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I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
I loved this about him. No matter how many times I had asked, he answered me as if it were the first time.
His eyes opened. “Name one hero who was happy.” I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. “You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. “I can’t.” “I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the reason.
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Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
“Your honor could be darkened by it.” “Then it is darkened.” His jaw shot forward, stubborn. “They are fools if they let my glory rise or fall on this.” “But Odysseus—” His eyes, green as spring leaves, met mine. “Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this.”
“I did not even see it,” I managed. He threw the thing aside, to lie blunt-nosed and brown among the weeds. He had broken its neck. “You did not have to,” he said. “I saw it.”
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He
I am made of memories. “Speak, then.”
“I could not make him a god,” she says. Her jagged voice, rich with grief. But you made him.
“Go,” she says. “He waits for you.” In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.
