It could have been you so easily.
Your older sister has always been afraid of small stuff: hair clotting the drain, little beetles that crawl through open windows, nightmares that could only scare children. You were always the brave one, plucking the hair out and throwing it away, keeping your bedroom door open for when she woke up terrified and sweaty.
She’d shriek, jumping on top of her bed, and you would carry a pill bug outside to spare her nerves.
But in the end, when it comes down to it, she’s always smarter.
She’s twelve when she figures her life out, and by the time six years go by you’re only fifteen and still–still–lost.
Fifteen-years-old, and you decide it’s time to start closing your door at night.
I.
A friend. Or at least, an almost friend. You share middle and high school years together, so it has to count for something. You two are known for missing class together, except not together-together. There is never a day when you meet up and bond over a lazy day. Rather, it is just a text at seven AM, asking if she is skipping, too.
She’d responds with a kissy face, and that’s all the reason you needed to roll over and go back to sleep.
But it’s tenth grade when you slide beside her in homeroom. She wears eyeliner that glitters and her hair smells like mousse. Her lips curve, smiling slyly.
Are you–you ask.
Her eyes are glassy and voice light when she giggles. Tripping balls.
The next time you ask if she’s staying home, she says yes.
(I can’t even feel my legs, I took some fucked up shit. Come with next time?)
(sure.)
II.
You never go with her.
III.
The thing about being an absent god is that you forget what you’re supposed to do. Who are you? What’s the point of all of this? Where are your believers?
It scares you. Scares you the same way your sister is afraid of black bugs on the wall. She’s a daughter of Apollo, god of healing and light.
I’m going to be in Cleveland all summer, working as a nurse. Don’t tell dad yet, she says, and she smiles.
You wanted to be a daughter of Apollo, too. You thought you’d be decent at it, thought that you could write and play music and be all the good things he is.
But that’s not quite what you are. There are more things you’re not than what you are, so it leaves you jagged and too barbed to fit.
The Almost-Friend, she’s Dionysus’ child. She loves the pull of madness and ecstasy. She’s so brave, so foolishly brave. She chooses something she knows she might not come out of, and you stay on the sidelines, like the coward you are.
IV.
You curve around her, hugging her with one arm. How are you?
I’m great, my hoe. What’d you think? The Almost-Friend throws her head back and laughs.
You smile wider. No, but really.
She purses glossy lips, lidding her eyes and casting them around the street. There’s no one, no activity within a neighborhood this suburban, deep in the woods. She doesn’t realize how careful she can be when she’s letting herself be wild.
I’m fucked up, she admits, laughing, because she always laughs. I need to slow down, but y’know.
You lean against your car, standing in the cold with flushed cheeks. You’re never going to be the person to pick her up when she’s too wasted to get home, nor are you going to bandage her hands when she punches mirrors in a fit.
The last time you two spoke face-to-face you were still in high school.
But you are almost always the one she calls, high and wasted and too gone to remember the exact conversation in the morning. You’ve both been reciting the same things for years.
So you jangle your car keys, tilting your head and laughing along. Come for a drive, I’ll buy you Sheetz.
She blows you a kiss, turning back to the house. There are lights on. Voices carry across the yard. Something sounds like beer bottles clinking together.
The Almost-Friend asks, apologetic, Next time?
Sure, you say. Sure.
V.
The Apollo sibling was always closer to your age, easier to speak with, but she’s so far away at the same time. Your other sister, the eldest one, was distant, too. Except her distance was due to an age gap rather than personality.
Where Apollo claimed the middle child of your family, Hephaestus should have taken the eldest.
See, she loves mechanics. When she slept through lessons on Napoleon she ended up with summer classes, and instead of thinking of college she thought of trade school. She worked at an autoshop, could figure out cars and tires easier than a history book.
The parents worried about jobs and schooling and where she was going.
Except, the thing was, you understood her better than anyone else. She was like you, scared of things that couldn’t be solved with open doors and fly-swatters. She was blinded by the Apollo child, and so she tried to be something she couldn’t like.
So she disappeared into a university, studied fixing bodies and treating illnesses.
(It would take her six years to figure things out. Six years and she leaves medicine for cars again. She loses the circles under her eyes, starts paying debts, finds another footing to try again.
Six years and you’re eighteen, wondering why you don’t have a god yet).
VI.
There’s a boy, somewhere in the United States, practicing military drills. He has dimples, short-cropped hair. A sharp jaw but soft smile.
Back in high school, he’d walk with you to lunch, and all you remember was sharing dirty secrets and crude jokes. You’d make him laugh, and his eyes would crinkle at the sides.
Somewhere, in the United States, there’s a boy–Athena or Ares’ child, you’re not sure–and he’s the first person to steal a bottle of Scotch for you.
You don’t know if you’ll ever remember his name.
VII.
The thing is, though, while the ancient world was screaming about gods and glory, they forgot the people who weren’t made of gold or power. They forgot about the people with ribs of clay and hearts of mud.
Apollo causes women to turn into flowers and brings plagues and spites prophets who don’t please him. He loves men and women and his sister, loves them selfishly. Burns all to ashes with his light.
(Remember when I used to have nightmares? Apollo’s daughter says. And I would crawl into bed with you?
You roll your eyes. When you took all the blankets and shoved me aside, you mean.
She nods, tossing blonde hair to the side. I miss that sometimes.)
Hephaestus was cast down from the heavens, but drug dragged himself up, crippling injuries and all. Now he takes what he wants to create, because he had things–important things–taken from him.
(Honestly? We can’t all know what we’re doing. I wasted thousands on a degree where I cleaned up poop all day, your eldest sister reminds you. Better to wait forever before you make any shitty decisions. Literally.)
And you remember, as the Almost-Friend rubs at her eyeliner and wipes tears away, that Dionysus was human before he was a god.
VIII.
“You’re a lot like Persephone,” you tell a friend.
You know she won’t know what you mean, and you should really drop the Greek gods shindig. They were fucked up assholes, if you’re understanding right.
Plus, you’ve got stuff to deal with. Some days your head is an alcove, arching and hollowing you inside out. Some days you’re bursting at the seams, ready to unravel at any moment. It’s all unreal and unbelievable, but, haha, what do you know? So are the Greek gods.
Only thing, though, is that seeing the world through legends and tales is worth it.
Cause you’re a forgotten god, with a sacred fire burning along your clay ribs and mud heart, and against everyone’s better judgment, you still believe.