something I have to do for insurance paperwork, but in our sessions, it’s not something that’s at the front of my mind. Or even really in the back of it.”
“So, what, then?” I ask.
“Believe it or not, I’m here for you,” she says with a smile.
“I’m not labeling you, because I don’t believe in putting you in a box and using its parameters to define you.
I want to get to know who you are as a person and teach you the tools you can use to deal with the ways your symptoms are affecting your life. ”
A lump forms in my throat. Making space to acknowledge the way the endless spiral of intrusive thoughts is ruining my life without letting it define me sounds…too good to be true.
And yet it’s exactly what she’s been offering this entire time. Hope.
Why have I been running away, screaming, with both hands over my ears?
“That sounds nice,” I admit. Then I wrinkle my nose. “Does that mean more exposure-response prevention?”
Because, right. That’s why I ran away. She wanted me to face my fears without trying to make myself feel better. Like, hello? How?
“It can,” Paige says with a small laugh, “but I’m not going to force you into anything you’re not comfortable with. You’re allowed to say no to me.”
I raise my eyebrows. Saying no to my therapist had not occurred to me before.
“Do you think it would help?” I ask cautiously.
“It can be very effective,” Paige says. “But I think we should focus on getting through this moment first. It sounds like it’s been an intense time.”
“You could say that,” I mutter.
“I will say that,” Paige says with a smile. “You’re dealing with a lot right now, and it’s the kind of struggle no one else can see is happening, so I completely understand feeling alone.”
I swallow thickly again. Who knew therapy could be this validating?
“I’ve still messed up, though,” I say quietly.
“Let’s focus on what you can do moving forward, then,” Paige says. “What are the parts you can control? What do you think you can do to make things right?”
The problem is, even though I spend the next half hour reflecting on all the ways I’ve wronged my friends, I still have no idea how to fix them.