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Isaiah: Don’t fly in. I look worse than I sound.
James: Then I’m definitely flying in. This I gotta see.
Isaiah: Oh, you’ll see. I’m not getting better any time soon.
Isaiah: But for now, forget about flying. Just pray. Pray like your brother’s life depends on it.
James: How else do you think I pray?
Isaiah: What?
James: Never mind. I’m on it.
thirty-seven
The stage takes a dip to the side and I fight to control my breathing. I look up and meet Jude’s concerned eyes. I motion to him to continue playing—it’s our signal when I need a minute. He nods and I turn sideways, so that the audience can’t see me speaking into my earpiece to Skye.
“Eden.” My voice breaks. I try again. “Is it really her?”
“Are you soft in the head, boy?” Skye says.
I keep looking and Eden’s still there. She hasn’t disappeared like a hallucination. She’s real. She’s here.
“Do you see her, Isaiah?” Skye asks in my ear, a note of desperation in his voice.
“Yeah, I got her,” I murmur and he logs off.
I turn around and lift a hand in the air.
“Are there any Greek people here?” I ask and they roar themselves hoarse in reply. “Well, I have had the misfortune not to be born Greek,” I say and they boo me, “but I’ve been in this country for barely a month now, and I’ve already got Greek friends.”
I point to where Dimitris and Yiannis are standing backstage, and the crowd applauds them deafeningly, even if they aren’t visible right now.
In my bones, I know it: It’s now. It’s time.
If I was my mom or James, I’d pray, but I’m not.
Is it too late to believe in God?
I don’t know if it’s a prayer, but I think one word.Help.
Ok. Here we go.
The music stops.
“This damn country, man,” I say into the mic, “it’s ruined me. Standing here, in the birthplace of song, dance, theater, sport, philosophy, mathematics, physics… Am I forgetting anything? I probably am. Everything good was born here. Civilization. You guys. Everything. Except for me.”
They roar with laughter.
“It is surreal to me to be standing here right now. Actually, funny story. Does anyone here know Weston Spencer?”
They scream for a full five minutes, I swear. The cameraman who is supposed to follow me around the stage zooms in on Spencer’s stupid face in the VIP section, and I want to strangle him. He smirks at the camera, looking straight at the lens, and his dumb, gorgeous face appears on the giant screen behind me. I point to him. Seventy thousand phones take a picture of me pointing at him from the stage and him smiling down at me as if I’m his favorite goat pet.
Brilliant.
“Well, it was his idea for me to come here,” I continue. “As you might know, Athens wasn’t on the original tour plan. It is now. Twice, if I’m not mistaken.”
Screams erupt from every corner of the stadium.
