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“Oh my God.” Ares tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. “What’s wrong with you, man?”
“A bunch of shit we don’t need to get into.”
“Zeus told you about our mom. You could at least stop being such a monumental prick and share some facts about your life with us.”
I’ve completely lost count of the reps I’ve done, so I switch to the other arm and start over. My left shoulder isn’t fucked, but if I don’t do all the exercises equally, itwillbe. How’s that for a cheap joke?
“What is this?” I ask him in the mirror. “You told me about your mom. I didn’t say a damn thing to you. And if Zeus ran his mouth to me, then he probably ran it to you, too.”
Ares doesn’t look at Apollo. I can tell it takes genuine effort on his part.
“We know she worked for Zeus,” Apollo says. “We know she left, and was killed.”
“Does that make you think we have something in common?”
Apollodoesglance at Ares now, his eyebrows raised. “…yes. Having a similar situation happen to you means that you have something in common. Obviously, that’s not all.”
“What else do you think there is?”
“We—” Apollo motions with the spoon again, encompassing all three of us, slowly, like I might not get it otherwise. “Are all part of the same family. In fact, the three of us—” He motions again, and I really am going to kill him as soon as I’m done doing these fucking physical therapy exercises. “Are part of the samenuclearfamily, which is when—”
“I know what a family is, jackass.”
“Then why are you pretending not to be part of it?”
“Because I’mnotpart of it. I can’t fathom how that’s so hard for you to understand.”
“Do you think there’s some secret criteria?” Ares asks. “Because legally, you’re in the family. You know that, right?”
“Legally?”
“Do you…not remember the paperwork?” Ares arches an eyebrow, and I have a cold, sinking feeling. I can’t help remembering things from my life. It would be easier if I could forget, but I can’t.
I break eye contact and switch arms. Back to the sore, fucked-up, re-broken one. I know it wasn’t actually broken from the dreams, but it sure as hell feels like it.
“Zeus collected me from jail. There’s always a lot of paperwork for that shit.”
“He collected us from his shelter,” Ares says. “Did he tell you that?”
“No.”
“We went there from the hospital.” Apollo addresses this to his bowl of ice cream. After that, I keep my eyes firmly on the weighted band. “Some pricks from social services wanted to take us, but we ran.”
“That’s a good call.”
“Oh, so you know about those motherfuckers, too,” Ares says in a jovial tone. “Because youalsoran away from them a time or two. Or ten.”
“More than ten. You’re lucky if it was just the once.”
“It wasn’t once. The time at the shelter was the last time, because Zeus took us home.”
“That must’ve been sweet.”
“It wasn’t.” How much ice cream does Apollohave? Is he eating tiny bites? I can’t fucking tell. “Ares and I got in a fight, and we both thought Hades was going to kill us because he looks like a murderer.”
Ares sighs. “He doesn’t look like a murderer. He looks like his eyes are the wrong color, which they are.”
“They’re not the wrong color,” I snap, and both of them stare at me, wide-eyed.
