Chapter 10 Felicity
Felicity
This may be speaking too soon, but I think I’m safe from losing this bet with Cupid.
I smile to myself when I remember how confident Cupid was that his arrow would change my mind. It’s been hours under his love spell, and my life hasn’t been improved by it. In fact, it’s only caused more chaos—and I hate chaos. So, to say the arrow is changing my mind would be a massive lie.
Cupid is huffy in the passenger seat, I’m keyed up and my body is still buzzing from my totally inappropriate dream, and you could cut the tension between us with a knife.
If this is love, it’s miserable. Which seems about right to me.
I am so going to beat Cupid at his own game.
After another two hours of driving—in complete silence, save the sounds of traffic—I need to pee, chug caffeine, and eat.
In that order. When I see a sign for a fast food place, I make the executive decision that we need burgers and fries, stat.
In my experience, any off day can be made at least slightly better with the help of greasy food. This day has been very, very off.
I pull off the highway and into a dingy parking lot.
Cupid reneges on his silent treatment long enough for me to take his order—even a god can’t refuse fries and a milkshake.
As I go inside and take care of business, I dimly wonder if gods even have to eat and use the bathroom like us mere mortals.
The question is too slippery and strange to linger on.
Maybe I’ll ask Cupid later…or maybe I won’t.
I put in our orders—burger and fries for me, and some triple cheesy meaty monstrosity for him—and wait at a table looking out into the parking lot. With my hand on my chin, I let my gaze settle on the back of Cupid’s head, inky black hair shining in the afternoon sun.
What a strange day this has been. Strange and maybe even a little…fun?
Well, not fun, exactly—but different. Perhaps even enjoyable in its own unique way.
Like I’ve been pulled, kicking and screaming, out of a rut that consisted of work, more work, and even more work.
In the back of my mind, I know I’ve been stuck in a work quagmire of my own making, fueled by a mix of bitterness and the need to prove something to someone from my past. Someone we’re not going to think about right now.
Besides, despite the way Cupid and I have been thrown together, despite the squabbling…there is a part of me that feels totally at ease with everything that’s happened. At ease with him. It’s been some time since I’ve spent time with a guy I could be wholly myself with—spiky bits included.
Hearing my name called from the counter brings me back to the present. Blinking, I tear my eyes from Cupid’s form and grab my order.
When I get back to the car, more refreshed and replete with bags of salty, wholly unhealthy food and sugary drinks, Cupid is fiddling with the radio knobs. I hold out the paper bag just as he lands on a station—crackly but audible—playing some twangy song I don’t recognize.
We rip into our bags and eat in near silence, the fuzzy radio acting as background music. I’m mid-burger when I realize the radio is playing without the car even being on. I look at Cupid askance, once again processing that this man who looks so normal—despite the James Dean cosplay—is not human.
“I love this song,” he says, reaching for the dial and cranking it up.
A man croons over the airwaves, something slow and forlorn about falling in love and fools rushing in. Cupid hums along tunelessly, hand on heart, eyes closed.
I shove a fry into my mouth. “What is this?” I ask.
Cupid rears back. “What do you mean, what is this? This is one of the greatest love songs of all time.”
I take a sip from my straw, blankly.
“Sung by The King himself.”
My hands lift, palms up, punctuating my question.
“You’re pulling my leg, right? You have to be.”
I shake my head no, I’m not pulling his leg. “I don’t really like music,” I say in my defense.
“You don’t…like…music? Who doesn’t like music? What do you listen to if not music?”
My shoulders touch my ears in a shrug. “Podcasts. The news.”
Cupid looks at me, horrified. “Podcasts? The news? Fuck, Felicity, no wonder you’re so big on this anti-love stuff. You’re living a life devoid of joy.”
“Hey! I have…joy…” I say, trailing off.
That’s not exactly a lie. But when I really think about it, I suppose I don’t have much joy in my life, other than work and my best friend. “There’s nothing wrong with being informed.” I lift my chin defiantly.
“You know what?” Cupid wipes his hands and tosses the napkin into a bag. “We’re going to fix this—right here, right now.”
“Fix what?”
“Your frankly astonishing lack of culture,” he says.
I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off.
“I don’t want to hear it, Love. We’ve got,” he looks at his watch, “about four more hours on the road. We’ve barely said a word the whole trip, I’m bored out of my mind, and you don’t know even the most basic love songs. ”
I try again to protest.
“No excuses. This lesson is non-negotiable,” Cupid says with finality.
“Fine,” I acquiesce, taking a big swig of my soda before backing out of the parking spot. “But I’m not going to like it.”
“We’ll see about that,” Cupid replies, teeth flashing in a brilliant smile.
So that’s how we spend the next few hours of our trip: Me driving as Cupid acts as DJ; him singing along to songs I don’t know and telling me why I should know them; and every once in a while, a song comes on that makes me feel…well. Makes me feel things.
As the miles tick up on the odometer, as the music switches between slow dirges and fast poppy songs—some I know, some I’ve never heard—Cupid’s warmth chips away at my chilly resolve.
I told myself this wouldn’t be a problem, yet here I am, letting him break my ice.
We’re treading into dangerous waters, I know. But, I reason, with the arrow…
With the arrow, maybe it’s okay. Softening to him doesn’t necessarily mean I’m losing, it just means I’m honoring the experiment. I could try to resist, I suppose. Then again, who am I to resist the powers of a god?
Besides, there’s a lightness to him that makes me feel lighter as well. More than anyone I’ve ever met, Cupid seems to know how to put me at ease. In his company, it doesn’t even feel like I’m being put at ease so much as it’s simply easy to be around him.
Over the last few hours, my shoulders have lowered from my ears, I’ve stopped tensing my jaw, and I’ve even caught myself bobbing my head along to the music. Cupid catches me in the act. I immediately still, embarrassed to be caught.
Cupid turns the volume down and looks at me. “So what do you think of love songs now?” he asks. He has the audacity to look smug.
“Kinda catchy,” I say with a shrug. “Still full of shit, though,” I add, cutting him a quick look. “But not too bad.”
Cupid’s eyebrows draw together. “Full of shit? No way. They’re inspirational,” he says.
“I appreciate your commitment to your job, but I just can’t get past…” I pause, thinking. “Don’t you think all of these love songs are kind of, I don’t know—silly?”
He sits back and stays quiet for several seconds before responding. One thing I’ve started to notice about Cupid is that he doesn’t always immediately respond to my questions. He actually takes the time to contemplate and take them seriously—something I’m not quite used to from men.
“It seems to me…” he begins, finger tapping thoughtfully on his chin, “that you think the good parts of love are frivolous. Maybe you even think I’m frivolous.” We exchange a glance, and his expression is reserved but kind. “I mean, of course, my work isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and orgasms.”
I choke awkwardly at the mention of orgasms, thinking about my unfortunate dream.
“That’s the fun stuff—and it is fun, which is why so many people write about it or sing about it, or make art about it.
The other stuff…” He takes a beat. “Love can wrench you apart and make you feel like you’ll never get the pieces back together in the right order.
That’s just part of what makes the fun stuff so worth it, I guess. ”
“But you’re making my argument for me! Why even subject yourself to getting broken like that, when you could just…not?”
Silence, then: “Have you heard of kintsugi?”
“No? Is that a musician?”
He chuckles, not unkindly.
“Kintsugi is a Japanese technique that involves repairing broken ceramic with gold lacquer. Instead of throwing the piece away, they fix it, make it whole again. Except it’s not exactly whole again, not really.
The original piece is fundamentally changed because it was broken.
So the repairs make it whole, but in a different way.
And instead of hiding the flaws of what was broken, it’s been made beautiful because of its new scars. Do you see what I mean?”
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen examples of this on the internet, and the resulting pieces were undeniably beautiful. But I’m having trouble following his point.
“Not really…”
“It’s like this,” he brushes a lock of hair from his forehead.
“When you think of the bad parts of love, you’re only thinking about the broken pieces that get left behind.
When I think about love—including stuff like heartbreak and grief and loss—I’m thinking of what comes after: the new, beautiful whole. Scars and all.”
At this explanation, I feel my eyes prickle. Shit. I’ve never thought about love this way—as a mix of good and bad, broken pieces that can be mended. And maybe if I had…
Cupid turns toward me, but I don’t dare meet his eyes. I don’t want him to see the tears threatening to fall. If he were to ask me why, exactly, I’m reacting this way, I wouldn’t know what to say. Or, rather, I know what I could say, but I’m not prepared to say it aloud.
But Cupid doesn’t ask.
He doesn’t say anything at all.
Instead, he reaches across the seat and takes my hand in his, giving it a squeeze before letting both of our hands rest against the sun-warmed leather.
And we stay like that until the sun begins to set, and we can see the bright lights of Vegas on the horizon.