Few can say they're in love with with a Greek god.
For Adeline, telling Apollo she loves him is out of the question. She's always preferred to run from her feelings, run from him.
But when he shows up on her doorstep years later, seemingly running...
"Are you lost?" It's the only explanation for what I'm seeing on my doorstep. First Phoebus and now her?
I eye the teenage girl in front of me with heavy distaste. There are many things about her appearance that I could handle separately, but together, it it's just too much for me.
The right side of her head is shaved, the left side pulled into a ponytail. Her jeans look like Swiss cheese and she has piercings on every possible surface. Where she doesn't have piercings, she has tattoos. And spikes. Lots of spikes.
Is this what they call punk these days?
Before she can say anything, I blurt out, "You do know that colors besides black exist, right?"
She scowls at me and says, "I'm not like the other girls. Don't you dare," she adds when I make to close the door.
"Who are you and why the fuck are you here?"
"I want to see my brother."
No. It couldn't be. "Artemis?" I say incredulously. "Fuck off. I don't know where he is."
I've never met any gods besides Phoebus and Hades, but from the expression he has when he talks about them, I didn't think I would want to. At least past me was right about something.
"I have a right to know where my own brother is."
"And I have the right to not let some goddess off her rocker into my apartment."
She puts her hand on her hips, pouting like a child who didn't get their candy. I have a hard time believing that this girl who looks younger than I do is really immortal. Can she really have been alive during the time of Alexander the Great?
"Fine. I don't care. Just tell me where he is."
Indignation bubbles to the surface. "Why the fuck do you think I of all people know where he is? I'm a mortal, remember?"
She scoffs at me like I just said something irredeemably stupid. I have to admit, getting scoffed at by a teenager who goes up to my chin is rather unsettling.
"Of course you would know where he is. It's him and it's you."
If only you knew I think. The solar system is heliocentric, not geocentric. Everything revolves around the sun, not the Earth.
"Have a nice existence," I say, closing the door despite her protests.
"You know," I say, turning back into the living room. Phoebus just appears, almost like he's stepping out of the ray of sunlight coming from the window. "Of all the forms you could've gotten, boy band isn't too bad."
He laughs, lighting up the room with his smile. What I wouldn't give to watch him laugh over and over without the worry that he'd realize the feelings I have.
Because if he did, would he leave me forever?
Or would he keep me around like some kind of toy to be amused by?
"Definitely," he says, still smiling at me affably. The kind of smile that you keep in your memory for reminiscing. "I hope you never to see some of the others. If I was trapped in the forms some of them are trapped in, maybe I would want to-" He trails off.
I don't push him, knowing that if he doesn't want to tell me something, he never will.
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