Aphrodite scowls from where she sits on a park bench, watching the interactions of couples with a bitter feeling in her chest. She watches as boys wolf-whistle and cat-call terrified young women and the news fails to report the multitude of rapes happening. She clenches her fists in rage when she hears of date-rape drugs and the need for rape whistles and pepper spray to hold at bay the men who threaten women.
Love betrayed her many years ago. When they fell from grace and stopped being the gods and goddesses they were supposed to be she watched in horror the true nature of love and lust in the human world.
She can't remember the last time she didn't feel true anger at the thought of what love has come to mean. Of the divorces that happen all over. The murders and rapes and threats all in the name of 'love'. And she hates herself a little bit more each time that she hears a story of love gone wrong. Because it used to be her domain, epic, true love stories that filled her heart to the brim, and now all that's left are the broken remnants of a lie.
She is no longer the famed beauty she once was, long since gaunt, stretched thin and over-worked as she tries to get by in a world full of hate. She blames Pandora and the box that ruined her world. And when she returns home to Hephaestus, her husband, she is reminded of the lack of love in her life.
Every now and again she will see something that fills her heart a little, that puts glue to the fissures and cracks in her broken soul. She sees a child's love for their mother, or a young adult working hard to provide for their parents. And sometimes, she sees Ares across a crowded room and both of their hearts are mended a bit at the reminder of the love they once used to have.
The love Aphrodite used to have in the world is gone, and she wishes for a time when she was the goddess of love and ruled with beauty and a full heart.
Aphrodite narrows her eyes at boys in cars who yell obscene things. She's long since stopped romanticizing love. She is gaunt and over worked but sometimes she sees a teenage girl handing her baby over to an older couple who had tried for years and she feels young again. Sometimes, she sees Ares from across the room as soldiers embrace their loved ones and they smile at each other.