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Pelops was clutching her hands, gripping them so hard her fingers were crammed together painfully. She hadn’t felt him grab her.
She looked up at his face, failing to catch his eye before he reluctantly let her hands drop. He avoided looking at her as she got to her knees, even as she grabbed onto his shoulder for support he continued staring off into the trees.
It was odd for him to evade her eyes, even odder after the conversation they had been having. Pelops was the biggest proponent of eye contact she knew, even her father didn’t look into her eyes as much as Pelops – and her father used eye contact like a weapon, frequently and unrelenting.
Despite the pain he was causing her, the deep ache in her chest and tightness in her stomach, she plastered on a smile for Elektra and Melia, pushing the hurt down – and hopefully out. She jogged to meet the girls, smiling and laughing enough that they didn’t question her.
“Nice to see you, too, Pelops,” Elektra clipped, flicking a long lock of golden-brown hair behind her shoulder.
Persephone smacked her arm. “Be nice,” she said. Elektra rolled her eyes to the sky, but smiled sweetly at him, the action clearly forced.
While Elektra and Melia moved through the meadow, slowly trudging up the hill and into the trees, Persephone turned back to Pelops to say goodbye. The sun blinded her as turned. She quickly blinked the red and black balls of light from her eyes, raising her hand to her brows to block the sun this time as she scanned the meadow.
He was already into the trees on the other side, walking toward the ocean, toward his family’s estate, not far from where they were. She dropped her baskets and jogged to join him, walking in silence beside him for a few steps before grabbing his hand and halting them both.
He rubbed his face with his free hand, pulling his skin down and tugging at his chin, before turning to face her smiling face. Then he crushed her against him so tight she couldn’t breathe, but she melted against him anyways, fearing this may be the last time he would hold her. It didn’t feel like their usual see-you-tomorrow embraces; it felt an awful lot like he was saying goodbye for a long time—forever.
Laying her ear on his chest she tried to relax into him, tried to memorize the feeling of his arms around her, crushing her with love. She never wanted to forget the warmth of his body pressed against hers, or the feeling of his strong heart, beating for her inside his chest.
Committing all of him to memory was difficult, however, with his heart beating quicker than normal and his body tense and rigid against hers. She never should have mentioned marriage. It was the only reason for him to be so wracked with nerves and stiff with anxiety, because she’d mentioned marriage again too soon. Much too soon for him.
Tomorrow she would apologize. Profusely.
Somehow he squeezed her tighter, dragging her from her the thoughts circling her mind, and kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes as his lips lingered. His breath was warm in her hair, against her scalp until he pulled away and released her, the abrupt disappearance of his warm breath sending a chill down her spine.
When she tilted her head up towards his, pursing her lips to kiss him, she met empty air and stumbled a step forward. Pelops wasn’t there to catch her as she almost fell to the ground, her toe caught on a small protruding root.
Already fifty paces away, jogging farther with every second she watched him. Persephone turned back to the meadow, back to her friends.
The basket she’d dropped had fallen over, the contents spilling onto the grass. She shook her head, banishing her thoughts of Pelops, circling her mind enough to make her dizzy, as she pushed the fruit and bundled up breads back into the basket.
He was just worried about marriage, she told herself countless times, over and over, as she caught up to her friends. When she saw him tomorrow morning she would ease his mind and tell him marriage could wait. They had plenty of time and so many years ahead of them, both of them so young and so in love.
All that mattered was their love for each other.
3
HOT SUMMER DAYS
“Took you long enough,” Elektra called to Persephone over the gurgling of the stream they walked along. Elektra had stopped at the edge of the stream, and dropped her baskets. Cupping her hands and dunking them into the crisp water, she poured water into her mouth, two thin lines of water streaming down the sides of her face.
“I was only saying goodbye to Pelops, Elektra.” Persephone hadn’t been that far behind them, having caught up to Elektra before her hands touched the water.
Elektra hugged her arms around her body and made kissing noises, swaying side-to-side as she taunted her. She reached to the ground, dragging her fingers along the forest floor. Once she’d grasped a good-sized branch, not too heavy to hurt Elektra but heavy enough to fly through the air, she chucked it at her friend’s back.
A screech and a loud splash later, Elektra was yelling profanities and throwing stones at Persephone, who had already walked further down the stream’s edge, too far for the stones to reach. They splashed into the water, interrupting the quiet gurgling with sharp, loud pangs of stones smacking into each other. The sound sent a shiver up her back and she shuddered though the day was still hot.
Persephone rolled her eyes as Elektra continued yelling after her, the sounds of her sandals slipping on the slick rocks at the bottom of the stream pleasantly following behind her.
She walked beside Melia, who was still quiet despite her sister’s wailing, as Elektra finally got a foothold and splashed her way onto dry land again. She’d thrown her oblong baskets onto her back so hard that they could heard the dull clank ofamphoraesmacking into each other from far ahead.
The day had cooled a little, thanks to the dense tree cover this far into the forest, and Persephone found herself walking faster and faster with every step. Tripping over exposed roots, small boulders and spiky twiggy bushes, she had to carefully watch her steps as she practically ran toward the small pool and sandy bank they’d claimed as their own years ago, dreaming of submerging herself in the cool water.
The trees broke apart up ahead to their left, giving them a clear view of the small pool that the stream they’d been following, and three other identical streams, fed into as they flowed down the hill. The pool gave way to a smaller stream, barely a foot wide, that lazily flowed until the cliff, where it went off in a cascading shower of glistening water.
“Finally,” Melia gasped, the first word she’d spoken on their journey. Throwing her baskets to the ground under the only shaded tree, they landed with a loud thud as she ran to the water. She stripped her clothes off, peeling them from her sweaty body, and kicked her sandals off as she ran.
As she jumped into the water she wrapped her arms around her legs, bringing them tight to her chest and rolling backward so her back hit the water first. There was no splash; it was as if the pool had yawned open at the precise moment Melia touched the surface. And it probably did, knowing Melia.
