Ares

Chapter 19 || Hurts, I love too much.

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"You only said goodbye with words. I died a hundred times. You go back to her and I go back to black."

— Back to Black, Amy Winehouse. {Beyoncé}

Grace stirred on the couch and cracked her eyelids. Dawn's early light cast a faint glow across the living room as she took in her surroundings, bemused to not be in her bed. She smiled as flashes from the night before pushed to the forefront of her mind, making her stomach tingle with euphoria. It wasn't a dream after all. She sat bolt upright on the couch, her eyes darting around the living room. Her heart plummeted with the realization she was naked and alone. Her frantic gaze jumped back to the coffee table where a tented note sat with her name scrawled across it. She swung her bare feet to the carpet and snatched it, her eyes rapidly roaming back and forth across the handwritten words nearly as fast as her heart was beating. The early morning quiet was as thick as tar as Ares's words slowly sank in. She lifted her watery gaze to the soft light oozing through the windows and clutched her heart like it might fall out of her chest.

"Oh my God," she muttered, blinking a tear down her cheek. She snatched her cell phone from the coffee table and tried calling him, her mind reeling as potential scenarios whisked through her head, each one more horrifying than the one before it. His voice on the greeting made her shudder with need and fold with despair at the same time. She had missed him. But maybe not.

After the beep, she took a steadying breath that had no effect. "Ares, please don't do this," her voice cracked. "We'll figure out a different way. Just don't get on that plane." Grace paused to collect her racing thoughts even though the clock was ticking. "Call me as soon as you get this. The only thing that matters is that I love..." The beep cut her off. The color fled her cheeks as she slowly lowered the cell phone and stared at it like it was diseased. Her stomach rolled, knowing she had missed him. Knowing he was already on airplane to marry another woman. Regardless of how tight Grace clutched her chest, her heart broke in two. Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto her bare legs. She wiped her eyes and scanned the note again, wondering how any of it could possibly be true. The cell phone rang in her hand. She screamed and dropped it to the floor, where it tumbled across the carpet like it was trying to get away.

Grace bent over and snatched it. Relief doused her flames of anxiety when she saw the screen. She hurriedly answered. "Where are you?"

A long pause filled her with dread.

"I'm at the airport," Ares whispered. "I can't talk long. She's in the bathroom."

A mumbled female voice squawked something over a PA system in the background.

"Ares, don't you dare get on that plane."

"I have to, Grace," he insisted. "If I don't..."

"Goddamnit Ares, we'll figure out another way, just don't get..."

"I know we will," he cut her off. "But until we figure that out I have to get on this plane. Zeus will ruin all of us. You've seen what he can do."

"Ares, please," she sobbed.

"Grace," he said calmly, knowing time was money. "Just know that I love you more than anything in the world and we will be together very soon. I promise you that."

Grace inhaled a deep breath that made a wheezing sound. "B-But you'll be married."

"Not for long, and it won't be real anyway. Not in my heart. You know that."