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The thing Agamemnon knows about himself, that he will never admit to anyone else, is that he is not brave.
He pretends to be. Pretends well, actually. In the hallways, he stares down the rabble of Ilium High until they part before him like the Red Sea, and then he strides across the linoleum loudly discussing his latest record on the erg or the 99 Mr. Archimedes gave him on last week’s physics exam but changed to a 100 after he pointed out a mistake in one of the questions. He slams through blocking dummies in football practice like they’re made of cardboard, not nylon. He rules their lunch table with an iron fist.
But at home, it’s different. He hands Atreus his mid-semester report card and his father simply frowns and says, “You’ll have to take three APs next semester if you want to get into a decent college.” He tells Atreus he was voted treasurer of the Key Club and his father points out that when he was in Key Club, he was president. He hunches over his cereal bowl at six in the morning, grateful to have time to eat, and his father tells him to sit up straight.
And Agamemnon is furious. He’s indignant. But he’s not brave. So he says, “Yes, sir.”
~~~
Agamemnon rolls over in bed. Clytemnestra was amazing. She always is. Everyone acts like her sister, Helen, is the hottest thing in the history of the world, but to Agamemnon, she’s never had any appeal.
First of all, Helen was off-limits from Day 1. The Leukolenos girls appeared on the Atrides’ doorstep five years ago, the summer before seventh grade. Their father, Tyndareus, had a plate of brownies in one hand and the other on Helen’s shoulder, and he happily introduced himself as their new neighbor and said his two daughters would be going to school with Atreus’s boys in the fall. And Menelaus was practically drooling.
And look, Agamemnon is mean to Menelaus. He has to be, it’s his job. His god-given right as older brother. It’s the only way he’ll ever make his stupid, soft-hearted, ginger-headed, cartoon-watching, Taylor Swift-listening little brother ready for the real world.
But he’s not that mean.
So when the Leukolenoses left and Atreus returned to his office, Agamemnon nudged Menelaus with his shoulder and said, “I think she was looking at you, bro.” And he let Menelaus IM Helen from his iPod touch and picked out a tie for him to wear on their first date, which was dinner at Panera Bread before a 7:15pm showing of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The whole thing seemed so profoundly lame to Agamemnon, but it made Menelaus happy. And in their house, Menelaus was almost never happy. So Agamemnon didn't think for even one second about Helen.
But the truth is, even if Menelaus hadn’t fallen head-over-heels like the pathetic Disney princess he is, Agamemnon would never have been interested. While Menelaus ogled at Helen and mentally picked out stationary for their save-the-dates, Agamemnon only had eyes for the steely-eyed, slightly lanky, dishwater blonde tween behind her.
Clytemnestra wasn’t beautiful, or at least, not in the flashy, obvious way that Helen was. Her eyes were brown and normal-sized where Helen’s were sparkling blue and took up nearly half her face, and her thin lips seemed set in a permanent half-smirk while Helen met the world with a dazzling smile. At thirteen, she hadn’t quite adjusted to the five inches she’d recently gained, and her knobbly knees stuck out a little bit through her turquoise skinny jeans. But she was tough. Agamemnon clocked that from the start.
On the first day of seventh grade, Clytemnestra strode right up to him at his locker. “They put me in regular algebra, and I’m supposed to be in honors,” she announced, without even bothering to say hi. Agamemnon raised his eyebrows.
“So?” He asked, in the bored, what-are-you-doing-talking-to-me tone that boys his age used for girls.
“So, I need you to help me with that,” she replied, like it was obvious.
Agamemnon scoffed. He thought about telling her to go find a teacher or ask someone she was actually friends with. But Clytemnestra waited with one hand on her hip, her toe tapping across the floor and her eyebrows raised, like he was somehow wasting her time. Clytemnestra had met Agamemnon only once, a week before, when her father dropped by to introduce his family to their new neighbors. But she had a problem and she’d come to him for help. And in his stupid thirteen-year-old boy heart, Agamemnon felt a flicker of pride.
“Okay,” he said.
And they’ve been best friends ever since.
Agamemnon would never actually say that, obviously. Clytemnestra doesn’t need to, either. But they can both feel it, in the way Clytemnestra sits behind him in AP bio and snorts every time their teacher says homo erectus. In the way he can complain about Menelaus struggling with a new route in football practice and she’ll say, “That sounds so annoying,” and not, “You’re being kind of a dick.” In the way she texts him when she gets into that super selective summer pre-college program and he silently, instantly hearts the message.
Also, the sex is amazing.
That’s a new thing. It started last year, when Clytemnestra got back from aforementioned summer program and went right to the Atrides’ house. It was the summer before their sophomore year. She rang the bell and waited impatiently on the front step, and when Atreus swung open the door and raised one eyebrow at her, she just said, “Is Agamemnon home?”
(Clytemnestra has never been scared of Atreus. Sometimes, on nights when Agamemnon can’t sleep, he thinks she might be the bravest person he’s ever met.)
Agamemnon heard her voice and went to the top of the stairs. She marched right past him and into his room. The program was amazing, she told him. She took Medieval British History and Intro to Poetry. Her teacher said her poems sounded like they were written by someone twice her age.
And then she kissed him.
It didn’t surprise him, in the moment. He was reading one of the poems she’d written, and Agamemnon has never really gotten poetry but he at least liked the way words sounded in the order she put them in, and then her manicured hand curled around the back of his neck and pulled him in and kissed him. It felt exceedingly natural. This was Clytemnestra, after all, and he was used to being close to Clytemnestra. They got closer every year. Logically, this was kind of just the next step.
Afterwards, they were quiet.
Clytemnestra laid about six inches from Agamemnon on the bed, her arms crossed over her chest like a mummy. They didn’t touch. That was fine; they’d never been touchy-feely friends. But she also didn’t speak, which was less fine. Clytemnestra always had something to say.
“That was....nice,” Agamemnon said finally. Clytemnestra snorted beside him.
“Thanks,” she said, “I was aiming for ‘nice.’”
“Okay, what do you want?” Agamemnon snapped, slipping back a little bit into their usual rhythm. “A gold star? An A plus?”
“An A plus would be great, actually,” Clytemnestra replied. “Please call my father and tell him I got an A plus in sex.”
“I am naked, Cly. Don’t make me think about your father.”
Clytemnestra snorted again, and the snort broke off into full-blown, snickering laughter, and Agamemnon felt his own lips quirking into a smile. Then the laughter faded, and Agamemnon heard the sheets rustle as Clytemnestra rolled onto her side to face him.
“So, obviously, this doesn’t change anything.”
“Obviously,” he said, rolling with it, because he had never once fought Clytemnestra on anything and won.
“I mean, we both have a lot going on. AP classes. College visits.”
“Football.”
“Sure, I guess that matters.”
He reached out and swatted lightly at her shoulder, and she rolled out of the way.
“But that was pretty good,” she continued.
Despite himself, he grinned. “A plus?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. A minus, at best. Definite room for improvement.”
That made him scowl, and his cheeks heated up in a very embarrassing, very undeniable way, but he turned swiftly to face the ceiling so she wouldn’t see.
“But I would like to keep trying. At the very least, I would hate to beat you so thoroughly at something without giving you a chance to get better.”
Agamemnon wasn’t sure how she got from A minus to thinking she beat him at sex, but it sounded like she was saying she wanted to do it again, so he didn’t argue.
“Okay,” he said, like he had when she marched up to him and demanded he help her get into honors algebra.
“Okay,” she replied, a soft smile growing on her face. “So we’re agreed. We’ll both focus on our own stuff, and when we need to blow off steam, we’ll do this.”
It sounded like a very practical plan. Agamemnon agreed without argument.
Now, they’re lying in his bed again after what Agamemnon thinks was some of their best stress-relief yet. Downstairs, a party rages. It’s the kickoff party for their team, the team that will ride to glory against those annoying fucking Priamides and make Paris regret ever stepping foot in the Atrides’ house. Because last weekend, he sauntered right into their party and kissed Helen in their kitchen. And Menelaus saw.
(He’d cried, after. Agamemnon had the strangest reaction to that, almost like he wanted to give his brother a hug. But then he heard Atreus’s door swing open down the hall and hissed, “Get it together, dude.”)
Things have been weird at school since. Unsettled. Tense, like everyone is waiting for a rupture. It’s been so weird that Agamemnon almost thought it might change things with Clytemnestra, but then she strode right into his house tonight and said, “Don’t be stupid, their shit is not our shit.” And that seemed logical, so he followed her upstairs.
Now, she’s lying with her head on his arm. She’s willing to touch him after sex now, for a maximum of three and a half minutes. Agamemnon timed it. Holding her like this is a little bit sappy for them, but he’s noticed that afterwards, his chest feels less tight. So he lets himself do it.
“What are you thinking about?” Clytemnestra whispers. Agamemnon frowns. That’s new. Usually, she says something like You’re getting better at that or I have cheer practice in 35 minutes.
“Um,” he says, “nothing, I guess.”
Clytemnestra laughs. “Typical. Boys are so stupid.”
He scowls. “Okay, what are you thinking about, genius?” Clytemnestra giggles and shifts a little in his embrace, trying to get more comfortable. The movement makes something strange and tender bloom in his chest.
“Oh, you know,” she sighs, “quantum physics. Cures for cancer. What happens after we die.”
“Wow, you got all that from sex with me?” He says. “I must be amazing.”
“Shut up,” she says, and swats at his arm, but she’s grinning.
She has the best smile of anyone he’s ever seen.
Their laughter fades, and for a moment they’re just looking at each other. Clytemnestra’s brown eyes study his face like they’re searching for something. He holds steady under her gaze, hoping she finds what she’s looking for.
“So, that was really good,” she says softly, after a moment. Agamemnon nods instinctively.
“Really good,” he agrees.
“And not just the sex,” she continues. “Also the hanging out.”
Agamemnon considers this. There hadn’t been much hanging out, really. She’d just grabbed him by the wrist when he’d been standing in conversation with the Ajaxes, debating whether hiding Little Ajax in people’s lockers was a worthwhile strategy, and tugged him up the stairs. He thinks, while he was pulling her clothes off, that he might have asked her about her day. She’d rolled her eyes and said, “It’s about to get better,” which was the hottest thing he’d ever heard, so he picked her up and pushed her against the wall and stopped noticing much of anything else.
“Yeah,” he concedes finally. “I mean, it’s always fun hanging out.”
Clytemnestra pushes out of his arms a bit and props herself up on one elbow. “I think so too,” she says. “And I think it’s, like, good for us. I can talk about stuff with you that I don’t with anyone else.”
“Me too,” he replies, frowning deeper. He thought that was obvious. They’ve never had to say this stuff out loud before.
“Okay, good,” she says. “So like...maybe we should try the other thing.”
Now Agamemnon is really confused. Clytemnestra says it like it should be obvious what she means, and to be fair, what Clytemnestra means usually is obvious to him. But this time there’s only one thing he can think of, and there’s no way that’s what she’s saying. He gives her a strange look, and she nods a little, as though in confirmation.
“You mean like,” he says, and then drops his voice to a whisper, “...butt stuff?”
Clytemnestra’s jaw drops. “Ew, what?!” She demands, springing out of bed. “No, obviously not! Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know!” Agamemnon splutters, confused and defensive and wishing it didn’t matter so much to him that she’s no longer in his arms. “You just said the other thing, and that’s like, the most obvious thing that could mean!”
“In what world?!”
“In this world, Cly!” He snaps. “The world where we’re both naked and you’re in my bed and you say you want to try the other thing!”
“Oh my god, oh my god, no.” Clytemnestra buries her face in her hands. His bedsheet is wrapped around her like a toga, and he can hear her breathing hard through her fingers, trying to collect herself. “I meant, like, a relationship.”
Agamemnon blinks.
“A relationship?” He echoes.
Clytemnestra lifts her head from her hands. Her face is flaming, but she sets her jaw, resolute in this decision like she is in everything else. “Yes,” she says simply. “It makes sense. We’re friends. We get along. We’ve had sex, and we’re still able to get along. So we should try a relationship.”
Agamemnon stares at her. She’s laying it out like a mathematical proof. And he likes math–he puts numbers down on the page and goes through the functions and comes to the correct answer. When he’s right, he’s right, and no one can second-guess that.
But he doesn’t think this will be the same.
“I thought we said we’d focus on our own stuff,” he says lamely. Clytemnestra rolls her eyes.
“We have been focusing on our own stuff,” she replies. “I got a 1570 on my PSAT. You’re captain of the football team. Clearly, hooking up doesn’t impede our brilliance.”
“No,” he agrees, “it helps. Like you said, blowing off steam.”
“But I think we could blow off steam in other ways,” she explains, still so frustratingly composed. He feels like he’s staring down at an exam and realizing he studied all the wrong stuff. “I feel better after we hook up, obviously. But I also feel better after we just...talk.”
It might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to him. People at school like him for what he does: winning football games, running fundraisers, getting questions right. At home, Atreus sometimes likes him if he makes his father look good. He’s pretty sure Menelaus has never liked him, but that’s fine, his brother will be grateful someday.
But Clytemnestra likes him when they just talk? Why? It doesn’t make sense. If all he’s supposed to do is talk to her, and hold her hand in the hallway and listen to her complain and make her feel better just by being around, then how does he know when he’s doing it right?
And how will he know when he’s gotten it wrong?
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says, gulping. Clytemnestra’s determined expression falters, and he hears her let out a tiny, shaky gasp. It almost breaks him. “This has been working fine as is. We’re both focused on really important stuff, and we can’t afford to get distracted.”
Clytemnestra’s face hardens. “That’s what you think I am? A distraction?”
“No!” He rushes to assure her. “I think you’re...I think you’re great, obviously. You know that. I just don’t see why we have to change something that’s already working.”
Clytemnestra lifts her chin. “Because it’s not working for me anymore.”
Agamemnon stares at her. He feels something inside him crack and start to yawn open. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Clytemnestra says, taking a step towards him, “that if you don’t want to try this for real, then I don’t want to keep doing it.”
“But...,” Agamemnon says, in the most confused, pathetic voice he’s ever heard come out of his own mouth. “But you just said you feel better when we hook up.” Clytemnestra reaches for her discarded shirt and starts tugging it on.
“Yeah, well,” she says, “lots of things make me feel better. Eating breakfast. Going for runs. Talking to Helen.” She sniffs, and her hand comes up to rub at something in her eye, and for the briefest second he thinks he sees the glisten of tears. “I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t...” Agamemnon feels helpless. His heart is going a mile a minute. This is worse than when Atreus asked if the football team would be going to the playoffs last year.
“It’s fine, Agamemnon,” Clytemnestra says, and she starts to move towards the door.
Agamemnon feels like something is slipping through his fingers, fast. They start opening and closing uselessly at his sides, like he could grab hold of this moment and yank it back into place. He thinks of a thousand things he should say, wait a minute or let’s talk about this or your poems are the only ones I’ve ever liked.
Clytemnestra slips out the door. It clicks shut behind her.
Agamemnon doesn’t move. Doesn’t go after her. Doesn’t say a word.
Because, like he’s always known, he is not brave.