Welcome Home
It isn't until Hagrid calls it "home" that she realizes she can't do this anymore.
"Welcome home," he says with that childlike grin as he opens the door to his hut, and she loses her breath as if someone's sucker punched her.
This is not a home.
This is room, a tiny little room that's too small for two people and too cozy for a love that's barely begun and probably won't last the winter anyway - too cold for a heart like hers, that runs away at the first sign of things going well.
That's the only reason she's still here: because things aren't going well.
"Yeh want me ter carry yeh over the threshold?" he asks, squatting down and holding his arms wide as if he wants her to jump into his embrace.
She steps over the threshold on her own without saying a word to him, and she doesn't have to look back to know he's crestfallen.
(She's a sadist; she must be, to enjoy hurting him so much.)
"Cold night," Hagrid says. "I can get a fire going . . . ?"
She doesn't say anything, and he must take it as some sort of approval, because he busies himself with wood and matches. She slips out of her coat - slips out of everything - slips under his rough woolen blankets and scoots over so he has room to snuggle up next to her.
He uses a lot of words that night.
Words like happy and beautiful and love.
She quietly mentions the other man she's been seeing on the side.
Everything stops for a moment. "Oh."
He doesn't hit her, or kick her out, or even ask why. He just says, "Oh."
In the morning, she walks out of that home that isn't hers, and she never looks back.
[Character Pyramid Challenge: Olympe Maxime; "Welcome home"]
[Greek Mythology Challenge: Aphrodite - write about adultery]
