Through My Window

Original Edition: 63. The Farewell (Final Chapter)

I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him.

"I promise."

He kisses the side of my head.

"I love you so much, witch," his voice cracks slightly and it breaks my soul.

"I love you too, Greek god."

When we part, he wipes away his tears quickly, and takes a deep breath.

"I gotta go."

I just nod, tears sliding down my cheeks and falling from my chin.

"You're going to be a great doctor."

"And you're going to be a wonderful psychologist."

God, this hurts so much.

I can feel my face contort in pain as I stifle my sobs. Ares says goodbye to Apolo, Artemis and his parents, I walk with him to the gate he must cross to get through security and go to his gate. His family stays behind as I stop at the gate with him, and wipe away my tears.

"Let me know when you get there, okay?"

He nods and lets go of my hand to head for the door, stops in the middle turns, walks over in quick steps and hugs me.

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, you are the love of my life, Raquel, I love you."

The sobs escape me, so I wrap my hands around his waist.

"I love you too," my voice breaks. "I love you."

"Please, let's fight for this, I know it won't be easy, I know there will be hard times, but..., please don't stop loving me."

"You won't... you won't be able to... get rid of me so easily," I tell him with a broken voice, when we separate I see how red his face is, and the tears on his cheeks. "I promise you, I will always be your little witch stalker."

He runs his thumb across my cheek.

"And I'll always be yours."

I give him a confused look.

"I was watching you too, you silly witch."

"What?"

"We never ran out of internet, I asked Apolo to pretend with me. It was my excuse to talk to you; you've always had my attention, witch."

I don't know what to say, idiot Greek god, why he chooses this moment to tell me this. Ares takes out some bracelets I recognize very well out of his pocket and I gasp, because I made them a long time ago at a school fair, but couldn't manage to sell them until a boy bought them all. Had Ares sent that boy? Had he done that for me even when we weren't even speaking to each other?

Ares puts a pair of bracelets in the palm of my hand and closes it.

"You've always had my attention," he repeats with feeling and that only makes me cry even more.

"Ares..."

"I must go," he kisses my forehead. "I'll let you know when I land, I love you," he gives me a short kiss, and disappears through the security door before I can regret letting him go, and begging him to stay.

With my hand on the transparent windows of the airport I watch his plane take off, I watch it disappear into the sky and I feel the air has left my body, that a hole has opened in it and it will never close, maybe it will heal, but the scar will always be there.

Part of me imagines him coming back like in the movies, telling me that he loves me and won't leave me, but it's not like that. Real life is often crueler than romance movies. I close in my hand into a fist over the window.