Apollo, Summer, and the Camp for Greeks | DoS #1

IX. We Listen to Country Music. That's Pretty Much It.

"She'll be fine. She sleeps through everything-" he looked at Riley for a moment in the rearview mirror - "Mostly. Sometimes she'll wake up with a bad feeling or a prophetic dream or something, in order to stop something bad right before it happens. But music won't wake her."

I reached up and pressed the button to turn on the radio. Muffled static came out first, so I began the long process of flipping through every station as I asked, "Is she actually, really psychic? Or does she just think she is?"

"We don't know. She gets gut feelings about things, but sometimes they're wrong. She doesn't have straight up visions, but there's something there."

He sighed, and seeing that as the end of the conversation, I focused on spinning the dial. I heard static, a car commercial, more static, a car dealership commercial, and then finally some semblance of music.

A Natasha Bedingfield song - too perky. A Johnny Cash song - too country. A Blue Öyster Cult song -

"Wait, go back!" Alec interrupted my analysis.

I landed on the Johnny Cash song - per his request. When I heard the lyrics, I crinkled my nose in true emo disgust.

"You Are My Sunshine? That's so sappy."

Alec feigned offense with a scoff. "I like it. It's sweet, and you can't deny The Man In Black." With that, he began to hum along to the song, somewhat off-key.

"Hmph." Jokingly, I retorted, "You probably just like it because it mentions sunshine, and you have weird light powers or something."

"Hey now, you're the one who hypnotizes people with music. That's weirder, in my opinion."

Side-eyeing him, I resisted the smile pressing at my lips. "Uh-huh, whatever. So I can play a mean violin. You're just like... a mini version of Apollo himself."

Suddenly, the light, joking atmosphere vanished. Alec scowled, his offense genuine this time - and more subtle as he pursed his lips and turned his eyes away from me, with only a "Hm." in reply. Even though Cash kept crooning away on the radio, the car suddenly felt too quiet.

I kept forgetting how much distaste Alec had for our father. It was more subdued at first, but as the quest went on, his frustration was becoming more and more apparent. It was probably because of his mother, some deep-buried trauma that he couldn't let go of.

Maybe I can get some sleep now, I thought to myself, not deigning to deal with Alec's back-and-forth moodiness that night. But as I closed my eyes, tossing and turning, I felt weird. I don't have much experience with close friendships, but I remembered reading an article in TigerBeat that said you should never end a interaction on a bad note. Or, as adults would say, never go to bed angry.

The weird feeling I had got worse, and to my irritation, I realized I wanted to talk to him. If this was a normal car ride, I would just run way from the issue and go to sleep. But Alec had always been an enigma to me - always meaning for the past 4 days - and this could've been my once chance to, y'know, bond with him. That's what friends do, right?

Sighing, I sat back up, and waited for him to say something. He ignored me. So, sighing again, I started: "Hey, I'm sorry for comparing you to Apollo. I know you're not his biggest fan."