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There was nothing but raw honesty in those eyes. So I took a breath, and I told him what I usually kept quiet. “My mother had a way of digging at me. I was a disappointment to her. She was this beautiful, flame-haired… magnet. Everyone loved her, and she loved the attention. I think she had me because she had an image of a girl who would look just like her, and act like her. Instead, I turned out like this.” Without meaning to, I gestured down my body.Shit.Hoping I could distract Pollux from replying, I plowed on. “I was quiet. Nervous. Short. Round. My hair is orange and not the beautiful deep red color hers is. I was a disappointment, and the harder I tried, the worse I made things. I think my mother would say things like…your hair will frighten the pony, so that when I messed up and things didn’t turn out well, she could have an excuse.”
Pollux was silent, and only nodded. I hazarded a glance at him, caught him swallowing, over and over. When he faced me, his green eyes blazed out of his face. Every muscle in his body was tense, and a vein throbbed in his forehead.
“Did she ever apologize?”
That made me laugh. “She hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“She—”
I interrupted him. “She didn’t think she did anything wrong. And when she told my father later, he just laughed. Told her she was probably right, and maybe they could find a pony with poor eyesight.” Now that I thought about it, poor eyesight was a theme with my parents. “He said the same thing about me finding a boyfriend. I’d need someone with poor eyesight.”
Pollux moved fast. One second, he sat next to me, the next, he was on his knees, clutching my face between his hands. “That’s utter horseshit. I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”
The intensity of his gaze made it hard to look at him. “It hurt, but it doesn’t matter. I found other things that matter more. Other aspects of myself that I really like. And I’m not going to hate on my body because it doesn’t look the way it should, or my face because my features aren’t perfect. I’m healthy. I’m smart. And now that I know I’m not losing my mind, I’m in a much better place.”
At that, he narrowed his eyes. “Losing your mind?” He sucked in a breath. “The Furies. From what I understand, that’s their goal. If they can’t chase you off a cliff, they make you go mad.”
“Orestes must be one of the strongest people in the world to have survived them,” I whispered. “What they showed me was awful.”
“It’s worse for having lived it,” Orestes answered quietly. He stood at the entrance to the living room.
Pollux’s hands gently trailed down my face. He placed them in his lap to face his friend.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he went on.
I shook my head. “I only saw a man drop his weapons and then die. I didn’t see anything else.” But I had felt it. I could discriminate what emotions were his, and what were the Furies’, but they’d swamped me.
“I supposed I should be glad of that.” Orestes came to sit in the seat by the window. He was backlit by the sun, despite it being weak, it seemed to create a halo of light around his head. His eyes matched that yellow, that deep gold like the mustard farmers planted in fields lying fallow here. “I don’t want you to see what I did.”
“Why would you think I’d think poorly of you?” I asked. “I’m an historian, and if anyone understands how the expectations of filial responsibilities have changed, I would.”
I caught Pollux frowning, and realized I’d thrown out some big history words. “It’s not as if there was a police force and a justice system in place to hold either of your parents to account.”
Of all their stories, Orestes’ was one of the hardest to understand. His mother had killed his father. And the god Apollo, and Orestes’ sister, had talked him into killing his mother in revenge.
But here was the thing. Orestes’ father was, quite objectively, the worst. To put it into modern context, he was Joffrey from Game of Thrones. Straight-up evil, with no redeeming qualities. And Orestes’ mother had killed him becausehehad killed their daughter.
The term Greek tragedy? Well, it started in the House of Atreus.
Pollux
Orestes had some fucking awesome timing, but I found myself not as angry as I should have been.
It was hard to be mad at a guy who had spent so long being chased by his demons. Leo shifted next to me, her face going that petal pink I had noticed the first time we’d been alone together. Then, I’d kept my distance.
Seemed a colossal waste of time now. I could have been kissing those lips for weeks.
Just the memory of her taste, and how soft she was, the sound she made as she leaned into me, had me reaching behind me to grab a pillow. I stuffed it on my lap, but the only one who noticed was Orestes. The man lifted an eyebrow but didn’t draw attention to it.
If Achilles had been here—
“The princess awakens.”
Damn it.
“Sleep well?” he went on.
“Fine, thank you,” she replied. Her face went even more red, and she smoothed her hair behind her ears. It was a pointless endeavor. It just sprung back up.
