My abilities, strength and speed, were nothing compared to pushing away someone you know you’ll fall for if you don’t keep yourself in check.
The plain peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made for my lunch seemed plainer when I was staring at her. Nothing else compared when the sunlight poured through the dining hall and lit her hair ablaze. The freckles across the bridge of her nose made her seem even more endearing, even though she didn’t need anymore.
She was already painfully aware of others, sympathetic, and overly empathetic.
She was a goddamn sacrificial lamb in a circle of wolves.
I watched her laugh at something Arianna said, just as her fingertips touched her lips trying to conceal it. She was always turned inward, hiding in plain sight inside her shell, not much escaping, unless someone needed it to.
Bolton’s heavy boots on the stairs going past me yanked my attention from getting my daily dose of Luna from a safer distance.
“Meeting tonight. No circle. Library. Midnight.”
Bolton was always cryptic and somewhat unclear in everything he said. Thankfully one word sentences helped me get on board quicker. Apparently he was calling a meeting without the circle, which meant something was wrong or there was evidence to believe someone in the circle wasn’t loyal anymore.
I knew better than to ask why, but I felt particularly combative today, seeing as how he ripped my focus from Luna.
I didn’t do much talking, but when I did it was either filled with cruelty or the lust behind how I felt about this girl. He was the only one who knew how much I could love her if I let myself. That was the problem: letting myself.
I was made up of extremes, too much or too little, no middle ground and no compromising. If I let myself love her, I was going to suffocate her, and if I was hellbent on hating her enough to get by, I would do it with precision.
Right now, I hated her, at least in public. At night, alone in my bedroom, I loved every inch of her that I never had the pleasure of seeing.
The back of Bolton’s hand slapped my shoulder. “You hear me?”
I craned my neck, glaring at him behind me. He knew better than to touch me, so I made the playing field even with stupidity.
“I heard you. Why? It’s not Wednesday.”
“Keep your voice down. I’ll explain later.”
“I’m not your slave, Bolton. You can’t snap, and I’ll do whatever you want. You aren’t a king here.” Everything in me was cruel, cold, harsh.
This was how I had to be when she was around; it was the only way I could be around her with melting into the other extreme.
Bolton retorted, because he couldn’t not talk back, “Well, fuck me. Someone piss in your lemonade?”
I got up flinging my bag over my shoulder, even more pissed off than I was when he disrupted my gaze. I wanted to set him on fire. I wanted to hang him up by his ankles and watch him sweat, watch him panic, and only feel satisfied when I could finally smell the sour smell of burned flesh.
Extremes.
Luna had missed curfew last night for the third time in the past couple of months. Every time she broke a rule, I felt it in my fragile, teenager bones.
The first time she skipped curfew I heard about it after the fact from Arianna when she asked if we finally hooked up.
Arianna asked me like she had known me my whole life and was counting down the days until I broke for Luna. She had known me my whole life, but we weren’t ever friendly like we are now.
Bolton was the only one with memories. Mine were fragments, shards, too vague to tell me anything except I was created out of evil and Arianna was my mortal enemy in Olympus.
One memory kept playing on a loop at night when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t be bothered to do anything else.
Arianna handed me a lightning bolt necklace in a field of flowers. A single tear rolled down her face, “Are you happy now?”
I stood there silently, not sure what to do or say. Arianna was handing me the piece of her father and asking me if I was happy about it.
“You’re two halves of what drives people mad: death and sexuality.”
I touched her hand enough to close her palm around the delicate lightning bolt. “His lightning isn’t lost. It’s with you now. You transform, evolve, while I stay stuck between death and sexuality.”
The half memory fades there, just enough to make me want more but enough to be satisfying. I started getting these pieces back when Arianna stepped foot here.
I kept them to myself, not even bothering to share them with Bolton. He already had too much power after claiming himself king while we were mortal.
In Olympus, we were all made up of the same shit that made our gods, all ruled by Zeus, all with powerful parents. We all had vengeances or moral dilemmas to right of our own. Bolton was one of us, just more willing to steer the motivation.
Study hall didn’t count as a class, and you wouldn’t ever find me there. It was a waste of my time. I texted, hoping my guy would hook me up with some bud, nothing much, but enough to take off the edge. I was wound up so tightly I felt like a knot.
Nothing else was an option with extremes making up my own personality. I either wanted to fuck or kill. With Luna off-limits, I was down to killing, and that would put a dent in our plan to go home.
The gods would smite us by making it an unbearable loophole: kill someone for fun, and be stuck like this forever.
No thanks.
I preferred using my strengths, not hiding who I was just because the mortals may panic, and not being limited by this mortal body. All it did was hold me back and shit the bed when I needed it most.
I was a fucking god back home—the son of Hades and Persephone, created from jealousy and revenge, forever balancing death and sexuality.
Our abilities weren’t meant to be bottled up by flesh and bones.
Luna texted me: Are you okay? You didn’t finish lunch.
She always knew when someone was fighting their way through emotions, and nothing pissed me off more than her caring when I couldn’t.
I snapped when I texted her back: I’m not hungry, Luna. You’ve missed curfew a few times now. You don’t see me asking about it.
I could see her small, innocent, freckled features morph into worry even more, while reading my message. I didn’t expect her to text back when my phone light up with the please be patient bubbles.
Luna: Don’t pretend you don’t watch me, Nyx. You always know where I am.
Pushing the earbuds into my ears, I already pressed play on the heavy rock coming through. I was silencing the world with the press of a button, and soon enough, I would silence my feelings the same way.
Me: I’m not pretending, Luna. There is an open invitation to come sit on this dick. You’re too selfless to make yourself feel good.
Luna: Selfless? More like dangerous. You’re a natural disaster. You’ll rock things loose that I can’t part with yet.
I didn’t bother texting her back. She was right about me. I was a hurricane to Luna, destroying her as she knew it and leaving her to rebuild into something new. Something she didn’t ask to be… or want to be.
There goes that sexuality or death mentality.
Blowing off my steam with some “medicinal” exhales left me feeling like putty on my bed. I didn't realize I fell asleep, until Bolton was kicking the frame of my bed, hoping I'd wake up. “We’re in season, you know not to smoke that shit. We can get tested at any time.”