CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
“Between the two of us, we’ve managed this place quite well, actually,” I remind him. “And you can stand here and tell me all about how my tenure has been nothing in length, but we’ve done well enough that none of your screwed up siblings have had to visit in over five hundred years.”
Even I’m surprised by the bite to my retort. It’s not that I care what Everest’s siblings think of me or the state of the fair, but I’ve seen how it weighs on him, their distance and apparent apathy.
“You should not speak on what you don’t know,” Cyrus says. “It’s family business.”
“With all due respect, I’ve been more of a family to him than you have,” I tell him.
“Who was here when Calliope accidentally clawed his arm open? Who’s been here at every eclipse, every celebration?
Who was here when a raging axeman showed up threatening to lop off everyone’s heads?
Multiple times?” That last one is a slight exaggeration, but it stirs Cyrus enough that a deep crease forms between his brows.
“I hadn’t heard of that one.”
“How would you have?” I ask. “When none of you bothers to show up. And I know he’s extended you all invitations.”
“You don’t know a single thing about our relationship,” Cyrus says angrily.
“We’re not human, like you are, in case you need reminding of that.
I know my brother’s developed a bit of a mortal heart spending this long around the rest of you, but we don’t hold the same kind of sentimentality that you expect from one another.
We’re time gods, and you’re merely a keeper. Remember your place.”
Hearing his words, I’m filled with something unexpected. Not anger or annoyance or an irritating wave of protectiveness over Everest, who’s inside the tent feet away from us, but an overwhelming surge of pity.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “We’re nothing alike.”
All the ghosts are gone when I re-enter the tent.
Valentin is in the middle of gathering her things. “I was going to let him rest.”
Everest shifts under the covers, fitfully asleep. It’s like his spirit has been drawn inward, a candle that’s burned too long, and maybe it’s because I was outside confronting his obnoxious brother, but our fair’s time god looks startlingly human in this light.
“Of course.” I shuffle awkwardly on my feet. “I’ll walk back with you.”
“Wait,” Everest calls. “Can I speak with you for a bit?”
He’s making a heroic attempt to sit up again. I wave at Valentin to go her way and head over to his side, plopping down at the foot of his bed. A fierce wave of fondness grasps me as he flashes me a lopsided smile.
“How much of that did you hear?” I ask.
“Barely anything,” Everest says, waving me off. “But did you have to tell him about Calliope clawing my arm open? He’s going to hold that over my head for eternity.”
I bite back a smile, secretly happy that he’s back to his usual jabs. “What is the point of having him here if I can’t give him fodder to torment you?”
“I thought only family gets to torment me,” he says. “But the axeman story was good. I’m going to take credit for taking care of him, by the way.”
I toss a pillow at him. “Healthy enough to be insufferable again, are you?”
His voice is muffled by the pillow he leaves pressed to his face. “Part of my charm.”
It’s easier when I can’t see him, so I rip off the Band-Aid. “I’m sorry.”
He lowers the pillow. Blinks in my direction. It’s safe to say that I don’t apologize much. “For what?”
“For all of it.” I rub my arms for warmth. “For taking from the timelines, for not telling you about it, for yelling at you while you were on your deathbed.”
“I am not on my deathbed,” he protests. “I’m temporarily incapacitated. Your Hippocratic Oath is still unbroken.”
I smile, fiddling with the creases of his mussed sheets.
His fingers creep forward, grazing mine. “I’m sorry too.”
“For what?”
He shrugs, but the movement is leaden. “For not asking you earlier how you were doing, after the eclipse. I thought it would be better to give you space, to let you talk to Valentin and sort through your emotions. I was going to come check on you, but I didn’t want to add another voice to the mix.
I thought you’d come to me when you needed to. ”
“I don’t know if it would have made a difference,” I confess. “You checking on me.”
There was too much to sort through in the moments leading up to my actions. I’ve never been a troublemaker, not really. But I’d caused the most substantial trouble one could possibly cause, and it didn’t feel right to put someone else in harm’s way for my mistakes.
And that tailspin led to me jumping into the carousel on my own.
“Why not?”
“I was embarrassed,” I answer. “And scared. I couldn’t believe how badly I’d screwed up. You’d think with all this experience under my belt I’d know better, and it’s so not like me, you know? I tend to think things through, make rational choices.”
“The only thing that changes with experience is that your mistakes are bigger,” Everest shrugs. “It’s one of the biggest cons of existence.”
His hand is over mine now, his thumb tracing calming circles over my wrist. I turn my hand over and hold his, grateful for the solidity and promise of him as I spill the worst thoughts from my mind.
“I just don’t understand why I can’t let it go.
I’ve had so many years, and still, hearing Valentin tell me about Nova stings.
We used to talk about her wedding all the time.
I was supposed to be there. And my parents… I feel like I failed them all.”
My voice gives out at the end, and it all comes tumbling out.
About my dad, and how every day since I learned the news of his passing, I dream of how he must have looked in his last days.
About my mom, the parasitic guilt that’s eating me up steadily and insistently.
My own immortality renders the concept of mortality a cheap parlor trick that’s designed only to slice me into a million little pieces.
Each day, I laugh in death’s face while it takes everyone away from me, over and over again. I’m caught in time’s torture chamber.
Everest lifts himself onto his elbows.
“Lie down,” I tell him through my sniffles, but he doesn’t listen. He pulls me to his chest and I splinter into infinite pieces, irrevocably torn apart. I lose track of how long we stay like this, wound around each other as I crumble in his arms.
“Letting go is overrated,” he says after a while. I laugh against his chest, but he continues, more serious. “You shame yourself for it, but in truth, it’s something I’ve always admired. I think it’s beautiful for you to love as much as you do.”
I tilt my head up from the damp spot on his shirt. “When did you get so wise?”
Everest rubs idle circles on the small of my back. “I learned from the best.”
The look on his face is tender and focused.
Everest is a man who hops from one thing to the next in the blink of an eye, but right now, I have the entirety of his attention, every bit of his body and mind devoted to me.
This knowledge alone is a warm fireplace, soothing my mind.
Somehow, despite our extensive differences, no one in the universe understands me quite like him, not anymore.
Right now, he couldn’t be more different from his brother or the rest of the gods – aloof and, if anything, mildly amused by my emotions.
But Everest isn’t human either, and no human could possibly comprehend my existence.
The two of us are something new, something I don’t fully understand. Everest doesn’t answer, only leans forward. I stiffen, unsure of what to expect, filled with a blaze of hope and fear. His lips press a warm kiss to my forehead, and my entire body vibrates with desire.
I want more.
I go stiff as a board, my nails digging into his ribs. He’s looking at me curiously, like he can read every change in my expression and is patiently waiting for me to catch up.
“You’re sad,” he says, and it’s a dagger to my heart. It’s an echo of what he’d said to me years ago, when we were drunk on the night of the eclipse.
“I know,” I’d said then. “I’d like to not be sad for a moment.” And then I’d kissed him.
It was selfish and hopeless, and unbeknownst to me at the time, tinder to an inevitable flame.
That eclipse, I’d been out of my mind, and the kiss had been little more than me searching for a way to break out of my rut.
But in the years that have passed, it’s turned into a question that I’ve desperately wanted the answer to.
Kissing Everest now would not be the same thing.
The rot in his arms is a reminder of our circumstances, the choices I will soon have to make.
Valentin’s departure and my visit home are coming up soon, and I haven’t begun to untangle what it would mean for me.
He has taken up all my energy, but it’s not fair of me to offer what I’m unsure I can give.
The coming days carry a devastating reality, and I need a clear mind to consider all the paths ahead.
So I carve out my heart and throw it away.
“I know,” I tell him, pulling back. “Thank you for listening.”
His grip on my waist tightens a fraction, but his face softens with understanding. “Any time.”
He lets me walk away.