A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XXXIV. Get Even

Nephele
Yep, I didn't miss my mother.
It's not like I expected her to give me a warm and affectionate welcome like Delia had, but perhaps a fucking second to decompress before she throws Eris and I into wedding rehearsals would be nice.
I almost don't blame her. The wedding is in three days, and I suppose we do need to rehearse. I just wish my mother wasn't... the way she is.
Eris must be used to it. He does as he's bid with casual boredness, a far off look in his eyes that has been there ever since we left his mother this morning. I imagine he hated leaving her alone. He is so protective of her, but it is no surprise. She might be one of the only people he has gotten to love in this world. Vaguely, I wonder what it's like to be loved by him.
I shouldn't let myself think of it, but I can't help it. I imagine how possessive, how protective he must be. How that person must become his entire world. How he must stop at nothing to make sure that his love is taken care of.
Then, I stupidly wonder if he has ever been in love. The jealousy that slips through my gut is nauseating. It's unfair. Everyone has a past- it's nothing that he can control. I shouldn't be jealous of a hypothetical, but by the cauldron, I fucking am.
"Nephele," Mother scolds me with her searing gaze. "You are meant to reach the end of the isle on the last note of the harp." I whiz out of my distraction, wanting to pitch myself off the balcony.
"How am I meant to know when the harpist will strum for the last time?" I ask without an attitude. I'm genuinely uncertain.
"You're meant to have a fucking brain, Nephele," Mother croaks, hostile as the night. I know she must truly want to hit me. Mother never swears, and I can see the anger building in her obsidian gaze.
"Let's take a break," Eris says, his tone bored and casual, but his grip is fierce and near bruising on my arm. Was he angry with me too? "I'm too hungry to deal with this foolishness."
"I understand completely, sir," Mother says softly to Eris, just another man for her to sit, stay, and heel to. "If you wish to go eat, I won't hold you here. Nephele can get it right while you go have lunch."
"No," Eris says simply, massaging his temple like he was working away the beginnings of a headache. "I need your skinny daughter to eat so that the wedding gown doesn't slide right off her bones."
I flinch a bit. I know the Eris from yesterday would never say that. I know it's all just an act- an act I asked him to play, mind you. But hell, it still stings. Is that what he really thinks of me? No wonder he won't even fuck me when I throw myself at him. I must be a fucking joke to him at this point.
"As you wish," my Mother replies simply, her eye twitching a bit as Eris pulls me away swiftly. She must hate it because I'm no longer her and Dad's property.
I'm his.
Despite how hot thinking of being his gets me, I stare at my feet as he pulls me from the ceremony room, my cheeks hot and ashamed. He heaves a deep and exhausted sigh when we're in the clear, continuing to walk me towards the garden where I'm assuming we are to have lunch.
"I might hate her more than your father," he whispers, and I laugh hollowly.
"Shes far more cruel and unusual with her torture," I reply in agreement, but Eris frowns.
"What's wrong?"
Am I that easy to read? Maybe for him. He so delightfully knows everything. Delightful for him, that is. "Nothing," I shrug as he pulls out my chair for me.
He groans in frustration, the foul tempered Eris the world knows and loves. "It was your idea for me to play it rough," he says hushedly. "If you want me to drop the act, I need you to vocalize it."
"I don't want you to drop the act," I whisper back. He's being ridiculous. "I'm sorry if it's just a bit hard to hear sometimes, but it doesn't matter. If I look as scorned as I feel, it all complies with the act."
He swears under his breath, frustrated again. I want to swallow my tongue. I'm making it worse. He probably thinks I'm some shallow sob who can't cope with imaginary insults and insinuations, but I can't help that there's a bit of truth in everything he said. My body isn't what it should be, and despite all my progress, I know that.
"Do I need to spell it out for you, Neph?" He laughs under his breath, clutching the table's edge under tense and beautiful fingers. "Do you just want to make it hard for me, is that it?"
I furrow my brow. "I don't understand-"
"Nephele, your weight has absolutely nothing to do with how beautiful you are. How beautiful I find you. It wouldn't matter if you were as light as a feather or as heavy as a mountain. If you were happy and relatively healthy, you would still be just as beautiful as you are now." He spits out, huffing like he's explaining to a child why he can't eat a mud pie.
I blink. "You think I'm beautiful?"
He blinks in return. "Haven't I said that much before?"
I shake my head, a stupid grin spreading across my face. "I can't recall now," I say, leaning my face against my palm. "Say it again."
He scowls. "Perhaps I never said it because I worried over the outcome," he replies, leaning closer, his eyes twinkling with challenge. "I worried you would become even more cocky and insufferable."
I scoff in return. "I'm not habitually cocky," I roll my eyes. "Insufferable? Sure. But not cocky."
"Stop making me laugh," he instructs me, a bemused look on his face. "Anyone could be watching."
"Of course," I reply curtly. "My apologies. I think I might switch back to looking sullen again- I'm sorry if I don't look you in the eye, Sir Eris."
"I'm serious Neph," he warns. "I'm this close to looking at you like you're an actual person."
I casually cover my lips with my hand, trying to block my smile as the waitstaff approaches, presenting us with a massive plate of too many sandwiches to count as well as a multitude of fruits and cheeses and vegetables.
"Then allow me to delicately eat a grape and hope you can't hear the sound of me chewing and begin to think I am a person just like you," I say when the waiters have left us.
"Perhaps I'll have a carrot so that I cannot be bothered to listen to you speak over the sound of me crunching," he says, plucking a carrot from the tray. I snicker into my water.
"I don't want to go back," I admit after a breech of silence. "That damn harp is making me break into hives."
"Funny, I thought harps generally had the opposite effect," he replies. "I can teach you how to time it tonight when I teach you the steps to the waltz we are to do for our first dance."
"I hope you're not fond of your toes," I reply, taking a bite of my turkey sandwich. "Because they will be stepped on a good bit."
He takes a slice of pineapple from the tray in his long, pretty fingers. "I thought you liked dancing," he replies casually. "I thought you were open to learning more."
"I am," I reply, nibbling on a carrot. "I just am not too fond of the idea when it comes to being in front of my family. As it is, I hate that they even get to witness a day that's meant to be as vulnerable and monumental as my wedding day."
"People like us don't get to be vulnerable," he answers simply, taking a sip of his water.
"No," I agree. "People like us get even."
A sinister smile breaks across his lips, concealed by him wiping his mouth with his napkin. "I knew I was marrying you for a reason."