Persephone’s Fall – Page 29
Hades takes me to a Ben & Jerry’s and insists I get a double. It’s enough to get me to stop crying, anyway.
What’s funny is, the seamstress didn’t care at all, once she found out that I wasn’t crying over the dress itself. She said that she’s had plenty of women burst into tears in front of that mirror, for a whole variety of reasons. “It’s natural,” she kept saying. “It’s natural, honey.”
Fuck nature.
I hate crying. It’s what weak little rich girls do when things don’t go their way. It’s a cop-out. It turns on the defense mechanism of every guy in the general vicinity, turns them into a would-be hero. I’m not sure what I want, but it’s not that. It’s not Hades looking at me like he’s worried that I’m going to knife myself right here in the store and have done with it.
“It’s okay, Hades,” I say after a while. I can barely taste the ice cream. My mind is elsewhere.
“No. Whatever that was, Seph, it wasn’t okay.”
“It’s natural. Didn’t you hear her?”
“I heard. Was it me, Seph? Is it… us?”
I shake my head. “No, Hades. I finished crying about that a long time ago. I don’t know what it was. If I tried to explain it, you’d think I’m crazy.”
Hades hesitates a moment. “I’d say ‘try me,’ but you won’t.”
“No.”
Hades touches my hand, and I look up at him. The heroic, “I’ll save you” look is gone. In its place is the old, familiar look that I’m used to. It’s always seemed old-fashioned, that look. Stodgy. Fretful. But up close, there’s something there that I’ve never noticed before, a sharp and calculating intelligence that makes me feel like he’s looking through me, reading me like a book.
“I think you look in mirrors and know when you look good, Seph, but I don’t believe that you ever like what you see. I wish you’d tell me why.”
I can’t think of any response to that, and I eventually give up. “My ice cream’s melted, Hades. Let’s go home.”
