“Yes, Melantho?”
“I’ve missed you.”
She paused for only the briefest of moments before saying, “I’ve missed you too.”
“I know the distance between us was my fault—”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” I insisted. “Because I was foolish enough to try to kiss you.”
I don’t know why I said it. Perhaps it was something about the anonymous dark that pried such honesty out of me, honesty I would have never been brave enough to voice under the harsh eyes of daylight.
Penelope had grown tense beside me, and I tried desperately toread the collection of shadows that made up her face, wondering if I had once again stepped too far.
“It wasn’t foolish, and it wasn’t your fault,” she said eventually. Her voice sounded strained.
“How could it not be?”
“Because I encouraged you.”
It was my turn to stiffen now, clutching at words that suddenly seemed so flimsy and insubstantial on my tongue.
“You…you did?” was all I could manage.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The silence stretched so taut I thought the entire world might snap in two.
“Because…I wanted you to.”
Her words did not hit me as I thought they might. There was no sharp, shocking strike of realization but rather something quieter, something gentler. A calmness washed through me, one that felt a lot like the comforting embrace of closure or perhaps the tentative beginning of something. I could not be certain.
I found myself inching forward until our mouths were dangerously close, so close I could feel the edges of her lips graze mine as I murmured, “Really?”
“Really,” she murmured back.
We fell silent, our faces unbearably close. Neither of us dared close that distance, but neither did we pull away, and though our lips never met, it somehow felt more intimate to let ourselves linger in this moment, suspended in that breath before a kiss.
This is enough, I told myself.Let this be enough.
So that was how we stayed as the night deepened around us, until we eventually slipped back into the realm of dreams.
37
“I have something I need to tell you.”
I was sitting beside Eumaeus in his home, fumbling over my words.
Two days ago, when I had awoken alone in Penelope’s chamber, I had been struck with a wild torrent of questions and doubts. Yet amid that chaos, there was one certainty that cut through with startling clarity—I had to end things with Eumaeus.
But now, faced with his kind gaze and intolerably sweet attentiveness, I found myself floundering. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to dive into the speech I had spent the past days meticulously rehearsing.
“Eumaeus, I—”
“I have something I wish to say too,” he cut in. “If I may go first?”
