The Chaos of Stars
Page 22

We finish the rest of the pizza and enjoy a rousing round of Mock the Worst-Fitting Swimwear. Not even the grand prize winner, a nine-months-pregnant woman in a string bikini, gets so much as a glance from Notebook Boy.
I don’t understand why Scott and Tyler like having him around. There’s no point. He’s like furniture or something. Really pretty furniture, but still.
A volleyball smashes into the sand next to me, and I look up to find two guys in low-slung board shorts grinning sheepishly. “Hey, sorry about that. You want to play?”
“No, thanks.”
“Ah, come on!”
“Again, no thanks.” I don’t even bother picking up the ball to throw it at them, and they walk away, grumbling.
“Ooh, they had pretty abs. You should have said yes,” Tyler says.
“Bodies are bodies. Who cares.”
“Speaking of bodies,” Scott says, his head resting on Tyler’s stomach. “Bruce Lee could have taken Chuck Norris in their prime, and you know it.”
I have no idea who they’re talking about. I’m tracing patterns in the sand with my toes, warily watching the horizon as the sun sinks. No clouds yet. Please, no clouds.
Tyler shoves his head away. “Could not! Ry, tell him he’s wrong.”
Ry holds up a finger and we wait while he writes . . . and writes . . . and writes. Tyler and Scott giggle, just watching him, like it’s a game to see how long he’ll go. Knowing those two, it probably is a game. And finally, two full minutes later with the sun nearly setting, he sets down his pen and folds the notebook shut. “What are we talking about?”
“Now, or any time in the last three hours?” I snap, surprised at how pissed I sound. What do I care if he hangs out and ignores us?
He smiles, looking right into my eyes, and my breath catches as I see that he is here, finally, connected to me and only me. “Now.”
“You’ll have to excuse Ry,” Scott says. “He’s a poet.”
“Here we go.” Ry rolls his eyes, breaking the connection, and I feel like I can breathe again.
“Ask him what type of poetry he writes.” Scott’s face twists up in a smirk. Tyler reaches past me and pats Ry’s leg supportively.
“What type of poetry do you write?” I say, my voice flat.
“Epic!” Scott shouts. “He writes epic poetry!”
Ry shrugs. “It’s true.”
“Epic poetry? What does that mean?”
He tucks the notebook into his bag and turns to look at me again, and I swear his eyes are like a physical blow, they’re so shockingly beautiful, and I wish he’d look somewhere else. “Really, really long? And with specific conventions. Starts in the middle of a story; there’s always a quest; really strict meter; you have to invoke a muse. In my case Calliope. It’s kind of along the lines of The Iliad. You know it?”
“Of course. I used to read it under the covers at night on my laptop.”
Everyone gives me weird looks. “Why?” Tyler asks.
“Oh, my mom kind of has this thing against the Greeks.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. Not a fan. So I had to sneak around to read The Iliad and The Odyssey.”
“I thought my mom was weird for banning vampire novels,” Tyler says. “Don’t tell her you’re hanging out with Ry, then.”
“Why?”
“Full-blooded Greek.” He smiles at me with that dimple and that skin, and it’s too perfect. Is there something wrong with me that I want to hang out with him more just because he’s Greek and it’d kill my mom?
Tyler whispers something to Scott, and they both jump up. “Be right back!” she says, and they take off down the beach, hand in hand.
“They’re going somewhere to make out, aren’t they?” I ask, frowning at them.
“Probably.”
“Lame.”
Ry and I sit there, staring out over the ocean as the sun’s dipping progress speeds up. I make a point of keeping my eyes on the water. It glows now, this brilliant, darkening blue. It’s amazing. I should come here for sunset every night. I don’t wish away the water anymore.
“So,” I say, too aware of him right next to me and wanting to talk about something normal, “why epic poetry?”
“I know there’s no point—not like anyone wants to read it—but I grew up on these stories, the mythology, and it’s a beautiful way of making sense of the world. Plus I have high hopes that my poetry will get me the one thing I want in the whole world.” He lets that hang there, like he wants me to ask what it is.
Instead I say, “Doesn’t everyone always meet really tragic endings in Greek mythology?”
He laughs. “Pretty much. But some would say my writing is a tragedy in and of itself, so I’m already doing my culture justice. What do you like to do, Issy?”
“Oh no. I am not an Issy.”
“Sorry, I didn’t take you for a Dora.”
“I’m not. I’m an Isadora.”
“No nicknames?”
“My name is Isadora. That’s who I am. I hate nicknames.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a big deal.” He sounds sincere.
I sigh. “It’s not. Well, it is. It’s just—cultural, right? Your name is who you are, what defines you. Ancient Egyptians even believed names themselves had power. You take away someone’s name, or change it, you’re taking away a part of them. You are your name.” I frown, thinking of all my stupid relatives who couldn’t ever even bother to learn my name. My mom, who’d call me pet names all the time—she couldn’t be bothered to see me, Isadora. I was just another baby, just another kid to snuggle and raise to worship her, then replace.