Ares hadn't bothered to try and talk to me the rest of the day, for which I was thankful. I spent most of the afternoon cooped up in my room, my gaze set on that stupid, stupid, fucking box I grabbed while in my rush to leave my house. Though it had been days since I had been given it, it had remained unopened and haunted me like another demon. I knew that my hair was tousled beyond belief from the innumerable amount of times that I had run my fingers through my hair.
My brain never seemed to shut up, no matter how hard I had tried to quiet it. It was an unwavering onslaught of hopeless thoughts and terrible feelings. Somehow, my eyes remained dry for the entire day but inside, my heart ached. I had no doubts in my mind that these feelings weren't logical and half of my brain knew that, but the other side didn't seem to comprehend that.
I stared unseeingly at that box for God knows how long before I mustered the courage to get up and reach for it. The violet velvet was soft against my calloused fingertips and a black ribbon was messily tied around the box. The ribbon was inserted through a small hole in a white tag that had my name slimly written on it in print. The box was no bigger than the size of a football and I slowly began to untangle the knotted ribbon. When I finally managed to remove the ribbon, I took a deep breath before I opened the box.
Inside, a fake plastic rose laid, one petal ripped off that had been gently laid next to it. There was no note, nor anything else in the box, but really, nothing more was needed. I carefully picked up the flower and twirled it between my fingertips. I remembered for my fourteenth birthday, I had been given a bouquet of fake flowers by Ares, they were all he could afford. But I, being the most heartless fourteen-year-old possible had shoved the bouquet of flowers away and refused. At the least, I wanted a real bouquet, but I didn't care which flowers were in it.
As I gazed at the flower, I wondered why he had re-gifted it to me. To try and spite me? To remind me of how horrible I was? Or maybe-
No. No.
I glanced back inside of the box and picked up the petal and exchanged the rose for it. I stared at the petal and realized that scrawny words had been etched in one side of the petal. There was a message.
You are not who people think you are
And the saddest part was that I had long lost sight of myself and couldn't truly decide if that statement was correct or not.
