“Apparently, you did not make her feel safe enough to bare her own!”
“Safe,” he scoffed. “No one is eversafe.” A man can only be safe on the inside. Where he can’t be—he closed his eyes, feeling wet against his lashes—touched. “I asked her to marry me multiple times. I practically begged.”
Pen shook her head. “You haveno ideawhat it is to be a woman. Her innocence was lost to circumstance, and, with it, the life that she was raised to have. And you...you perpetuated that wrong.A contract.I cannotbelieveyou! I love you like a brother, Hurtheven, but frankly, I understand her decision.”
“What,” he gritted, “does that mean?”
“I certainly cannot explain—not when you aren’t even trying to understand. You’re the sun. The whole solar system revolves around you. How could you possibly understand what it is to be earth?”
Pen turned on her heel, strode to the door, and then yanked it open. “You take him, Chev.Icannot make him hear. Thick headed fool that he is.”
Chev hooked his finger beneath Pen’s chin. “But is it truly love?”
Pen glanced back. “Yes.” She exhaled. “The cut is deep.”
“Leave him to me, then.”
Pen nodded. And then she left.
Chev said nothing. Instead, he drew up a chair and sat quietly at Hurtheven’s side. Chev’s presence was a steadying force. Every challenge Hurtheven had ever faced paled when compared with all Chev had survived.
Chev radiated strength. Hurtheven halted the impulse to turn to his friend and weep in frustration and despair against his shoulder.
Instead, he asked, “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
He turned his head. “Iknowwhat you’ve been through.”
A shadow passed over Chev’s features.
“Not that my current grief?—”
“Grief is grief,” Chev interrupted. “Let’s not waste our breath weighing whose burden is heavier to bear.”
“What am I to do?”
“Only you can find that answer.” Chev rested his hand on Hurtheven’s shoulder. “When I was at my worst—when what was inside of me had proven insufficient to the challenges I faced—all I had left was a belief in something stronger than my pain.”
Hurtheven frowned. “I’m afraid I am not following.”
“Let me use a metaphor, then. Remember when Odysseus tied himself to the mast?”
“Of course.”
“The siren song, in this case, is a combination of grief and pain with the power to drown you. You thought you had your ears safely stuffed. You’ve just learned they aren’t. And now, you’ve got to keep yourself fixed to a mast until the song has finished.”
“Pen’s love was your mast.”
Chev nodded. “Pen’s love. And—to a not lesser, but different extent—yours, Ash’s, and Thaddeus’s, too. The future I could have if I made it through.”
“How do I reach someone who does not wish to be found?”
“She only said she did not wish to befollowed,notfound. Once she has secured her child, the matter might change.”
Tentative hope rained down as prickles that spread across his skin.
“Perhaps,” Chev continued, “a better metaphor in this case isyourfavored myth...the final labor.”
