by S. L. Stacy
In my dazed state, I almost forget to get out at the stop at Thurston. My legs carry me across the street, up to the Greek Quad and into the Gamma Lambda Phi house. Heads turn toward me when I enter, but I can’t process their faces.
“What happened?” Victoria’s auburn head and concerned amber eyes float into my field of vision. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I let my feet take me up the stairs. “I’m going for a run.”
In my bedroom, I mechanically shed the jacket and strapless blue dress and pull on sweatpants and a hoodie. I go back downstairs and sit down on the floor to pull on my running shoes. Two sneakers plant themselves in front of me.
“I’ll go with you,” Victoria says, her gangly form looming above me.
“No. I want to be alone.” I throw open the door and take off as fast as I can. The door doesn’t click closed behind me.
“It’s late! You shouldn’t go by yourself!” Victoria yells. I hear her shoes beat against the pavement behind me. I run harder, my heart already racing in my chest, the cold night air burning my lungs. Or maybe it’s not the cold.
I’m running toward the park, and as our property ends and the trees become thicker, the path transitions from asphalt to reddish brown dirt. I can still hear Victoria’s shoes smacking the earth. She could easily overtake me if she wanted to, but she keeps her distance. I pump my legs faster and faster, the muscles in my calves already starting to tense dangerously. My breaths come out in short, huffing gasps. No matter how much I push myself, I can’t seem to run as fast as I think I should be able to. There’s no point to being part supernatural being if I can’t run so fast I become a blur to the naked eye like in the movies.
I’m looking straight ahead into the desolate park instead of at the ground beneath me, so I don’t see the root before it catches my foot. I fly forward, gravity drawing me down until my knees, hands and forehead hit the dirt. White hot pain reverberates through me.
“Dammit!” I scream, scrambling to my hands and knees. I look at my palms; they’re crisscrossed with dirt and stinging, bloody scratches that I know will start to heal soon. Cursing over and over again, I fling my fists at the hard dirt, kicking up stray pebbles and gravel, the cuts on my hands burning more and more.
“Stop it. Stop it!” Victoria pleads with me. She grabs my wrists and holds onto them tightly, preventing me from continuing my assault on the ground.
Something wet and warm streams down my cheeks. I’m finally crying. “I’m such an idiot,” I sob, relaxing my arms and sitting back on my heels. Victoria releases my wrists. “How could I be so stupid?”
“Hey, you’re okay,” my big sister says. “Do you hear me? Everything is going to be fine.”
“I kept seeing him everywhere. I knew it couldn’t be real, but still sometimes I thought…I hoped…” I take a huge gulp of air, and then the rest of the words rush out of me, the truth I haven’t wanted to admit, even to myself. “I wanted it to be him. I wanted him to be back so badly, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for wanting it, and I hate myself for crying about it. I…I just…”
“You have nothing to hate yourself for.” Victoria places a firm hand on my back as sobs continue to convulse through me. “He was someone you had history with—someone you cared about, or thought you could care about, if given more time. Someone you trusted, who let you down. And then it all ended, quite suddenly and quite dramatically. Don’t feel guilty for crying about it. It’s cathartic. Cry, scream, vent—get it all out. It will help you let it go. It will help you let him go.”
I inhale and exhale slowly, the rhythm of my breath and my heart becoming calmer, steadier. Victoria sits silently next to me, watching me with encouraging eyes.
“It wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me,” I tell her when I’ve regained most of my composure. “It was Apate. She was making me see him—everywhere.”
Victoria frowns and nods in understanding. “She likes to play tricks on people.”
“She said…” I shake my head at the memory of our confrontation outside of The End. “She said she was bored, and she thought it would be funny.”
Pursing her lips together, Victoria says, “I know you want there to be a better reason for why Apate did what she did. But the thing is, she was probably telling you the truth. Our civilization is so advanced, most of us are bored, and some of us stir up trouble just to pass the time. Apate is one of the worst. Her very nature is wicked and deceitful. She doesn’t know any other way.”
“So that’s what you people do.” I get up and futilely brush the dirt and leaf litter from my pants. “You do whatever the hell you want because you think it’s funny or entertaining or exciting, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt or feels bad. We’re just ants for you to watch scuttle around our little hill until you step on us.”
My big sister stands up, the eyelashes fringing her large, amber eyes blinking back tears, but she doesn’t refute me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you,” I say. “I meant the others. Eric. Apate. J-Jasper. Even Farrah, a little.”
“No, you’re right to include me,” Victoria says. “I have a dark side, too. You just haven’t seen much of it.”
“What, you care too much?” I give a snort of laughter, which makes both of us break out into a fit of giggles. “I hate it when I do that.”
“Sounds like you’re feeling better.” Victoria motions for me to follow her. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house.”
We walk into an empty living room with all of the lights still turned on. The door to the guest bedroom is closed, the space underneath it dark. Victoria flips off the switches to the ceiling lights, and we go upstairs.
“There’s one more thing,” I tell her once we’ve reached the second floor landing. “I should have told you a lot sooner, but—”
“—you got all of your memories back?” Victoria finishes for me.
Heat rises to my face. “I thought you said you weren’t constantly in our heads!”
“It’s hard not to pick up on a thought if it’s all someone’s thinking about,” she rationalizes.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me yourself.”
“Well, I want to ask you about one of them. It was a dream I had last night.”
“Go on.” Victoria leans against the hallway sink and crosses her arms.
“In it Jasper and I were…you know…”
She holds up a hand. “Please. Spare me the details.”
“It was my first time. When I was Psyche, I mean, and Eros was sleeping over. I wanted to make love, but he was…afraid. Do you have any idea why? What would he be afraid of?” I press her when her gaze shifts quickly to the floor.
“I don’t see any point in telling you this now, but if you really want to know—”
“I really want to know.”
Victoria swallows hard, looking up again but not directly at me. “Eros had only been in love with one other woman before you. Her name was Alexa. She was human. Not a demigoddess—just a normal human girl. They were young and in puppy love. I met her through him, and we became best friends.”
“You stole her from him,” I gasp. “That’s why he hates you so much!”
“I didn’t steal her from him,” Victoria says, laughing. “Although Eros and I got along much better before Alexa. He and Alexa were each other’s first. They were so happy, I thought the only thing that would break them up in the end was that Alexa was mortal and Eros wasn’t.
“But over time, Eros fell out of love with her. It wasn’t something he wanted—the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He couldn’t even explain why he didn’t feel the same way about her anymore, but he knew it wasn’t fair to her. So he broke up with her. Alexa was…destroyed.” Victoria shivers, so absorbed in the memory that I wonder if she even remembers I’m here. “She followed him around, begged him to come back to her. He returned to Olympus for a while, thinking that if he cut all ties w
ith her, she would forget about him. I stayed with her to make sure she was okay. She wasn’t. She constantly asked me about him, how he was doing, why he didn’t love her anymore. I didn’t have any good answers for her.
“Then, one morning, I woke up, and the house was so quiet. Alexa was usually the first person up. Her bedroom door was closed, and I remember knocking on it and calling her name. It was unlocked, so I went inside. The bed was empty. I don’t even know what made me walk over to the window, but I did, and when I looked down she was…” Victoria chokes on whatever she was about to say next. A tear rolls down her cheek.
“She killed herself,” I whisper.
“Eros blamed me. Well, I know he really blamed himself, but he said that I was there and I was her best friend and I should have stopped her somehow. He’s never gotten over it. The fact that you and I became fast friends didn’t make it any better.”
“That’s why he was afraid,” I realize. “He was afraid that if we made love and something happened later on to break us up, that I would go crazy, too.”
“It wasn’t an unreasonable fear. Alexa wasn’t the only one,” Victoria says quietly. “You know now that every Olympian has a…quality that makes us unique among our people.”
“Yes, and Jasper’s is that he’s impossibly sexy and insatiable in bed.”
“It’s more than that. Human women fall utterly for him. They couldn’t resist him, even if they wanted to—and they don’t want to resist him. Once they experience something so beyond what a mortal can normally handle, they can’t live without it.”
My stomach churns. “What, so he just went around sleeping with mortal women and leaving them to die?”
“No! No, of course not. He thought what happened with Alexa was an isolated thing. I told him it was.” She looks embarrassed. “It can happen to any Olympian from time to time, if we have relationships with mortals. They become obsessed. Eros had a few more affairs with women that were only part mortal, but the same thing happened. The realization of what he was ate away at him. He felt like a monster. He was celibate for a time, but he didn’t fall in love again until he met…you. You’re the only woman who could really choose to be with him.”
“I don’t know. I kind of felt like I was losing my mind around him most of the time,” I say.
“You left,” says Victoria. “I know my mother tricked you into helping us, but before that, you left him. No one else would ever be able to do that. I’m sorry,” she adds, worry crinkling her forehead. “That was a lot to throw at you.”
I shrug. “I asked.”
“You’ve had a long night. Go to bed. It’s going to be another long one tomorrow.” Victoria gently opens the door to her and Carly’s room and tiptoes inside.
My shoulders sag as exhaustion overwhelms me. I look at myself in the hallway mirror. Dirt streaks my clothes and face. I take a long shower, letting the warm water massage my muscles and wash the grime and dried blood away. As I soap my hair, I think back to what Victoria said about humans becoming obsessed with their Olympian lovers. I wonder if that’s what happened with Max and me.
By the time I crawl into bed, the night’s rollercoaster of emotions has depleted me of all thought and energy. I drift off immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 9
The next morning, as I’m getting ready for class, another of Psyche’s memories resurfaces.
No combusting loins or heaving bodies in this one. It’s a tranquil, pleasant memory of her wedding day to Eros. My wedding day.
I study myself in a full-length, gold framed mirror. I’ve grown used to the face staring back at me in these memories—Psyche’s face. The large, deep violet eyes are the same, but she has higher cheekbones and a slightly upturned nose. Hair falls like a white-blonde waterfall down her back. She smooths out pretend wrinkles in her one shoulder, white silk dress and adjusts the gold cord tied at the waist beneath her breasts. Her wings emerge through slits in the back of the dress. The bronze wings of a butterfly-shaped necklace spread across the delicate, pale skin of her chest.
In the mirror, an auburn head peeks around the door behind me. Nike comes in, a white tunic draped over her tall, thin frame. Her hair is long and plaited into a thick braid down her back.
“You look beautiful,” she says, giving me a quick hug. “It is time to go down.”
Nodding, I follow her out into the corridor, our white slippers whispering over the marble floor.
The next thing I remember is standing on the pale sands of the beach, just out of reach from where the ocean waves slither up the coast. My fingers are curled around a bouquet of white flowers. Nike and, to my surprise, Aphrodite stand on either side of me. Aphrodite, like always, is willowy and golden, her beauty almost as painful to look at as the blinding sun above us.
People stand on either side of a strip of sand leading to my soon-to-be husband. I have a vague memory of what Psyche’s parents looked like, but I don’t see them among the on-lookers. Two women with braided blonde hair and hooked noses lurk toward the back of the crowd, scowling at me: Psyche’s biological sisters. Sunlight glints off Hephaestus’s smooth head somewhere closer to the front. I don’t see Ares.
Aphrodite and Nike walk with me up the aisle. I see a few more faces that look familiar, but I can’t think of their names. One is a tall woman with copper skin, an athletic build and a proud demeanor. Her almond-shaped eyes are as dark as the shiny black hair flowing freely to her waist. As I pass her, she smiles warmly. On the other side of the path is a short but sinewy man with curly dark hair. It’s The End’s owner and Jimmy’s boss, Lou. His pupils are black slits rimmed with reddish irises. Gold wings decorate the backs of his sandals. Beside him stands a girl with bouncing brown curls and watery blue eyes. Her small, pale hands clap excitedly as I walk by. When our eyes meet, her lips pull back into something between a smile and a grimace as she fights to hold back more tears. I return it with a hesitant smile of my own. I look away from the crowd and realize I’m almost at the end. Leaving Aphrodite and Nike behind me, I pick up the skirt of my dress and run the last few feet.
Almost immediately, Eros takes my free hand into his. A breeze ruffles his dark hair away from his golden face. His lips twitch upwards only slightly, but his body is tensed with barely contained excitement. He’s not wearing much except for what looks like a sheet wrapped around his waist, tied with a yellow cord. I resist the sudden urge to run my fingers up and down the rippling muscles of his abdomen.
I hand the bouquet off to Nike and step closer into Eros’s arms, his wings enveloping us in a feathery white curtain. He slides a ring made of an iridescent white metal onto my finger.
“With this ring, I am bound to you, always and forever,” he recites, his breath fresh and sweet against my face.
I slide a similar ring onto his finger and repeat, “With this ring, I am bound to you, always and forever…”
As the beach, the crowd and Eros fade away, I am left feeling warm and hopeful rather than resentful and empty. Apate was the demon behind my hallucinations, but these memories of Jasper are my own. Maybe things didn’t work out as well for us as they could have the second time around, but I’ve recovered a lifetime of memories filled with love and happiness. They will give me strength as I move on.
***
Downstairs, Tanya sits on the couch with her laptop open beside her. She takes a tentative sip from a steaming mug of coffee. Seeing me, she swallows quickly and sets it on the end table.
“Twin!” she exclaims. “Good, you’re here. I want to go through the presentation with you before the others get here—”
A flurry of pounding fists on the front door cuts Tanya off. We exchange puzzled looks. I walk over and open it.
“Take the video down,” Samantha Carson demands, pushing past me into the house. “You guys went too far.” Rebecca follows her inside, sobbing uncontrollably into her hands.
“We have no idea what the heck you’re talking about,” Tanya says, g
etting up and coming to stand next to me, arms crossed. “Get out of our house. You’re not welcome here.”
“Let me refresh your memory.” Samantha thrusts her smartphone into our faces. The sex tape Alec’s roommate and Rebecca made is playing. Alec was right—the footage is dark, and it’s a little difficult to tell what’s going on. His roommate’s hands are stretched out behind him on the pillow, wrists bound together. Rebecca faces away from the camera, dark hair spilling down her pale back as she rides him. The title of the video is a cruel twist on one of their cheers: “We are Alpha HO!”
Tanya suppresses a laugh, looking between the Rebecca gasping in the video and the Rebecca crying on our doorstep. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen this side of you before.”
Rebecca mutters a response.
“What was that?”
“It’s not me!” Rebecca wails, dropping her hands to her sides. “I didn’t hook up with him! And even if I did, I’d certainly never let him tape it!”
“What’s going on? I thought I heard crying—” Carly pauses at the bottom of the stairs, regarding us curiously before coming over.
“It kinda looks like you,” Tanya says.
“Her back is to the camera!” Rebecca protests.
“I’m sorry—you’re right. It is hard to tell.” Tanya smirks. “Take off your clothes and turn around.”
Samantha bristles. “You’ll take the video down before recruitment starts tonight, or—”
“We didn’t post it!” I insist. It’s not really a lie. Rebecca catches my gaze, her gray eyes pleading. I look quickly away.
“Well, then, you’ll get whoever helped you to take it down or you’ll be sorry. Come on, Becky. Let’s go.” She puts a hand on Rebecca’s hunched shoulder and steers her out the door.