Chapter 43 #2
For a while, I simply watched her, savoring how peaceful she looked as she dreamed, how much younger she seemed.
She was thirty-one now, but I could still see glimpses of that young, cunning girl I had met all that time ago.
I had loved her then, when she had teased me in the dark over honeyed figs and words I did not know.
And I had loved her every day since, even when I had told myself I did not. Even when I had believed I hated her.
Penelope stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She blinked at the unfamiliar surroundings, momentarily confused, but then her gaze settled on mine.
“Melantho.”
My name had never been more beautiful than upon her lips.
We stared at each other, and all those years apart melted away, filling the cracks our distance had left behind.
Carefully, Penelope reached out and began tracing the outline of my face.
Her touch was so gentle, as if she were afraid that I might vanish should she press too hard.
Her fingers skimmed across my lips, just as they had done that night on the beach, many moons ago.
“Penelope.” I whispered her name against her fingertips, and she smiled.
In the sweet stillness of dawn, it felt as if we were suspended in our own pocket of time, like the quiet heartbeat between sleeping and waking. A place where the clawing hands of reality could not reach us, where all that existed was her and me and the warm sheets tangled around us.
We were both lying on our sides, our faces so close together I could not see where I ended and she began. I reached out to touch her cheeks, tracing their unfamiliar hollowness. Penelope’s own fingers danced over my shoulders and chest.
“I missed these.”
I laughed. “My freckles?”
She nodded, voice catching as she whispered, “Unbearably so.”
“I’m sorry.” I did not want to speak of sad things, yet the guilt found its way to my lips. “I’m sorry I left…that I never said goodbye.”
“You did it to protect me. You have nothing to be sorry for.” She twirled one of my rust-red curls around her finger, then brushed it against her lips. “Still, I fought the urge to visit you every day. A few times, I even began the walk here. I nearly made it all the way once before I turned back.”
“Why did you?”
“Because it would have been unfair. You wanted distance not only to protect me but to protect your own feelings too. I knew I could not see you when there was still a chance he would return.” She let my hair unfurl from her finger, watching it spring into a perfect ringlet.
“But then the news came and…I could not bear it any longer. I had to see you.”
“I’m glad you came.” I took her hand, relishing how perfectly my fingers slotted between hers, as if the spaces had been molded just for me. “Truly.”
“I am too.”
“Though walking through a storm wasn’t one of your smartest ideas…”
There was a glint in Penelope’s eyes then, one I had so desperately missed.
“In my defense, it wasn’t storming when I left the palace.”
“You just wanted to make a dramatic entrance, didn’t you?”
She huffed a laugh. “I am known for my dramatic tendencies.”
I kissed her hand. “You were mad to walk.”
“I needed the time. To process everything,” she admitted, voice sobering. “I am sorry…about last night. The state I was in…”
“Never be sorry for that, Penelope. Ever.”
Her smile was delicate and vulnerable, still raw from all the emotions she had let spill.
“Did you know your eyes have a little green in them?” she murmured. The unexpectedness of the question made me laugh.
“My eyes are brown.”
“They are. But sometimes when the sunlight catches in them, they’re a little green too.” She ran a careful finger over my lashes. “I used to dream about your eyes, about seeing that hint of green again.”
“I dreamed about you too,” I breathed. “Constantly.”
We lapsed into silence once more as we gazed at each other. Nobody had ever looked at me the way Penelope did, as if I were the very center of this world, the anchor that tethered her to it.
“I don’t know what to do,” she finally said, echoing her words from last night, the ones that had undone her. Though her eyes were dry and clear now, and I could see her mind turning behind them.
“You will get through this,” I said. “You have been leading Ithaca for all this time, and you will continue to do so. You are smart and brave and benevolent and everything Ithaca could need in a ruler.”
“But I am not a man.”
“No, you are not. You are better than any man.”
She smiled faintly. “Ithaca needs a king.”
“And they shall have one. Once Telemachus is ready, he will take his rightful place on his father’s throne.
You just have to hold on for a little longer.
Deny all rumors of Odysseus’s betrayal, continue as the loyal, faithful wife awaiting her husband’s return.
His legend will continue to loom over the throne and scare off any hopefuls until Telemachus is ready to ascend. It will be all right. I know it will.”
There was something in her expression then, a tightening of her features.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
“Come back with me.”
“Penelope—”
“It was Odysseus’s homecoming that forced us apart. But he is not coming home. He has made his choice. So let us make our own.”
“You are still his wife, and now that title matters more than ever. It is the only thing keeping you safe here. If someone suspects—”
“Who would suspect? If you were a man, yes. But most do not even believe this possible.” She brought our intertwined fingers to her lips. “We will be careful.”
“I will always be a risk to you because of what you mean to me. You know that.”
“Melantho, I am already at risk.”
I shook my head. It was unbearable to think of Penelope in danger.
How could Odysseus do this to her? How could he abandon his own wife to fend off the wolves while she tried to keep his throne safe for their son?
That selfish, traitorous, entitled worm.
If I ever saw him again, I vowed I would slit his throat.
“At least this risk will be one I choose for myself,” Penelope continued.
The desperation in her eyes was almost too painful to witness, and I knew then that I would never leave her again. I had known the moment I saw her, soaking from the storm she had walked through to reach me.
I would not be like him. I would not abandon Penelope when she needed me most.
“Let us choose each other, Melantho,” she whispered. “Please.”
“If you want me at your side, I will be there.”
She let out a sigh of pure relief, and we smiled at each other, our hope sparking so dizzyingly bright.
In that moment, I allowed myself to imagine it—Penelope and me living together in the palace, happy and old, with Telemachus ruling as king.
It felt more like a dream than a future, yet still I clung to the vision with a desperate kind of hope.
Perhaps this too was what it meant to love someone—a willingness to leap into the dark, ready to fly or fall, so long as you did so by their side.
Penelope kissed me then, and my body melted into the familiarity of hers, my hands tracing every inch of her, all those curves and dips that had tortured my memory over the past four summers.
“You are perfect,” I whispered.
She smiled against my lips. “I am yours.”