𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 (𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨'𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐎𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬)

SEVENTEEN ; confessions

     Cold and wet.

     That was all Eileen felt.

     She saw flashes of what could have been her own life; the first time she had met Leo, Jason, and Piper; the last time she had visited Aunt Josephine; split second frames of their farm in Australia; rows of plantation and dry cracked ground. Some laughter. Then the day her dad introduced Lucinda; memories of loneliness and wondering if she had done something she shouldn't have; what seemed like days without seeing her family; having to cook her own dinner on the night of her 12th birthday, waiting for a father that wouldn't be coming home.

     It was her life, but out of order. Small pieces of it that had been thrown in a blender and mixed until she could barely tell when one ended and a new memory began.

      She had just been kicked out of another school. Lucinda was yelling - her dad did something worse and said nothing at all. He just stared at her silently as if he was wondering where he went wrong.

     The panic when she realised she was trapped beneath the earth one evening as Mrs. Dione loomed over her shrouded in mist and a dark shawl.

     Yet, it didn't seem as though Eileen were in those memories. She saw them; experienced the mirage of emotion that came with them. But only from a distance. She felt like she was watching herself from behind a screen; unable to move or change anything - just forced to know what was happening and that everything that ever went wrong was her fault.

     She could hear them screaming at her now. Her own name, over and over and over again; reminding her of everything in life she had messed up - said like it carried vicious poison and all things worth avoiding. She couldn't answer - couldn't yell back. Couldn't make it stop. Over. And over. And over. And-

     "Leena!"

     Eileen jumped. She was shaking, tears stinging her eyes and her hands clasped so tightly around her arms that she would later be shocked there was no bruising. It took her a moment to snap back in tune with her own body, but all of a sudden she was hit with the cold. Such an intense cold that she felt she was back at Boreas's palace. The world was fuzzy for a moment, then far too sharp, like her eyes were still adjusting to being able to see again.

     Leo knelt in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. Concern shone evident in his eyes as he gazed at her. He had two blanket's wrapped around his shoulders, one of which he shed and tucked around Eileen. He passed the ends of it into her hands. His skin was warm, and Eileen entwined their fingers for a moment, trying to settle her racing mind with the fact that he was real and not just another awful memory.

     He had a streak of grease across his cheek, his hair was damp, and he looked like he had just been dragged out of a bush backwards, but he was the most welcome sight Eileen had seen in a long time.

     "Easy, mi querida," he told her softly. "You totally freaked out just then. But it's Ok now. You're un-gold-ified. Whatever you saw doesn't matter anymore."

     Eileen took a deep breath and nodded, but she didn't let go of his hands. Instead she tried to focus on his face, for every time she blinked she could see her father's disappointed stare as the door was closed in front of her and the beginning of the end of their relationship began.

     Leo had freckles. Tiny, faint freckles - mostly under his eyes - that speckled his dark skin. There was a tiny scar above his eyebrow from the first day they met, usually hidden by his wild curls, but he'd been overdue for a haircut and had pushed his hair back out of his face. He had a few other blemishes - most notably the graze on his cheek, which was already healing on its own - but they weren't entirely noticeable.