Persephone’s Fall – Page 21
I’m six champagne flutes into the evening before it occurs to me that getting lit up at Demeter’s party is probably a bad idea.
Of course, I didn’t care much to begin with, and at this point, I don’t care at all. I can feel Hades’ eyes on me from somewhere in the room. He knows I’m drunk. There’s a blur of a crowd in front of me, and I realize that I’ve been going on and on about something that I can’t really even remember. They’ve all got vapid smiles on their face, enraptured expressions like the words I’m speaking are the most important thing they’ve ever heard.
Anger flashes through me, hot and red, like touching your hand to the burner on a stove. I open my mouth to tell these vacuous shells exactly what I think of them, and I feel something clamp around my wrist and pull me backwards, gently but firmly. Some part of me, almost buried beneath the anger, is thankful that Hades is there once again to take care of me. I hear him say something about having an early morning, got to get home, people to meet tommorow, things to do. He’s talking a mile a minute, and by the time we’ve reached the door, the anger’s evaporated into giggles.
I’m hot, flushed from the alcohol and the crowd and the laughing. The hallway is cool relief. Hades is trying to help me into my coat, but I don’t really want it, and I spin away from him and stand up on my toes and kiss him on the lips. He looks at me, confused and frustrated, and I’m laughing again.
“Don’t lecture me, dear. It’s been a long week. A girl has to let her hair down once in awhile.”
“And where better than at her mother’s big party, in front of her entire social circle?” When he’s sarcastic, Hades sounds like a tired parent. This makes me laugh all the more.
“You … don’t even like them. Or this place. You don’t like anything!”
Hades shakes his head, and then knocks the laughter right out of me. “That’s not true. I like you.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. All of a sudden I feel like I want to cry. Hades likes me, even though I’m a bitch and a drunk and obsessed with the view from the roof of my building. Even though he shouldn’t. Even though he could walk down any street in the city and find somebody better.
I shake my head at him, and say “No,” but I can’t really explain what I’m trying to express. I’m not sure I could do it even when sober. So I just look at him for a while, and then I hit him in the chest. Not hard, but enough so he knows I think he’s being stupid.
Hades smiles, and takes the hand I hit him with, and says “Let’s go home, Seph.”
