Cuts Heal, Bruises Fade
Summary: She has the graygraygray eyes, all ice, and he's just all firefirefire and cannot keep up.
Pairing from last chapter: Grover/Thalia
Note: nobody could guess the last pairing. I guess that's good. Sorry for not updating sooner but I just got back today and . . . well, you know.
21. Fire and, well, Blonde
He first meets her after a near-death experience – he's learned there are a lot of those out there, for kids like him – and she's all glares and cold and no smiles. He's thinking, dude, chill out, 'cause this chick is obviously stressed and it seems to him like she'd look real pretty with a smile plastered to her face.
She has the body, at least. The body for the supermodels and the face for those Covergirl commercials – not that he ever paid any attention to the actual makeup. No, she doesn't need makeup. She's all legs and tan and blondeblondeblonde. Everywhere blonde.
He can't keep up. He's drowning in a sea of blonde.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
. . .
She's on a quest for someone – figuratively and a little literally – and she's the type of girl that always, always gets her way. Except she's searchingsearchingsearching and not findingfindingfinding anything at all. Can't she realize that there's no hope?
He really wants to help her, console her. Except she won't let him. She's like a miner; doesn't abandon the situation unless it's hope-less.
She's searching for her Prince Charming, but what if he doesn't want to be found?
. . .
And here he is, in a body too small and a world too big while she is too happy in her own skin; too comfortable. He cannot help the fact that the past stalks both of them; and that while she is okay with that fact he, however, is not. He is, by definition, a murderer and maybe she is, too.
Why couldn't she see? That he is so utterly devoted to her and the other one is not? That her faithful true love is suddenly not-so-faithful anymore?
"I love you, you know," he says to her, and she shakes her head a little.
"You might. You know I don't love you back. I still . . . I still love him, okay? You know that I . . . that I can't think about anyone else that way." Silently, he curses Aphrodite.
"I know."