"Did I ever tell you that I love your Indonesian cooking?" Phoebus says from the living room as the smell of nasi goreng wafts over.
"Good God."
"You know, you always revert to Christian curses when things get really intense. Like you say 'Jesus fucking Christ' when I make you - holy shit." His eyes widen as they survey the disaster in the kitchen and I remember why I seldom use the stove.
To make things worse, the doorbell decides that moment to ring.
"Okay, you stay here and clean up this fire because you're supposed to be the god with cool powers and I'll get the door."
As I walk to the door, all the gods it could possibly be flash through my head. Poseidon? Hermes? Zeus? Who could wield more power over me than Athena? For a moment, I consider not opening it, but my curiosity gets the best of me.
My fingers curl around the cool metal and twist.
And I feel so small.
Memories come rushing back like a tsunami, drowning me beneath the waves.
I'm six years old and she's snapping at me to pick a branch from the willow in the backyard so she can whip me with it. I'm ten and I haven't eaten in a day because I got a B in history class. I'm fifteen and she's snapping at me to get out of the house and I decide that I'm going to keep walking in the rain rather than beg her to let me back in.
"El? Who is it?" Phoebus stops as he sees Greysia standing in the doorway. "To call you a monster for what you did to her is an insult to monsters," he growls, blue eyes flashing.
I stand there, helpless, as she brushes past me and into the living room. She takes a seat on the couch before I completely turn around.
Weak. That is what I am.
Phoebus walks over and takes my hand before guiding me to the opposite couch. He knows as much as I do that I can't run from my stepmother forever.
Her hair is pulled back into an impeccable knot at the back of her head and her hands are folded neatly over a straight pencil skirt. She's always been perfect on the outside, cruel on the inside.
Phoebus says the words that I can't seem to find. "What do you want?"
"I can't see my stepdaughter?"
My words feel like sandpaper against my throat, but at least I can finally release the words that have been seven years coming.
"I wore secondhand clothing as you showered your real daughter in luxurious gifts. I ate one meal a day for a month because you kept saying that I was fat. I did everything to make you like me, but nothing was ever enough. You lost your right to talk to me long ago."
Next to me, Phoebus stiffens and in my periphery, I can see him shoot me an empathetic look before slipping his fingers through mine. But my focus is on the woman in front of me.
"Have you ever wondered why I hate you?" I freeze.
"Don't listen to her, El-"
Greysia interrupts him, and I vaguely wonder if she knows that she's just interrupted a god. "You were always told that your father died in a drunk car crash. And to some extent, that was true. But what we didn't tell you was that he was the drunk driver."
My voice is no louder than a whisper. "What?"
I always thought my father was a good man. For Christ's sake, Phoebus and I went to the ends of the earth just to talk to him again after he died. But to find out that my father was like that? I can't comprehend it.
He would have told me when we went to the Underworld. He was not a liar. He was a good man. He smiled a lot, laughed a lot, and let the people around him do the same.
Was the happy man who made daisy chains with me and brought me to ice cream parlors a lie?
"And even if that was all, I still would have loved you like I loved Laura. But my Carson was the car with your father. And, somehow, my son died immediately when your father got to live for a few days after. Your father got to say goodbye, got to have closure.
"Even so, I took you in, saved you from the foster care system. But clearly, you're so ungrateful that you can't even recognize that generosity."
Phoebus stands up, anger twisting his features. "Get out."
Surprisingly, she obliges, sweeping out of the apartment with a cursory sneer. I'm left wondering why she came if that is all she is going to say. Maybe it's because she likes to see me like this, likes to see me crumble as I wonder if what she said could possibly be true.
I stand up, wheeling on Phoebus. "Did you know?"
His expression says everything. "I suspected, but I...I didn't know for sure."
It's not his fault. I know it's not, but even so, I follow my stepmother's footsteps, my hand grasping the biting cold of the doorknob.
Because at the end of the day, I am an introvert who needs to be alone to process the information, to come to terms with this new side of my father.
He grips my forearm, preventing me from leaving. "El."
My fingers pry his off my forearm and he lets me, watching me with concern twisting his features. "I need time."
"I'll be here."
I sit at the bus station, watching the cars whiz by. A black one, then a navy blue, then another black, and then a silver one.
I know, deep down, that my father is dead and that this new information doesn't mean anything. But my life was built on the belief that Greysia was unjustly punishing me, that I did not deserve to be called all those names. And when the foundation of a building cracks, the whole thing comes crashing down in a rubble of .
No tear slips down my cheek and no sob escapes my lip.
Phoebus once told me that the Ancient Greeks believed that catharsis - the purging of emotions - is necessary for a good tragedy. But I sit, stony faced, looking forward at the street. Either my life is not a tragedy or I haven't reached my lowest point yet, and I prefer to believe the latter because I cannot shake the feeling that something is going to fall, make everything that has happened look trivial.
I love having Phoebus in the apartment, love being reminded that he wants to stay with me. But sometimes I wonder if it's suffocating me. It's not until I'm constantly with him that I realize the importance of just being alone with my thoughts for a while.
A figure in a dark suit crosses and takes a seat next to me.
"I told you that Apollo liked you."
"I'm not in the mood, Hades." I wonder if he knew the truth about my father and let me see him just so that he can gloat now.
"How did things go with the stepmother?" He looks amused more than anything, and why shouldn't he be? Mortal lives are just entertainment for the gods, anyway.
"Terribly."
A thought hits me. "Wait, how did you know-"
And then his fingers are wrapping around my wrist and everything is black.