The Weight of the World

by Amy Leigh Strickland

  and boldly splashed into the ocean below

  for a morning swim.

  As he was plotting ways to keep the hunter

  from taking his twin sister's maiden virtue,

  Artemis came upon the shore and greeted

  her brooding brother.

  An idea came to Apollo as he watched

  the distant, blurred form of Orion below.

  He told his sister of a master archer

  and boasted of him.

  When Artemis insisted that she was best,

  Apollo proposed a challenge of her skill.

  Pointing to a distant target far below,

  he dared her to shoot.

  Artemis did not know that it was a friend,

  or even a person in the distant sea.

  She notched a long arrow and drew it back,

  aimed, and took the shot.

  The swift arrow flew true and struck its target.

  Orion, the hunter, screamed as he perished.

  Only then did Artemis recognize him,

  her almost lover.

  “Whom the gods love dies young.”

  -Menander

  XX.

  Astin sat at his computer, checking his list of internet bookmarks and drinking a glass of orange juice. It was still early. He had saved a link to Discordia, recently, despite the little voice in his head that told him to think twice about it. Astin knew that gossip had never served anyone, but now that it was about people he cared about, he couldn't look away.

  He scrolled right past the story about a popular girl who had graduated in May and how she had chosen her college based on where her older boyfriend was, only to find out he was cheating on her. He didn't even look at the pictures on an article that suggested one of the varsity soccer players was taking performance enhancers. He stopped when he landed on an article posted the day before, because he had glanced Diana's name in the body of text.

  The article, titled “Virgin Alert” was a list of the top ten hottest virgins at Olympia Heights Senior High. June Herald made the list along with a bunch of girls in Valerie's abstinence club. A second header in the article, “Recent Departures” included Diana. Astin's rage renewed.

  The comment section was worse. A wiser reader would have known that the comments sections of gossip blogs were the bowels of the internet, but Astin had never been one for gossip prior to this summer; he continued scrolling and read the list of ignorant, anonymous spew.

  “Diana Hill. I would TAP THAT.”

  “EW!!! why woulld ryan bear sleep with HER?!?! wtf”

  “Hill is iNsAnE. She talks 2 the frogs in Biology. I bet she's wild in bed, tho.”

  Astin turned off his monitor and walked to the kitchen. He couldn't read any more. He feared that if he did, he'd throw his computer out the window.

  Astin paced around the kitchen for a while, thinking about what Adam had said. The other guys were only-children, they didn't understand what it was like for Astin to see his sister's innocence taken away by some smooth-talking stranger. Worst of all, Diana didn't see that Astin was trying to protect her. Ryan's presence in her life was coming between the siblings.

  Astin stopped. He took a deep breath. He knew what he had to do and the decision steadied his anger. Ryan was a problem. Astin wasn't going to lose Diana. She was his best friend and his family. He had to focus on the task at hand.

  Diana came down the stairs at lunch time. She ran around the dining room, picking up her discarded cell phone and sunglasses and shoving them in her purse. Astin stepped into the room, holding a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on it.

  “You got a text from Ryan. He's running fifteen minutes behind.”

  “You read my text?” Diana hissed.

  Astin shrugged. “Sorry, but you were in the shower and I wanted to make sure it wasn't urgent.”

  “Sure,” she replied.

  “Diana...” Astin crossed to the table and set the plate down. He ran his hands through his curly blonde hair. “Let's cut this out, okay? I can't stand fighting with you. I'm sorry I flipped out.”

  Diana furrowed her brow. She set her purse down. “For real?”

  “I'm still not wild about you being so serious with Bear,” he said, “But we're juniors now, right? We expect our parents to trust us to make the right decisions, so I guess we have to trust each other.”

  Diana threw her arms around Astin and hugged him. When she pulled back she was a lot less tense.

  “You eaten lunch yet?” Astin asked.

  “No,” Diana said, “I figured I'll snack on popcorn until after the movie and then we'll eat.”

  “Oh, sure, that's good for track and field conditioning.” Astin shook his head. He picked up the peanut butter and jelly and tore it in half. Astin sat down at the table and took a bite out of his half. Diana sat opposite him and ate hers, quietly.

  Astin paused with just a few bites left in his hands, “I can heal people with my hands, y'know?”

  “That's a cool power.”

  “How are the senses working out? Controlling them now?”

  “Yeah, I haven't had any freak-outs in a while. I have a feeling the sense of smell is going to suck in the locker room once sports start up at school.”

  Astin wrinkled his nose. “Healing people is way cooler, even if big injuries make me pass out.”

  “You think it's proportionate?”

  Astin nodded, “The dog had a cut on the pad of his paw the other day-- I think there was some glass on the street when I walked him-- and I healed it just fine. I was a little tired, took a nap, but I didn't pass out.”

  “Wonder if you could get someone from The Pantheon to work with you.”

  Astin laughed, “Right, I can see that going well. 'Hey, can I cut you? It's for science.'”

  “Dr. Livingstone might go for it,” Diana suggested.

  Astin saw Ryan's car pull up in front of the driveway. Diana swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and jumped up.

  “I'll be back for dinner,” Diana said. “We'll talk Pantheon then, okay?”

  Astin stood up and hugged his sister one last time. “Take care. Be safe.”

  Astin watched from the window as Diana ran down the driveway and hopped in Ryan's car. He smiled at her. Diana leaned forward and planted a kiss on his lips. Astin felt a hot weight growing in the pit of his stomach as his sister kissed her boyfriend.

  After a few seconds that stretched on for a lot longer in Astin's mind than they did in reality, the kiss ended and Ryan touched his lips. His eyes widened. He said something to Diana and then started to reach around her frantically. His hand went to his throat and Astin saw Diana start to panic. Diana backed out of the open door of the car and shouted, “Somebody help!”

  Ryan leaned across the center console, grasping at the glove box handle before his eyelids drooped, his head dropped, and he was unconscious.

  Astin ran out the front door. He shoved his phone into Diana's hand and shouted, “Call an ambulance.” His determination to get rid of Ryan had dissolved. Astin pulled on the handle of the glove box. A stack of loose papers, a GPS, pens, air-fresheners, iPod accessories, and assorted hard candies poured out on the floor. It was Astin's assumption that Ryan had been reaching for an EpiPen, but as he sorted through the pile of clutter and things rolled under the seats, he couldn't find it.

  Diana was doing her best to give her address to the dispatcher on the phone, but she was losing syllables in frantic sobs. Two minutes had passed before Astin found the pen. He tried once to use it, but forgot to take off the safety cap. When he finally slowed down enough to read the instructions and try again, nothing happened. Ryan didn't move and he didn't start breathing.

  Sirens sounded at the end of the street. Diana was sitting on the driveway, now. The dispatcher was trying to calm her down. “He told me he was allergic to peanuts, but I forgot. I didn't know it was this bad,” she said.

  Astin sat on th
e ground next to the running car. He was shaking.

  “Astin,” Diana said, suddenly, “Do something. Heal him!”

  Astin nodded. He got up and put his hands on Ryan's back. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to block out the sounds of Diana's sobs. His hands glowed white. Astin gritted his teeth, focusing his energy on fixing his mistake.

  He saw colorful spots in front of his eyes. Astin kept contact with Ryan's back. Seeing Diana this destroyed wasn't worth it. He thought that getting rid of Ryan would fix everything, but he hadn't thought about the cost. The spots multiplied until they filled his vision. Astin pulled his hands back, afraid that he would lose himself if he kept contact. He staggered back onto the grass and blacked out.

  The ambulance pulled up next to them.

  “From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”

  -Socrates

  xxi.

  When Hera told her husband that Ixion

  had dared to try and make an advance on her,

  Lord Zeus decided to put it to the test

  and sculpted a cloud.

  The god of storms made a likeness of Hera

  and sent this facsimile of mist and air

  to seduce the imprudent guest, Ixion.

  This proved Hera's claim.

  As his sentence, he was thrown from Olympus

  and struck with a bolt of Zeus' own lightning,

  before being chained to the ever spinning

  wheel of fire, the sun.

  “Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out..”

  -Heraclitus

  XXI.

  A light, steady rain fell over the cemetery three days after Diana's fateful 911 call. The sky was blanketed in a uniform layer of gray. Most of the students of Olympia Heights Senior High had shown up for the wake the evening before.

  Diana stood with Ryan's mother. Diana's twin brother held her hand beside her. Astin held their umbrella with his other hand and stared blankly ahead at the casket.

  “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever. The Word of the Lord.”

  “Thanks be to God,” replied the crowd in mumbled unison.

  Astin's gaze stayed fixed as Ryan's mother came forward to sing “In Heavenly Love Abiding.” He watched until the cemetery workers came forth to turn the crank and lower the casket beneath the earth. As it vanished below the edge of the grave, Diana squeezed his hand, ignorantly grateful for his support.

  Astin stayed by the grave for a minute as his family walked towards the road. A short man with receding black hair and large ears patted him on the shoulder as he passed. “It's a shame, one so young,” he said. “It's too bad you couldn't save him.”

  Astin whipped around to get a better look at the man. The stranger didn't so much as glance back. Astin shook his head. Diana had told the EMTs that Astin had been doing CPR when he'd blacked out. Of course, that was what the man was refering to. He couldn't know the truth, could he?

  Astin returned to the family's car. Their father turned on talk radio as they left the cemetery gates. Astin let the debate over library funding distract him from the unbearable weight of his guilt.

  “How's Diana doing?” Zach asked Lewis over the phone. He stood in his room, gathering his gear for football camp the following morning. Lewis had been on the track team with Ryan and had gone to the funeral and the reception afterward.

  “She left the reception early. They stayed about ten minutes. She didn't say a word to anyone. Astin looks like he's taking it as hard as she is, man.”

  Zach hated being the leader at a time like this. Everyone was fighting, Devon had gone ahead and told everything to Adam, and now Lewis and Diana had lost a friend. The burden was on his shoulders to carry everyone through this.

  “We should have a Pantheon meeting,” he said, “Tomorrow, after football camp.” Zach sat down at his computer and turned on the monitor. “I don't think we should wait for Sunday to talk with Adam. I want to look him in the eye when I decide if Devon made a big mistake.”

  “I hear ya. It'd be a good distraction for Di, too. I'm worried about her, man. She and Ryan were pretty serious.”

  Zach had a message waiting in the bottom right-hand corner of his screen. It was the Discordia Facebook profile. “Feeling betrayed?” it said, followed by a link.

  Zach hesitated before clicking it. The blog loaded and the first entry made Zach freeze. There was a clear photo, shot from a low angle, of June straddling Lewis on the sofa in his garage. A surge of electricity coursed through his body. His phone sparked and his wireless mouse caught fire.

  “Shit!” Zach grabbed the blanket off of his bed and put out the fire on his desk.

  He stared down at his computer screen, unable to believe what he was seeing. Lewis and June? He didn't even think June liked Lewis. At all.

  Zach sat down and read the article, his hands shaking with rage as he neared the bottom of the screen. He tapped the down arrow on the keyboard to scroll to the bottom. Lewis and June. How could they do this to him?

  The house phone rang. Zach's mother called to him. Zach stood up so fast that his computer chair fell over and thunked hard on the carpet.

  “Hey, dude. Your cell was going straight to voicemail,” Lewis said when Zach answered the phone.

  “I fried it again.”

  “Yeah? See a ghost?” Lewis chuckled.

  “Where are you right now?”

  “I'm at home, changing out of my monkey suit. I was going to go run, though, seeing as the rain's stopped.”

  “Meet me at the school track in fifteen.”

  “Okay, why?”

  “We need to talk.” Zach slammed down the phone.

  Lewis didn't need fifteen minutes to change and get to the track. He ran the whole way as a blur of blonde and was waiting, standing in the wet grass at the center of the track.

  Zach had to borrow his mom's car. He hadn't replaced the Thunderbird yet. He pulled up in a hurry and did a sloppy, crooked parking job in the row of spaces right in front of the bleachers. Lewis smiled and waved. “Hey, dude. You look pissed. What's up?”

  Zach didn't speak as he passed through the gate in the chain-link fence and marched across the field towards Lewis. Lewis' smile faded with every step in Zach's approach.

  “Dude, what's wrong?” he asked.

  Zach shoved the heels of his hands into Lewis' chest, pushing his unsuspecting friend flat on his back.

  With the breath knocked out of him and cold water soaking the back of his t-shirt and shorts, Lewis stared up at Zach in disbelief. “What the hell?” he gasped.

  “I should have known,” Zach said, ready to voice the speech he had been preparing in his head the entire drive over here. “It was only a matter of time.”

  Zach reached down to grab Lewis by the collar, wanting to yank him to his feet so that he could hit him again. Lewis saw the fury in his eyes and rolled out of the way. In a flash, he was on his feet and was twenty yards away from Zach.

  “What the hell! Are you going to tell me what this is about or just keep taking pot shots?”

  “You've always lived vicariously through me. You're always here, ready to leech off of my popularity. The clever sidekick is really just waiting for the hero to fall, to take his place.”

  Lewis was having a hard time regaining his breath from Zach's first attack. Every word that came out of Zach's mouth caused a horrible twisting in his gut. Was this how Zach really felt?

  “It was only a matter of time before you swooped in for my leftovers, right? Is that what you were doing with June? That's why you convinced me to try and move on. I bet you were the one who tipped her off. How long were you waiting for her to end it?” Thunder rumbled overhead. The rain returned, falling in l
arge, infrequent drops as Zach spoke.

  “June? Oh, crap. Zach...” Lewis shook his head. “June threw herself at me, and I shot her down.” He knew that he should have been straight with Zach the minute it happened. June's plea, though, to not embarrass her by telling Zach, had gained his sympathy. Had June told Zach to make him jealous? Was she playing them both?

  “Right, so Speedy Gonzales wasn't quick enough to avoid being mounted on his own turf?”

  “Quite frankly, Zach, I didn't expect the prude to try and ride me like a horse. So, no.”

  “You're so full of shit,” Zach said, starting to march towards Lewis again. Lewis dashed out of the way and stopped fifteen feet behind Zach.

  “Dude, I don't know what she told you--”

  “Told me? She didn't tell me anything. There are photos online!” Zach turned around and charged at Lewis. Lewis dodged. Zach changed directions and tried again.

  “Coward!” Zach shouted and Lewis easily slipped his grasp.

  Lewis stopped just yards in front of Zach and stared him down. The rain began to fall more steadily, soaking Lewis and Zach as they faced-off. “You know we don't all worship at the altar of Zach Jacobs. Even your own Dad doesn't want anything to do with you.”

  “You would be nothing if you weren't my friend,” Zach snapped. “No girls, no football, no friends. Everything you have is from riding on my coat tails.”

  Lewis stopped playing defense. He wasn't very strong and he hadn't taken physics yet, but even Lewis knew that force was the product of mass and acceleration; Lewis sure had that acceleration thing down pat. He raced past Zach, sticking out his elbow as he passed and clipped Zach in the face. To Lewis it felt as though he had slammed his elbow against a concrete wall. To Zach it felt like a hammer to the face. Zach went down hard, clutching his fractured cheekbone. Lewis reeled back, clutching his elbow.