It’s a plastic box with a speaker and a number pad, attached to a green lanyard.
“They're audio guides.” He’s in his fucking element. “Have you never used one?” When I shrug, he narrows his eyes. “Have you never been to a museum?”
I’m pretty sure that’s a family vacation thing. I wouldn’t know. But Ethan forges ahead without waiting for an answer. Outside of all the pressure and scrutiny, he seems to have come alive.
My audio guide bumps against my chest every time I take a step. Birds hop between the broken stones, pecking the ground, and the sun bakes my shoulders. Some of the broken paths have mosaics, jumbles of dark tile I can’t decipher. Ethan has his audio player to his ear as he walks, the breeze stirring his hair. He turns in a circle, pointing at things. “There’s a small temple, a council chamber, and a market.” Apparently, I’m going to get the full tour, whether I use the guide or not. A field trip with Miss Frizzle-Ethan wasn’t what I expected from today.
Ethan
“This is a taberna,” I ramble as we approach a half-broken wall. “They were small shopping stalls built into the ground floor of dwellings. Based on carvings found inside, this is thought to have been a book shop run by two men named Justus and Felix.”
“It’s a rock.” I haven’t heard his voice all day, and it startles me. It’s hoarse and fragile and somehow comforting.
“Everything’s rocks, if you think about it. All of human history.”
He sits on a broken pillar, rotating slowly to face me as I examine the foundations. “You think they were fucking?”
“All my straight friends carve their names on the wall of their shared bedroom.”
He smiles, quick and unexpected, like when the gull stole my arancini. All kinds of tension I didn’t know I was holding flows out of me. His face closes off again, but at least I know there’s someone in there. For the rest of the tour, he walks a few feet behind me as I tell him facts from the audio guide he’s spinning around his finger. He pretends he’s not listening, but I think he is.