Persephone’s Fall – Page 46
My voice starts working before my brain does, so what comes out of my mouth seems perhaps a bit anticlimactic.
“What?”
Hades says nothing, just sits there with his head in his hands. He knows I heard him; he’s just giving me time to process what he said. But I want it again. I want to make sure.
“What, Hades?” there’s anger, there, that I’m trying desperately to contain. This is not the time for anger. I have forever to be angry at Hades. I have an eternity of hate and rage ahead of me, but right now I only have about eighteen minutes until someone knocks on the door upstairs and discovers that both the bride and the groom seem to have split town.
“Oh God Seph I’m so sorry,” Hades says to the ground. He sounds weak and shaky, like he’s going to throw up. “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing. No files. I told Zeus about it the same day, and then I stopped thinking about it for four fucking years, but then I had no choice. I thought I could do it, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Seph.”
It’s a little late for apologies. It’s too late for everything. Jesus… I thought this situation was bad before? How am I going to stand at that altar now, knowing that the one reason I had in the first place was a lie?
“Why, Hades? Christ… Why?” I’m yelling. I don’t want to be yelling, but I can’t help it. I’m still trying to process the ramifications of what Hades just said. All of those nights on the roof, wanting nothing more than to let go and have done with it. Waiting. Waiting for Hades. And for what? For an empty threat. I should have known. I should have fucking known.
Hades looks up at me, and he’s crying now. I’ve never seen him do that before. It’s not the sort of histrionics you see sensitive types pulling. Hades has always been more than he appeared. There’s no carrying on, no sobbing, just two little tracks running down his face, bloodshot eyes, and another alien expression that it takes me a moment to identify. Self-loathing. More familiar territory that’s completely unfamiliar when I see it elsewhere.
Hades looks up at me, and opens his mouth, and says something I never really expected to hear him say. That will sound crazy, I guess, since it should seem like he’s said it before. But he never has, and up until this moment, this exact second in time, I wouldn’t have believed him even if he had. Now, though, there’s no chance that he’s lying. Hades is done with lying. Hades’ heart is laid bare before me, served up on a silver platter, for me to do with what I will.
“I love you, Persephone.”
And there it is. My heart does another one of those skitter-steps, and my knees literally unhinge. I always thought that was something people made up in stories, and might have gone on thinking that forever, but here I am suddenly sitting down in my wedding dress on dirty pavement because I simply can’t stand up any longer.
Hades goes on. “I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. And every time I tried to push that love away, or give it to another girl, it never worked. It just came back stronger. So finally I gave up, and reconciled myself to just living with it.”
I shake my head. My tongue seems thick in my mouth, but I manage a few words just the same. “No, Hades. You love somebody else. You love who you think I am.”
“No.” Hades’ voice is certain. “I love you. I love the Persephone who stands on the roof and looks over the edge and thinks about how terrific it would be to throw herself off. I love the Persephone who pushes me away at every opportunity because she doesn’t want to get too close. The Persephone who can’t understand that I’ve never wanted anything else. The Persephone who hates subways and politics and makes fun of my hair. The Persephone who thinks I somehow deserve better, that she’s not good enough for me, that I couldn’t ever really love her.”
“That’s the Persephone I love. You’re the Persephone I love. I love you so much that I’m sitting in an alley on my wedding day, and I’m telling my bride-to-be that the only thing holding her back from killing herself never existed.”
“I love you, Persephone, and if that’s what it takes to make you happy, then so be it. If the one joy I can give you is to let you go, then that’s what I’m doing. We can leave right now. We can go to the top of your building, and I’ll say goodbye. I won’t stop you this time, Seph. No screaming, no words about promises or retribution. If this is what you want, then I have no choice but to give it to you.”
And there it is. Permission at last to do what I’ve wanted to do for so long now. The chains are gone, there’s nothing left to hold me back. We can go right now. Hades’ wedding gift to me, a gift born out of love, is to let me kill myself.
The sun is suddenly scalding hot on the back of my head, the blood pounding in my temples excruciating. The world swims before my eyes, loses color, goes grey.
