Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Penance.
This is just one component of it. She was hurt that night. Because of my actions. Because of the choices I made. Because I valued my ambition more than I valued the woman I loved.
I deserve a little pain. More than a little.
I take a deep breath and start across the bridge. The fog makes it feel otherworldly. Dangerous. Downright malicious, even.
Eurydice is on the other side of this bridge, and if I have to go through torment to reach her to make things right, it’s nothing less than she experienced. I can do this. I have to do this. Neither of us will ever get the closure we need if I don’t.
At first I think it’s nerves causing my skin to prickle. But with each step I take, the prickling gets stronger. First irritating. Then painful, as if I left acetone on my broken skin. No, not acetone. Fucking acid. I flinch and duck my head, but it makes no difference. The sensation follows me, digging in to my skin regardless of how I hold my body.
I’m not even halfway.
“It doesn’t matter. I can do this” I pick up my pace, or I try. The soles of my feet ache as if I’m walking on knives. Sharp, stabbing motions pierce my soles, the feeling so real, I actually turn back to see if I’ve left bloody footprints in my wake. There’s nothing but fog and concrete, and if that’s not a metaphor I refuse to examine, I don’t know what is. The upper city bank is no longer visible behind me.
The temptation rises to give up. Pain sears me and I know if I just turn around, just let my cowardice guide me, the pain will relent.
Instead, I turn back toward the lower city. For her. Putting her needs first for once.
I grit my teeth and keep going, staggering step after step. My world narrows down to putting one foot in front of the other. The knives beneath my soles turn into a fiery furnace that feels like it’s melting flesh from bone. The burning of my skin morphs into a thousand pinpricks of agony, as if I’m being swarmed by a cloud of invisible insects.
For her. You’re doing this for her, you pathetic monster. What are a few moments of pain compared to what she’s suffered as a result of your actions? You say you care about her, that you want her to be happy and free? Prove it.
The voice in my head almost sounds like Charon, but it drives me harder, faster forward. I could weep with relief when I see the other arch if I had the strength for it. I don’t. Instead, I just keep working my way, one shambling step after another, toward it.
Just when I think I can’t handle it anymore, that the pain will actually kill me, or at least send me to my knees to suffer until someone comes along to put me out of my misery, I step through the arch.
Everything stops.
The sudden lack of torment hurts almost as much as the pain itself. I stagger forward. “Fuck. Oh fuck.” Every breath is sweet bliss. I carefully shake out my arms and legs, testing to see if I’m really okay. Again, I look behind me, certain I left a bloody path along the stones of the bridge. Again, I see nothing.
I seem none the worse for wear, but that doesn’t stop a shudder from working through my body. I don’t understand how the boundaries work—not the one around Olympus, and not the one between the upper city and lower city. I don’t know if I believe in magic, but it’s hard to argue with it when I’m still feeling the phantom bites on my skin. I shudder again and rub my arms, willing away the memory of what I just experienced.
There’s nothing to do but look around. I didn’t have much of a plan when I set out from my apartment earlier, and now I realize how foolhardy it was to come down here.
I don’t even have my phone. I’m lucky I remembered to grab my keys and lock my door behind me.
It’s the middle of the night. It’s not as if I can just ask around until someone tells me where to find Eurydice. Besides, I already know where to find her. Hades and Persephone’s house. She’s been mostly living with them for the last year.
Hades isn’t Zeus, who marks his presence in his territory with a giant-ass skyscraper that can be seen from every corner of the city. Even so, surely it won’t be that hard to find his home. I don’t relish facing down him and his wife…mostly his wife…but it’s a necessary step to get the closure both Eurydice and I need.
For me to apologize. To verbalize all the ways I’ve failed her and acknowledge that I can never properly make it right. To give her the closure she needs to be able to finally move on and be happy.