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Silena didn’t know exactly how they’d ended up like this. What she did remember was how it started.
After dinner, she got an insistent craving for something sweet, so while everyone was getting ready to go to the campfire, she tracked down Clarisse and all but begged her to come with her to the strawberry fields. Everyone will be busy with the campfire, she remembered saying. They won’t even notice we’re gone. And it’s not like they’ll care, anyway. She donned puppy eyes and a pout and held up her clasped hands, though the beseeching effect was probably ruined by the way she was bouncing on her feet in excitement. Pleasee, Clarisse? If we get into trouble, I’ll take the blame, I promise. Not that we will! We’re not even breaking any rules, technically, just breaking with convention, so as long as we get back before it gets dark, we’ll be fine. Just—please, ‘Risse? For me?
She didn’t know why she begged like that. While she was no child of Hermes, she was perfectly capable of liberating a couple dozen strawberries on her own, and it wasn’t as if Clarisse would have cared if they did break the camp rules, either. Nor would she have found missing the campfire a particular loss. Looking back, she was pretty sure she would have agreed from the first word.
Yet there she was, pulling out her best persuasion skills to get something which she wasn’t sure why she wanted so badly. Maybe it had been more to ease her own mind.
If I say yes, will you stop looking at me like I kicked your dog? she asked, raising an eyebrow, but Silena noticed the way the corner of her mouth twitched despite her unimpressed façade. Trying not to smile.
So they snuck away to the strawberry fields. Silena felt giddy in a way she couldn’t quite explain, resulting in them almost getting caught a frankly embarrassing number of times during the short trip, but thankfully Clarisse was there to save their hides. Even if it involved pulling her behind a tree and almost concussing her in the process. (She apologised, though, surprisingly genuine and surprisingly worried for how gruff she usually was. Even if she’d try to deny it. It was really sweet.)
They picked strawberries in the light of the evening sun. The warmth of it on her skin felt like a blessing, as if Apollo were smiling down on the two of them. “It's probably one of the last warm days we’ll get before the summer ends,” she mumbled around a mouthful of strawberries. “I’ll miss it.”
“Pff,” Clarisse snorted as she threw a handful of strawberries down on her army jacket, spread out the ground and littered with both whole, uneaten strawberries and leftover green bits. Crowns, as Silena’s dad had always called them. They had made a detour to the Ares cabin to grab the jacket because, in Clarisse’s words, Silena would “get cold when the temperature drops and I don’t want to have to deal with you complaining about it”. She had protested, of course, but she’d ended up being grateful they’d picked it up. Not because she’d gotten cold (and she wouldn’t, shut up, La Rue), but because, in their excitement, they’d forgotten to bring something like a basket or box to put the strawberries in. And she could rationalise eating strawberries that hadn’t been washed because she knew mortal animals, including insects, were kept out by the camp borders, but eating ones that hadn’t been washed and had lain in the dirt because they didn’t fit in their pockets? That was where she drew the line.
Clarisse threw down a few more strawberries, ignoring Silena’s protests of You’ll bruise them! before finally explaining exactly what it was about her statement that was so ridiculous that she had to snort. (Rude!) “You haven’t seen real summer, Princess. This is spring weather. You wouldn’t be able to handle actual summer.”
She would feel offended by the derisive way she said “princess”, were it not for the fact that, one, she’d been calling her that for years, and two, while it had started out as an insult, over the years it had become far more fond than mocking. She did feel offended by the rest of it, though.
“Well, sorry that I don’t live up to your standards, Miss Arizona.” She resisted the urge to giggle at the mental image of Clarisse participating in pageants. She would rather cut off her own arms with a rusty saw than do that, though Silena couldn’t say she blamed her. They were rather horrible. “Also,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “that’s rich, coming from you. As if you’ve never complained about how terribly cold the winter is here, and oh my gods you’re gonna freeze to death, and–”
“I don’t talk like that.”
“Okay, maybe not in those words exactly, but you’re so dramatic.” (“I’m not.”) “Yes, you are. You’re no fun for like, the entire period from October to March because the cold makes you grumpy as hell.” It was cute, really. In the same way grumpy, poorly socialised kittens were, of course. Not in a cute cute way.
“I’m not,” Clarisse insisted, and steamrolled right over her You so are by adding, “Also, I never said you don’t live up to my standards. I said the weather doesn’t.” Before Silena could wonder what in the world she meant by that, however, she pointed a strawberry at her with all the authority of an army commander. “Now, are we gonna pick these strawberries or not? Cause they sure as hell ain’t gonna pick themselves.”
Silena grinned and snapped off a salute. “Yessir!” The way Clarisse smiled at that did something funny to her insides.
It all blurred together a bit from that point onwards. She wasn’t sure exactly how long they continued picking strawberries, only pinching a few from every plant so the loss wouldn’t be noticeable. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours that they trudged through the field, tripping over roots and squatting down to get to the best fruits (she didn’t think she was ever going to get the dirt out of her jeans), talking and grumbling and laughing all the while. It could have been a hundred times that Silena tried to steal strawberries from the knapsack they had constructed from Clarisse’s jacket and spear. She didn’t know exactly when or how they had ended up like this, but the fact of the matter was that they had.
This being the position Silena found herself in right now: sitting on the grass next to the strawberry field, her head lying on Clarisse’s lap.
She vaguely recalled having been sitting next to her what felt like aeons but was probably only minutes ago. Her head leaning on Clarisse’s shoulder, and Clarisse bearing the weight with more gentleness than Silena would ever have thought possible, especially from her. At the angle, gravity had swept back the long, thick hair that was the envy of many an Aphrodite camper, and the feeling of the wind on the bare skin of her neck had set alight an odd, tingling sensation there, something strange and forbidden. Something exciting.
They’d been talking still. Munching on their collection of strawberries and ostensibly watching the beginnings of the sunset work its magic upon the landscape—soft light diffusing from the wisps of blushing cloud that kissed the horizon until it felt like everything around them was golden—but time and time again, her eyes were drawn to Clarisse. As if she were the sun of her world instead.
From this position, Silena found that it was very easy to make it seem as if she were looking at the sky instead.
(Why did she feel like she had to hide it? Wasn’t she allowed to look at her friend?)
“–‘Lena.”
She blinked awake from her thoughts. “Huh?”
Clarisse raised an eyebrow. Leaning over her like this, she looked ever more imposing than normal, in a way that left Silena’s mouth feeling a little dry. “I said, pass me the strawberries, you hog.”
Silena turned her head to the strawberries, lying on the jacket next to her, just beyond Clarisse’s reach. She tapped her lip and pretended to consider. “Hmm… No.” It was petty, sure. But it was a challenge too, and Clarisse knew it, from the set of her jaw, the quirk of her lip like the beginnings of a smirk. Or a baring of teeth. Go on, then, she tried to say, knowing she would understand. Dare me. Like recognised like, after all, even if Clarisse was used to being the challenger rather than the challenged.
“...No?” Clarisse repeated slowly.
She had long since perfected her dumb, innocent daughter of Aphrodite frown. “Hmm…no,” she repeated, this time with extra airheaded affect.
Clarisse didn’t look particularly impressed. “Do I have to make you?”
“No no no, that’s not your line,” Silena said quickly, dropping the affect. She pointedly ignored the way something curled in her gut at those words. “Your line is, ‘Why not?’”
“Oh, fuck off, Silena.” She rolled her eyes, but Silena could see she was trying to hide her smile. “I just want a damn strawberry. Don’t make this into another one of your stupid little games.” She had never had a very strong defence against Silena’s puppy eyes, however, especially not in such close proximity. After holding out for an impressive twenty-three seconds, she relented. “Okay, okay, fine.” Her sigh was one of the most dramatic, most long-suffering sighs she’d ever heard, and she lived in the Aphrodite cabin. “Not dramatic”, her ass. “Fine. Why not.”
Silena figured that flat tone was the best she was going to get, so she dropped back into her role. An older sister had taught her, once. Watch and learn, she’d said. This is the first part of a lesson series I call: how to get boys to do literally anything for you 101. She hadn’t gotten to teach the rest of those lessons, but Silena remembered the first one down to the details. Dumb and pretty, like every thought had been pushed aside to make place for beauty. A slowness to the words, an elegance to the hands. A daring playfulness to the smile.
She didn’t know why she was pulling on those lessons now, but it was a fun part to play.
She heaved a sigh and pouted. “Well, you see…it’s not that I don’t want to, but strawberry stains are so hard to get out of clothing, and you’re sitting right above me. If I give you the strawberries, you’ll get stains in my shirt! And this is my favourite shirt, you know.” (Big fat lie. She hated these godsdamned Camp shirts. They were a nightmare to style.) “Especially the colour. It’s so…garish.” She rather thought she deserved Oscar for the way she managed a dreamy sigh at that instead of the reaction the colour of the camp shirt actually warranted (gagging, if not vomiting).
“Okay,” Clarisse said. “Then I’ll just get you off of me. Problem solved.”
Before she could actually shove her off her lap, she squeaked, “No!” Clarisse graciously ignored the way she’d almost slipped out of her role. “No,” she whined, pouting again, “it’s comfy.”
“Well, what do you suggest then, Princess?” She was so indulging her, and they both knew it. “What’s your solution to this ‘problem’?”
Silena walked her fingers over the grass. She could see Clarisse’s eyes following every elegant step. “It’s really simple, actually. You’ll have to let me feed you.”
For a fraction of a second, it looked as if Clarisse forgot how to breathe. Then she regained control over her respiratory abilities and spluttered, “Feed me?” Her ability to say What in the fucking fuck, Silena without actually saying those words was unmatched.
Silena felt quite proud of herself for being able to shock Clarisse. (Clarisse!) “Yes, didn’t you hear me?” Okay, maybe she was enjoying this a little too much. Sue her. “You know, I grab the strawberry, I put it in your mouth, you chew. Simple as!”
Clarisse had shifted back into her stony, unaffected demeanour, but if Silena looked at the right angle, she could see something shining through the cracks. Something that hadn’t been there before, or at least not so strongly. Discomfort, maybe?
“And I can’t do that myself?”
“Nope! I’ve seen you eat, silly. You couldn’t do it neatly if your life depended on it. The only option is to let me help you.”
For a moment, Clarisse looked as if she was really about to decline. Actually shove Silena off her and get the strawberries herself, or maybe just stomp off, as she was always prone to do anyway, whatever the circumstances. Beyond the conflict on her face, something else was written. Something like disgust.
(Somehow, Silena knew it was not directed at her.)
Then the moment passed, and Clarisse simply rolled her eyes again. “Alright,” she said, “but know I’m doing this for you.”
Now it was Silena’s turn to roll her eyes. “Of course I know that, ‘Risse.” Why else would she do it? “Now c’mere.” She grabbed a strawberry and removed the crown, digging her thumbnail into the sweet red flesh. A single drop of juice trickled down, slipping in the space between the nail and the flesh beneath it, then down the edges of her nail, turning the cuticles red.
Clarisse watched.
Strawberry held loosely between her middle and index finger, she reached up and tapped the bottom of Clarisse’s lip, and grinning, she said, “Open up.” She’d slipped off the façade at some point. Shedded it piece by piece like armour. She felt bare without it, unprotected against the weight of Clarisse’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull it back on. For once, she didn’t want to have to act. For once, she wanted to have something real.
Clarisse’s eyes hardened with resolve, and finally, she opened her mouth and let Silena slip the strawberry inside. It was a small one, but Silena still had to push it quite far to ensure not a single drop of juice would spill. It would ruin the purpose of their little game.
In this position, she felt every movement, every little shift of their bodies. The rhythmic expanding and compressing of their chests as they drew breath. The on-and-off tensing of Clarisse’s muscles—this one, then that one, then yet another one once more—randomly, as if she wasn’t quite aware she was doing it. The slow twist of her wrist as she cupped her hand under Clarisse’s chin and whispered, “There you go.”
The shiver it sent through the both of them.
Clarisse chewed, then swallowed. Silena grabbed another strawberry and the tale repeated itself again and again until there were no more strawberries left. They kept their eyes on each other all the while. Only when Silena reached for the fruits once more but found nothing but their discarded crowns with her outstretched fingers, did they dare to look elsewhere. (Did they feel like they had to.)
The atmosphere relaxed a little after that. There was still that…strange emotion bubbling in her gut, but it had cooled down to something more manageable, something that didn’t make her feel like one wrong move would make her explode into a thousand tiny fragments of herself, left to be scattered by the wind.
It was comfortable to lie here like this, on Clarisse’s lap. Comforting and familiar. Her muscular legs provided the perfect pillow for her to rest her head upon. The sunset was progressing still, but slowly, as if someone had stopped time just to grant them this moment—and amidst a world washed in honeyed light, Clarisse shone bronze. Silena couldn’t stop watching her. She wanted to catalogue every expression on that face, constantly shifting and changing but, in this moment, always built atop the foundation of a smile. She wanted to commit every inch of her to memory, every ripple of muscle underneath skin that gleamed like the blade of a polished knife.
Their conversation had resumed at some point. It wasn’t about the contents of it, really. They flitted from one topic to another, each one more trivial than the last. It wasn’t about the words they spoke, but rather the ritual of speaking them. About the act of speaking at all.
It was nice, to be able to talk to someone, to be able to talk to Clarisse specifically, and know that not a single word they spoke would matter. To know that she could stare all she wanted, and Clarisse wouldn’t give a single shit, even though she knew (had to know) that the reason for her staring was jealousy.
For jealousy it had to be. It could be nothing else, because what else could explain the way Silena’s eyes were drawn to Clarisse time and time again, as if she were the earth’s magnetic core and Silena a simple compass? She wanted to be her, that was all. That was all it could be. Clarisse was the perfect demigod, her father’s daughter, a perfect soldier. She could do things Silena could only ever dream of, had earned amounts of kleos Silena couldn’t hope to match even if she lived for a hundred years. She could fight. Everything about her was the victory to Silena’s failure, the perfection to Silena’s worthlessness. That had to be it.
There was no way Clarisse didn’t know about that jealousy, and yet she didn’t hold it against her. She didn’t even tease her about it, even though she loved teasing her. It was part of why she never wanted this moment to end. It was nice to be seen, yet not be judged for who she was and what she felt. To relax the grip she held on the ugly emotions, the ones she always clutched so close to her chest, and let them flow free for once. Clarisse knew all about ugly emotions, after all.
She felt warm inside, giddy and content and free. Here, in this moment, she was the happiest she had ever been.
(If only she had known what was to come.)
“You know,” Silena said idly as she reached out to wind one of Clarisse’s curls around a perfectly manicured finger. (French tip. Short enough to be practical but long enough to be pretty.) Clarisse watched, dark eyes swirling with emotions Silena couldn’t quite decipher. Fascination, conflict, something deeper. Something almost akin to hunger.
She tore her eyes away. “I know, I know,” she said gruffly, “I gotta cut my hair again. Shit grows way too fast in the summer. Keeps getting in my fucking eyes when I’m fighting. Been meaning to cut it but I keep forgetting.”
Silena frowned. “That’s not what I meant at all, actually. I mean,” she added, shrugging, “you should do what you want, but I think it looks nice either way.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as if envisioning something, the kind of look fashion designers got when presented with a new model. “I think you would look great with shaved sides,” she continued as she surveyed Clarisse for a little longer. Then her face lit up. “Ooh, you should let someone braid it for you! You would look so lovely with braided hair—I mean, even more lovely than you do now.”
“Flatterer.” She didn’t look offended, though. More amused.
“I mean it! You’re beautiful, even if you don’t see or care about it. You’re very pretty—handsome, whichever you prefer—and any guy would be incredibly lucky to have you.”
At that, Clarisse’s expression soured. She looked away. “Right,” she said. “Guys.”
One thing about Silena Beauregard: she never realised how far she’d waded into danger until it was too late.
Silena frowned at Clarisse’s behaviour. She was about to ask what it was she had said, when a realisation hit her. “Oh! Oh my gods,” she giggled half self-consciously, hand clasped over her mouth, “I totally forgot to tell you! I knew something was familiar about this. Oh, gods.” Clarisse merely raised an eyebrow. When her giggles had died down, she continued, “I meant to tell you, but somehow it completely slipped my mind.” She shook her head with another bubbly laugh, then lifted her head to look around. She smiled as she relived the memory.
“Anyway, so, a few days ago, Charlie asked me on a date. We had a picnic by the strawberry fields—we sat not too far from here, actually, right over by those trees if I remember correctly—and it was amazing. He’d planned everything down to the last detail. Brought one of those red, chequered blankets for us to sit on and filled one of those wicker baskets with an amazing variety of food. All of it homemade, too. I didn’t even know he could cook! I felt like I was in a movie, it was so romantic.” She sighed dreamily. If she closed her eyes, she almost felt like she was there again.
“And then, when we were done eating, he was like, Close your eyes. So obviously I did, and when I opened them he was holding this something in his palm. He was all sheepish and apologetic about it, like, Sorry, I know this isn’t my best work, it was my first time trying to make something like this, but I hope you’ll like it anyway. And, oh my gods, it was the prettiest necklace I’ve ever seen! I put it in my cabin for safekeeping so I can’t show you right now, but it’s like, this thin chain of intertwined silver and rose gold strands. Super elegant and super pretty. And that wasn’t it, either. He’d made a pendant too! A rose with two sides, one silver and one rose gold, so I can wear it both ways. It was stunning. And so thoughtful too, ‘cause he knows roses are my favourite flower and the symbol of my mother’s I like the best.
“And guess what? Just when I was about to like, cry and hug him and thank him a million times, he asked me to be his girlfriend. So obviously I said yes, and then I did cry and hug him and thank him, well, not a million times, but probably close to a hundred, and–” She laid her head back against Clarisse and looked up at the sky. It was the dusky blue of early twilight, now, golden hour having passed without either of them taking notice. “Oh, Clarisse,” she sighed, “it was incredible, and I can’t believe I forgot to—Clarisse?”
Another thing she hadn’t noticed: the way that, with every word she spoke, Clarisse had grown more distant. With every sentence, her body had stiffened and her frown had deepened into a scowl, so much that the Clarisse that Silena laid her eyes upon now was nearly irreconcilable with the one she had looked away from mere minutes ago.
This was not the girl she had gone strawberry picking with. That girl had, if not been smiling constantly, at least been laid back and loose-limbed and content. No longer. This girl was Clarisse as most other people at Camp knew her, Clarisse as she appeared on the battlefield: unforgiving and formidable. Back rigid, arms crossed, eyes a blazing fury.
And in this moment, Silena realised for the first time that the true strength of anger lay not in the size of it. She had always thought of anger as this wild, untamed thing, vast and magnificent and all-consuming, ever-expanding. Like a forest fire. Large gestures and loud words, blood and spit and broken bones.
But the anger that held Clarisse in its grasp was not like that. (The anger that she held in her grasp.) It was like fire, yes: Clarisse was a firestorm wrapped in the skin of a teenage girl, but it wasn’t the untamed, freely raging thing Silena knew more intimately than she’d like to admit, the kind that consumed everything in its path until there was nothing left for it to consume, until everything in the world had turned to ash. Instead, Clarisse’s anger was this wild thing contained—an inferno chained and caged and compressed until it was no bigger than a candle flame, but burning all the brighter for it. All the heat condensed into a single point. It was hungry, as fire always was, but deprived of anything to feast, it turned that hunger inward instead, gorging on itself.
Clarisse was controlled, every movement sharp and deliberate and small, and Silena realised that all she had thought she knew about fear and anger had been child’s play. This candle flame was far more terrifying than a forest fire could ever be.
A raised eyebrow. The clenching of a single muscle in her jaw. “Well,” she said, and Silena’s heart froze at the way she said it. Short and clipped and distant. As if there had never been any friendship between them, any relationship at all except for this animosity. “Better run along, then. Before your boyfriend gets any wrong ideas about what this is.”
She didn’t say it, but her meaning was as clear as day, and with an ice cold feeling like the first touch of winter, a realisation began to settle in Silena. Before I get any wrong ideas about what this is.
Silena scrambled upward. Away from Clarisse. The grass cut into her palms, but she barely felt it. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—I’m not–” she started, but the words stuck in her throat. In the hope it would help dislodge them, she looked beseechingly at Clarisse, but the sight she was met with shoved them even further down.
Clarisse wasn’t just angry, as she had previously thought. Anger alone did not explain the tears brimming in her eyes.
(She was hurt.)
Oh, gods. Clarisse had thought this was—that she was–
But had it really been such a far-fetched assumption? The way Silena had acted…
Why had she acted like that? It wasn’t as if she liked Clarisse, not in that way, but she’d initiated that stupid fucking game, and she hadn’t been able to stop fucking staring–
…Oh.
Finally, finally Silena understood.
Oh, fuck.
What she felt for Clarisse had not been admiration or jealousy or even friendship. It was…
Shit. Oh, fucking godsdamned shit. How had she not realised it earlier? She was a daughter of the love goddess, for fuck’s sake, how didn’t she–
What had she even meant to say? I’m not gay? I’m not into you? I’m not leading you on?
She started sputtering again, then stopped, but this time, her silence was not for inability to form the words. This time, she kept silent for the fear that whichever words she managed to form would be a lie. She wanted so badly to make clear that she didn’t know, didn’t realise, didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t.
And, to her horror, Clarisse took her silence as a confession. She laughed humourlessly, a sound colder than Silena would ever have thought her capable of making. “I’m not stupid, Beauregard,” she said, and every single slow and deliberate word was a knife to scrape the marrow from Silena’s bones. “Don’t think I don’t realise what you’re doing. And don’t you fucking dare think you can just—play with me like this.” She huffed out a soundless laugh, wry and empty and pained, and Silena wanted more badly than anything in this world to wrap her arms around her, to calm her down and tell her and make everything okay.
(She had always been too quick to opt for the physical solutions, the grand gestures and reckless actions. It was the only way she knew to fix things. She needed something tangible, something she could grasp and steer and feel in control of.)
(She had always underestimated the power words could hold.)
Clarisse’s words came quicker, now. More frantically. “‘Cause that’s what you’re trying to do, isn’t it? That stupid Aphrodite rite of passage thing. You had to break someone’s heart, but you ended up caring about Beckendorf too much to go through with it, and so you decided breaking mine was the next best thing.”
She held Silena’s gaze, steady and unflinching. Desperate and raw and choked with emotion but emboldened, Silena managed, “It’s not like that–” but Clarisse waved her off.
“Oh, don’t even try,” she hissed, icy and sharp and so, so bitter that Silena’s entire being froze. This was her end, and she could do nothing but watch. Could do nothing but sit still and listen and feel her heart curdle in her chest as Clarisse, word for word, spelled her end. “You and I both know I’m right. Don’t lie, Silena. Gods know you’re done enough of that already.” Here something changed in her expression, no less acrid or pained, but vulnerable, almost pleading. “How much of it was real? Was any of it? Or was it all just—some fucking game to you? Did you have fun, spinning lie after pretty lie, deceiving and leading me on, testing how far you had to cast your bait to reel me in? Was it fucking fun to watch me stumble and fall right into your trap?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Exhaled, then inhaled slowly. Small, almost meditative movements, as if making peace with an unpleasant realisation. Coming to terms with an unpleasant end. Then she met Silena’s eyes, and oh, if Silena had thought she couldn’t possibly hurt any more than she was doing now–
“I hope it was,” she said, low and slow. She started drawing herself up, inch by inch, and as she rose, so did her voice. “I fucking hope so, ‘cause then at least one of us is getting anything positive out of this. I’ve been a goddamn idiot. I should’ve realised that you were just like the fucking rest of them,” she sneered. Only now, as she tried to blink away her blurry vision, did Silena realise her face was wet with tears. “Well, guess what? I refuse to be your fool for any fucking longer.” She jutted her chin upward, still holding Silena’s gaze. Her eyes gleamed in the last remnants of light from the dying sunset—gleaming not just with tears, but with hatred. “Goodbye, Silena. I hope it was worth it.”
This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a dream, some kind of nightmare cooked up by some malevolent god or just her own messed up brain. She couldn’t be losing her best, her—the girl she was in love with. But she was. Not even demigod dreams could match the horror of this reality.
The realisation broke her free of her cage. “Please!” Before her brain could even register what she was doing, her hand shot out and her fingers closed around Clarisse’s wrist. Clutching as tightly as she could, as if her feeble grasp could stop her from leaving. “Clarisse,” she whispered, tears fully streaming down her face now. “Please.”
But Clarisse jerked her wrist free, face twisting with disgust. “Don’t fucking touch me, bitch,” she snarled. “I never should have let you in the first place.” There was a haughty disbelief to her face, like Did you really think you still had the right to that?
Silena reeled back as if struck. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t–”
She snorted. “Right,” she huffed. “Save your apologies for someone who cares.” Then she turned on her heel, head turning last, and somehow, Silena knew that the bitten-out “Good-bye, Silena,” were the last words she would ever hear from her.
The image of Clarisse’s back as she walked away would forever be burned into Silena’s mind.
Only once Clarisse was fully out of sight did she fully break down. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed, loud and full-chested and caring not who heard. It was pathetic. She was pathetic—a collapsed, boneless heap just lying there on the grass, weeping, not pitiable, just pathetic—but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She muffled a scream against the ground, then, aching for something more physical, reached deeper. Perfect nails first, her hands dug deep into the earth like the claws of some terrible beast and tore the grass out of the ground by the roots, clutch by clutch. She had always allowed her emotions to get the better of her, after all, and her first response to pain had always been destruction.
It was like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. She could almost hear the voice of one of her older sisters (even though she was the oldest one, now, the oldest one left), could almost see the raise of one of those flawless eyebrows. Are you quite done? she’d always ask, and, hot-cheeked and looking down at her scuffing feet in embarrassment, she’d say, voice small, Yes, sorry. But there was no one to keep her in check now. And maybe if she stayed here forever, if she cried and hurt and hated herself for long enough, she could feel whole again.
(In her great and terrible self-pity, she could almost fool herself into mistaking pain for absolution. Into thinking that maybe if she hurt just a little more, she could be redeemed.)
Then her searching hands grasped something other than grass or dirt or very unfortunate bugs. She jerked her head up to look what it was, then froze when she saw. Strawberry crowns.
That shook her out of it. Her face burned with terrible, white-hot shame as she pushed herself up and took in the destruction she’d caused. But she had no time to dwell on her embarrassment, because the other thing she saw was that it was almost fully dark.
Shit.
She needed to get her thoughts in order, and she needed to get rid of the evidence. So she swallowed, gathered them and got up on shaky legs, and set about doing the last thing Clarisse and Silena had wordlessly agreed on doing: burying the strawberry crowns together.
Hands already caked with dirt anyway, she dug a hole close to the roots of a strawberry plant in the middle of the field. With every crown she dropped in there, she imagined she was burying a thought too, but they just—kept coming. They kept fighting their way to the forefront of her mind, even as she tried to beat them back.
How had she not realised?
Because she was fucking stupid and insensitive and didn’t care about anyone other than herself. Next question.
(And she really was stupid, wasn’t she? She’d been acting, during their game, back when everything was fine, but she hadn’t fucking needed to pretend, after all. She really was the airheaded daughter of Aphrodite people always expected her to be.)
Why had Clarisse refused to hear her out?
Because she was angry, as she had every fucking right to be. Silena had broken her heart, and the fact that she hadn’t meant to didn’t mean she hadn’t. It still lay in pieces at her feet. And Clarisse was her father’s daughter, after all. She should have taken into account her capacity for and quickness to anger. She knew what could happen when she stoked the fire, so why had she been surprised?
She was halfway through covering the crowns with a layer of dirt when it hit her.
Her father’s daughter.
But wasn’t she her mother’s daughter too?
Everybody knew the tale of Ares and Aphrodite. Every demigod knew about how they had fallen for each other despite the fact that she was already married to Hephaestus. Just yet another godsdamned reason she should have seen this coming–
Her eyes widened. The dirt tumbled from her hands.
The tale of Ares and Aphrodite and Hephaestus.
She hadn’t even thought about Charlie.
Just-quelled tears rose again, unbidden, as the final puzzle piece clicked into place. History repeated itself, and the Fates did love their repetitions of the old stories. What were their lives if not twisted reflections and refractions of the original myths?
These were things every single demigod knew. How could she have thought she’d be exempt from it all?
It was the final blow. She wanted to break down into a million pieces and let the sea wash her away—but she had no more right to self-pity, if she had even had any in the first place, so she continued her work. The motions were familiar by now. Scoop, drop, pat down. Repeat. Maybe she couldn’t stop the tears from falling, but she could keep her hands busy. Could keep herself quiet.
This had been a test from the Fates, and she had failed it. Just like her mother, she had fallen for temptation. Just like her mother, she had been unfaithful to the one she was supposed to love. Somehow she’d fooled herself into thinking she did actually love him, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. Because it wasn’t possible to love two people at the same time, not truly, and especially not—especially not a boy and a girl. She couldn’t like both. It simply wasn’t done.
But she was even worse than her mother, wasn’t she? She was worse than her, because even Aphrodite had only broken one heart in the tale: her husband’s. She had still gotten her happily ever after with Ares.
But Silena hadn’t even gotten the scraps of a happy ending, and neither had Charlie or Clarisse. Her mother had only broken one heart, but she had broken two.
And it was all her own fault.
“Fuck,” she whispered, and then again, pouring all her emotion into the one syllable, all her grief and frustration and self-loathing and regret and sheer, utter desperation, “Fuck.”
What a terrible thing love was, to hurt like this. To be able to break hearts and shatter lives. Perhaps her mother’s domain was the cruellest of them all.
(And oh, wasn’t she just her mother’s daughter?)
She patted down the last of the earth. She couldn’t tell if the feeling of tears running down her face had become background static, or if the well had long since run dry.
Clarisse had told her she wouldn’t be her fool any longer, but it was Silena who was the fool in this story. It hadn’t begun with her asking her to go strawberry picking. It hadn’t even begun with them.
It had begun far earlier than she could even begin to imagine, millennia before she, Clarisse and Charlie were even born. This story was more ancient than she could ever conceive of. It hadn’t begun with them, nor would it end with them. They were just players on a stage, puppets in the hands of fate, and she’d been a fool to think she could escape it, to think she could make a change. It was a cycle, after all. She’d been a fool to think there could be an end.
Even if it was the end of them.
(And there was no one to blame but herself.)