tles me. My eyelids snap open and I observe him. There’s no softness to him anymore. He’s rigid, hard like cement, frozen in a way I’ve never seen him before. Even his Aegean blue eyes are fierce, deadly. “This is goodbye,” he says boldly. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
I feel like someone has stuck the hose of a shop-vac down my throat and sucked out my organs. Soon I’ll collapse in a heap on the floor. “What?” A dull pain throbs in my side and I hug myself, hoping to take it away. It doesn’t work. “I don’t understand.”
“Forget me,” he says in a harsh tone. “Forget I ever took you. Forget you ever met me. I am nothing, but a figment of your imagination. I am a dream.”
“Never,” my voice trembles. I can never do what he’s asking me to. I will never forget him or the way he makes me feel. “I can’t.”
His eyes pierce mine and the set of shimmering blue orbs are emotionless, but I get the sense that he’s hiding something. There’s something hidden behind the front he’s putting up. “What’s going on?” I ask and reach out for him. “Why are you acting like this? I thought I meant something to you. I thought you loved me.” His eyes shift to my hand, like the gesture repulses him and then he looks away.
“That isn’t true.” His words pound into my head like a gavel into a circle of wood. “You were a challenge, that’s all.”
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
“I’m dreaming. This is just a nightmare. I’m going to wake up.” I pinch myself, hoping that my eyes will fly open and I’ll find myself in my bed.
“You’re dreaming,” he insists, “I can only see or talk to you in your dreams. But this is not a nightmare. What I’m saying to you is the truth. You’re a challenge that I conquered. I don’t love you. I’m sorry I had to tell you like this.”
At that moment I snap. I go crazy and lunge for him, shoving him as hard as I can. “You’re lying! You’re lying!” What he feels for me is real. I’m not a challenge he conquered. I can’t be. I remember the way I’d catch him looking at me with a deep longing in his eyes. I remember seeing the love in his eyes. That wasn’t fake. It was real. I know it was real.
My face is hot and tears spill from my eyes. I slam my fists into his chest and he does nothing to console me. He stands there like an immortal punching bag and allows me to pummel him with punch after punch.
“Are you finished?” he asks a vacant tone in his voice.
I burrow my fists into my eyes then stare at him. He’s still wearing a cold, emotionless expression. He eyes me oddly before walking to the door. “Sometimes the truth hurts.” I hang my head low, trying to control my sobs. It feels like every time I get a firm grasp on keeping them inside more slip out. My throat feels itchy and raw. My entire body is shaking. My knees buckle and I fall onto the floor. Get a hold of yourself. Get a hold of yourself.
I’m a blubbering mess and when I finally feel like I’ve put myself back together, I lift my head up to reply to him, but he’s not in the kitchen. An unsettling silence engulfs the room and I know he’s not in my house either. He’s gone.
Persephone
Part of me hoped that last night would be a bad dream. I hoped that when I woke up in my own bed, I’d be able to smile and know that during my slumber I had the worst nightmare of my entire life.
But I don’t wake up in my bed. I wake up on the floor in the kitchen. It was a nightmare, a nightmare that actually happened. I hear him, “I don’t love you,” and the words surge through me. They shock me, hurt me, and expand into an abyss of anguish. If I could die right now, I would want to.
Pain. All there is is pain. I feel like someone has just plunged their fist into my chest and wrapped their fingers around my heart. They are squeezing and squeezing. There is blood everywhere. A crimson river trails down the length of their arm and when they yank their hand out of my chest cavity my organ is in their palm. But it doesn’t beat. They’ve killed it. And now I’m dead inside.
How could he say those things to me when he’d said the exact opposite hours earlier? How could he look me in the eye and utter, “I don’t love you. You were a challenge that’s all.”
Just about thinking about it breaks me a part all over again. Just thinking about those vile, evil words make me want to be sick.
Unless I was right and he was lying. An image of his face flashes behind my eyes. So cold, so emotionless, so lifeless. Not even a flicker of humanity inside of him. It hits me all at once. He wasn’t lying. He was telling the truth.
For the rest of the morning, I lie in my bed. What I want is to be like him. I want to be an android incapable of feeling. I want to be able to be programmed to turn the emotion on and off with the flick of a switch. But I can’t. No. In that moment, I make a promise to myself. It’s too easy to shut everything out. It’s too easy to walk through life hollow and empty. And even though a dull pain has been pumping through me since he left me on the kitchen floor, I know I’ll never want to be like him. I will always want to feel.
Questions continue, filling up my brain. What did he want me for then? Did he want me to stay there as a statue at his side? Don’t speak. Stand still. Look pretty. You’re wall décor. A portrait hanging on the wall in his dreary home. He’d admire me thoughtfully and marvel at my beauty and think how much he enjoys having me on his wall, but that would be the extent of it.
I smother my face with my pillow and scream. I let the torture out. I let the pain out. I scream away my heartbreak.
****
Later on that night, I sit on the back patio and stare at the moon. It’s full and bright and glowing, casting light spots and dancing shadows on portions of the back yard. I watch the shadows take form and whirl around sliding from tree trunks to the grass. Sounds of night; crickets chirping, and the pitter-patter of forest creatures feet hammers in my ears. I used to like the sounds that emerged after the sun went down. It reminds me that even after the sun sets that the earth is still alive. But not today. Today I want every sound to fade away and die. I want the silence to drown me.
Plodding footsteps cut into my thoughts and I turn to my right as the shadow of a person comes into view. Instinctively, I stand and that’s when Adonis, the beautiful boy from next door steps out of the shadows and into a glowing beam of moonlight.
“Persephone,” he gasps, jogging toward me. “You’re okay!” I sit back down and he sits down next to me. “I was worried,” he tells me as sincerity flashes in his melted chocolate brown eyes. “Your mom told me you were sick. Are you feeling better?”
I try to smile, but my lips only curl up half-way. Normally just looking at Adonis knocks the wind out of my lungs. But I felt the sliver of emotion I’d felt for him seep out of me the first time Hades kissed me. “Yes,” I reply weakly. “I’m better.” I’m not better. I’m worse. Much much worse.
Adonis flashes me a radiant smile and playfully nudges me with his shoulder. “I’m glad. So does that mean you’ll be in school tomorrow?”