“Gavin!”
“You’reher,” he blurted, rounding on me.
I could see the tears in his eyes as they also rose in mine. “I’m who?” I asked, emotion making my nostrils flare. “Who are you talking about?”
“You’re her. You’re Psyche,” he said in an almost exasperated tone. “MyPsyche. Goddess of the Soul. Mywife.”
His…
“What are you talking about?” I managed in a breathless voice, my heart pounding.
I had scoured every text about Eros that I could after that Valentine's Day party. No myth or reading said he had a wife, and there was no mention of a Psyche that I could think of.
Gavin reached for my elbow and gently pulled me into him. “You don’t remember,” he said. “And I barely do. Only I remember that feeling. I remember the things we had to go through to be together. You were the one fighting last time. But now, it’s my turn, and I’m never letting you go.”
“Gavin, what are you talking about? What fighting? What did we have to go through? I’m not… I’m not this girl. God, is that the only reason you love me? The only reason you came back for me? Because you think I’m her?”
“What—no,” he said, fear in his eyes. “No. I fell in love with you that Valentine’s night. I didn’t remember even having a wife the first time I met you.”
“Then what are we talking about?” I asked, exasperated with the conversation. “What… What is happening?”
His jaw set. “Will you sit down?”
The calm in his voice made me pause, causing me to second-guess whether he was bullshitting me.
“Please,” he begged. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
I hesitantly took his hand, and he sat across from me at the table.
“Gods, it was so long ago, and yet I remember the first time my mother mentioned you,” he began. “A mortal girl who men had begun worshipping as the most beautiful creature to walk the earth. They revered you and not the statues of her. So she sent me to take care of it—of you. But when I saw you, I couldn’t. For the first time, I hesitated. I followed you in secret, falling in love with you every day. Until your family sought Apollo and the Oracle to find you a husband, and the Oracle responded that your husband was nothing more than a monster, and they should leave you in funeral clothes atop a hill.”
My ears perked, stomach dropping.
The pilot…
Gavin reached across the table for my hands. “I was that monster, and you became my wife.”
My heart was an erratic mess. I didn’t remember any of what he claimed, though somehow… somehow, it didn’t feel like a lie.
“Do you want me to go on?” he asked.
“God, there’s more?” I asked.
His lips flinched like he might smile, and he kissed my knuckles. “The trials.”
I clenched my teeth, a tear falling down my cheek. “Go on.”
“My mother put you through trials after you didn’t trust me—after I ran away like an idiot because you were curious about the man you had married in secret.” His eyes softened apologetically. “You fought for me. You fought your way back to me through every trial she gave you, even going to the fucking Underworld for me. I was so stupid for thinking you would live out your days only knowing me only as a shadow.”
“What happened?” I asked. “After the trials.”
“Zeus gave you ambrosia to make you immortal, and we were officially wed.”
I stared at him, numb with emotion. The story… it was—
“Gavin, you can’t possibly think I’m her,“ I said. “I’m not immortal. I’m not—“
“The glass, your scar,” he said, pointing to my rib. “You said it should have killed you.”
