This was what the years had done to me. Impenetrable. Unbreakable.
“I was never a child—never had the chance to be one—but I was never a man to them, either. The people I so desperately wanted to be accepted by only saw me as a monster, and they wanted to make sure no woman would breed with a thing like me. Worst of all, Mother poisoned me because she believed the same.”
She looked at me with heaviness, and her gravity pressed on me.
She opened her mouth to speak, but only air came out.
“Over time, my scars became armor. I’ll never go back to the same as I was. I’ll never cower. I’ll never get on my knees. Not for the sun, a god, a tribe, for anyone or anything.”
I sat back with my eyes still on her. “There is your story, Circe. Every disgusting word of it.” Another bout of dead air lingered, and I grew agitated by her silence. “Well, I’ve told you all you wanted to hear, and you have yet to say a word about it. Speak your peace.”
“I’d rather not.”
At times, she could be infuriating. “Why?”
“Everything I have to say is something you already know.”
“This is true. Your thoughts were loud each time you winced at the sight of my cock.” I’d never sat so impossibly still as though there was nothing she could say that would erase all that had happened to me; no words could smooth out scars, no amount of time with her could reverse years. She had nothing to offer me but herself, using me to escape something more dreadful than a thing like me, but I was escaping in her all the same.
Perhaps that was why we held on to this so severely and were willing to risk our lives for it. No one could understand.
This story had no place for anyone outside of us.
But I looked to her, anyway. I looked to her, hopeful.
Circe peered into the horizon, squinting like she could see the end of the world. Seconds later, her eyes hit mine when she said, “When you say monster, I see their faces. When you say man, I see you.” She leaned in, wanting me to believe her. “Stone, I have never known anyone who is more gentle, noble, and braver than you.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Circe, who made everything go quiet.
These words caused something to tug at my lips.
I hadn’t felt it at first, not until my lips fell into a grin.
I touched my fingers to my mouth.
It happened naturally and took me by surprise.
As I held on to her steadfast gaze, I noticed that she had a similar smile on her lips as well, which matched my own.
Then, all at once, her smile overcame me.
She is smiling because I’m smiling.
It brought an emotion upon me that skinned my flesh, sliced me open, and cracked me in two. Never had someone witnessed my smile before, felt it, let alone reacted to it.
Until this moment, I’d never been the reason to make someone smile.
I’d only caused the opposite effect.
Horror. Fear. Uncertainty. Eyes full of profanities.
This new emotion climbed inside me and rooted itself.
We were smiling, and all I wanted to do was explain this to her in a way that would make sense instead of scaring her away. How could I tell her that for twenty-four years, the grain sack I’d been imprisoned in refused to allow anyone to truly see me and not the abomination they presumed me to be?
Perhaps Circe recognized something in me that no other had noticed. Not even Mother.
And for a stolen second, I could pretend, if nothing else, that the very thing buried deep within her was the very thing buried deep within me.
