I clenched my fists. It had been five days. Five. Days.
And why was Birgit looking at me like that? Did Jensen somehow call her even though he was on a mission? Did I-did I fail? Did she fail? No, she wouldn’t fail. But then that’d mean-
“Alex!” Birgit’s voice broke me out of my thoughts.
“Ye-yeah?”
“We should probably check and see the results.”
“Yeah, we should. Can we just…take a moment?” I asked with a bit of uncertainty. She nodded and I sat back on the bed, taking a few deep breaths before I looked back up at her. “Are you nervous?” I asked, trying to see how she was feeling about this whole situation.
“Not really,” she said with a shrug. “I’m quite confident in my performance. It was my dad that called me. Apparently there’s a big thing that he wants me to go to…again. He does this every year, showing me off to a bunch of assholes like I’m some kind of pet project.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, at a loss of words for anything else. “Let’s look at the results, we both need it.”
“For the record, you’re an idiot.”
“What a deep and insightful comment.”
Birgit rolled her eyes. “I meant that you surely have passed. Even if you didn’t do well on the written exam you did well in the interview and fighting portions.”
“I’ll grant you the interview, but the fighting? How can you be so sure?”
“Because we’ve been sparring together for three months,” she shot back, smirking. “I mean, you’re not as good as me but you’re certainly better than you give yourself credit for.”
“For someone so confident, you seem comfortable delaying this.” I got back up, looking down at her. Her eyes lit up at my response, in spite of the actual contents being more mean than I’d intended.
“And here I was worried you wouldn’t be able to strike back.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t like this to be a competition.”
“Don’t get too cocky there, young one. I thought you Greeks knew all about hubris,” she said as she sat down on her desk to open the Atlantis results.
“I’m forty eight days older than you!” She turned and looked at me like I was, well, an idiot. “It’s not a big difference but my point still stands, you hugaholic.” She blushed at that and turned back to her computer.
It wasn’t long before we got to the results. They were laid out as a list, with each name having the results for each performance
Birgit did unsurprisingly great, getting eighty points in the physical, seventy five in the interview and sixty in the written portion. Each portion was weighed, with the physical and interview portions having thirty percent and the writing one forty. This landed Birgit in the sixth highest spot of candidates. with a grade of seventy one–rounded up from seventy point five.
She grumbled about the written part slightly, but I’d say she was all pretty happy with the overall thing. I congratulated her, we hugged, and then it was time for what I feared the most.
The list included only candidates who’d made it–which was one hundred and twenty three people–but I didn’t see my name anywhere. I could feel my chest tighten at that. I was prepared for this, I knew this was the most likely scenario. No matter what anyone said, I wouldn’t make it.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I closed my eyes and tried to ground myself back to reality. We were only halfway through the list, there was still a chance. Even if it was all I could do to not let every fear and insecurity I ever had come rushing back to me.
Maybe it was for the best. With my power, my nightmares, that damn note and what I’d done to Maria. Maybe one of the other jobs Jensen suggested would be more suited for me. And I’d still be able to do good.
By the time we’d reached the eighties, those thoughts started to solidify more and more. “At this point, maybe we should just stop,” I said, cursing my voice for breaking at this time.
“You’re right,” said Birgit and, for some reason, it hurt me even more to see that she’d given up too. That I–that it wasn’t worth the trouble. “Because I found your name.”
What?
“What?” I asked, finding myself at a lack of words for the second time in a few minutes.
“You’re getting less λογοέτοιμος in your old age,” said Birgit with a smile. She pointed to a name in the middle of the screen..
And it was my results . It was my name. On the list of successful candidates. In ninetieth place.
Alexander Adamos
Physical E: 52
Interview: 75
Written E: 63
Final Grade: 63.3→63
And, for regretfully not the first time in my life, I squealed like a fangirl. Birgit’s laughter rang throughout the entire room and, while I was embarrassed, I was also the happiest and most excited I'd been in a long time. It was odd, but this was the exact moment it all hit me.
It all seemed so impossible before now. Hell, it still felt like it. Making it through Atlantis, being a hero. But this made it all feel just a tad closer.
I looked back up at Birgit, whom I’d known for four months and kept so much from, yet I would trust with my life. About my parents and Iraklis.
But also about Maria and everyone else at school. About the reasons I’d kept my secrets hidden from everyone.
I thought about all those things and I could only hope this–my dream, my biggest hope–was going to end well.
But all of those fears and doubts were all drowned out by the sheer and absolute joy that dominated my entire being due to one, simple, fact: I’d made it to Atlantis.
“We made it,” said Birgit in a voice so quiet it could almost be a whisper. It looked like the reality of the situation had hit her as well. I knew that this was a bittersweet moment for her. She’d be separated from her friends, people she’d known for years and I knew how that felt.
I was the one that grabbed her hands this time. I could see the conflicting emotions in her eyes. “I’ll be there. And those one hundred and twenty three candidates? They won’t know what hit them.”
A small smile formed on Birgit’s face. “Your dorkiness continues to astound,” she said in a faux posh tone.
“Just for the record, it’s ετοιμόλογος and not λογοέτοιμος,” I said with a small laugh. “Your Greek expertise continues to astound.”
After a bit of back and forth and a lot of talking about Atlantis, we decided to cut things off early. Birgit had to call her mother with the news, and I had to tell my parents–and Iraklis–as well. But to get back in time, I’d need to do a lot of walking and spend a lot of time on buses.
“I told you to let me get you a driver,” said Birgit with crossed arms, actually pouting slightly.
“It’d be weird.”
“Jensen had Stelios drive you around!” she insisted, and I couldn’t help but feel a little satisfied getting a rise out of her so easily.
“That was sprung on me and I didn’t have another choice,” I defended myself, although I had to admit that Stelios was an interesting and somewhat fun guy. A couple minutes, and a lot back and forth on the driver thing, we shared our goodnights.
As I was walking to the bus station, I bumped into someone. It was a man around my height. He was wearing a brown hat and trenchcoat, even though it was night and relatively warm, but I couldn’t make out his face pretty well, other than the fact he seemed to have electric blue eyes.
“Sorry,” I said awkwardly in Greek, somewhat embarrassed that I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice the man.
“Don’t worry,” he said in Greek as well. He held his hat in a way that blocked most of his face. “It’s like the old saying, όποιος νύχτα περπατεί, λάσπες και σκατά πατεί. I’m just glad nobody was hurt. Have a nice night.”
“You too,” I responded and he left as soon as I said it.
It was definitely a weird encounter, but I felt like I knew the man from somewhere. He was definitely familiar. I messed with my gloves as I contemplated the thought a bit, but I just kept on walking.
I didn’t want to miss the bus.