- emma -

I had just finished writing my last e-mail of the work day when my phone screen lit up. Noah Chevalier calling, it said. Stupid fake name. Fake life. Fake everything, I thought. I stared at the phone, the thought of picking up not even entering my mind, until the screen went black again after what felt like forever.

I sat in silence while my coworkers left one by one, muttered a 'bye' to them without really thinking, and finally logged out of my computer and packed my bag. I walked slowly, almost missed a step on the stairs, and made my way home on autopilot. I did everything on autopilot that afternoon. Groceries, cooking a simple and early dinner, watching a reality show and rewinding almost every scene twice, the dishes. It wasn't until I heard a knock that I awoke from that daze.

"Emma? Are you there?" Noah's voice sounded muffled from behind the door.

Stunned, I waited for him to leave and finally relaxed after three more knocks and the sound of footsteps fading away. It wasn't that I was purposely ignoring him. I just had no idea what to do. Was I supposed to let him in and act like everything was just as it had been before he told me his earth-shattering secret? Ask questions about it? Get mad at him for lying to me? But then, no, I realized I couldn't get mad at him - not because I wasn't right (I really wasn't sure who was in the wrong here, though), but because I didn't want to provoke a fight. We'd had arguments before, sure, but they were never truly heated, not until he'd raised his voice at me last night anyway, and they had all been before I had learned he was the god of war. Of violence. Of - I shuddered at the word - bloodlust. I didn't want to unleash his anger upon me. I had no way to be sure he wouldn't hurt me.

I didn't have much time to ponder these thoughts, though, because before I knew it my phone was ringing again. This time I did consciously will it to stop. Leave me alone, I thought. Just let me process this without you. Please.

His picture, the one with the spontaneous smile I liked so much, finally disappeared from the screen. I pulled a plaid over my legs and turned the tv on, but I couldn't find a single show I wanted to watch. Not even my favorite sitcom could get my mind off of the past weekend, and that reality show from dinner clearly hadn't distracted me.

Eventually, I took my phone from the coffee table and opened the internet browser. I'd quickly googled him last night while he was in the shower, stumbling upon the bit with the horses by accident, alongside a brief description of his sacred animals (dogs, boars and vultures) and the weapons he was usually portrayed with (sword, spear, shield, helmet - what else was there even?). If I wasn't going to get him out of my thoughts, I might as well do some more research. Stop number one: Wikipedia.

Ares (Ancient Greek: Aρης) is the Greek god of courage and war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war and is the personification of sheer brutality and bloodlust...

I knew that. That was what I'd read yesterday. I tried to imagine what Zeus and Hera would be like, or any of the other Olympians for that matter, but this was all so foreign to me that I blanked and read on.

...The Greeks were ambivalent toward Ares: although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, "overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering."

Overwhelming. Insatiable. I couldn't exactly be surprised - I'd seen that just three days ago, when he'd nearly beaten Daniel Beck to pulp. For me. I frowned. For me? Had that been for me, or had he just seen an opportunity for a fight and let himself loose? The way he had barely been able to hear me seemed to confirm that. I'd seen it in his eyes when I'd touched him then - all reason had left him, he was... he was violence personified. That really was the best way to put it. I'd never seen him as alive as in that moment.

The next thing I read wasn't much better.

…his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to… He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship…

'Numerous affairs', cheating, with the goddess of love for crying out loud. I chuckled to myself, although I felt no joy in it. What did it mean for the whole idea of love if its goddess herself cheated on her husband? With the archetypal bad boy, no less?

And then the 'abundant offspring'. The page had a handy table listing all his offspring according to Greek myths. Well, that says something, if you have so many children you need a table to name them all, I thought bitterly.

I didn't even try to count them. What stood out to me more than the number of children was the sheer number of women he'd had them with. First, seven with cheater Aphrodite. But then the list went on, in all fairness including a few women he hadn't even successfully courted (so why were they there, then?), and some children that had the disclaimer 'possibly'.

Also, a dragon. I stared at the word on my phone screen. A dragon?! How the hell was that supposed to work?

It went on and on, the number of so-called divine consorts dwarfed by that of the mortal women Ares had been with. Ares. Seeing the name made him seem like a different person, like the myth, not real, I had known him to be until last night. It made it seem like even if he existed, he had done so only in Greece, and was long gone now. Like a history lesson. But he was real, he was that same person, he was the man who had spent the night next to me more times than I could count by now, the one who had been there for me in times of distress, who had held me every night before I fell asleep, who I had laughed and cooked and hiked and danced with. How could I reconcile that man, Noah, my boyfriend, with the god I was now reading about? How could they possibly coexist within one person?

I looked back at the screen, at the list of women and children. If this was just the myths, just what people knew from the stories parents had told their sons and daughters back then, then in reality there had to have been a lot more. Children that hadn't made it into the books. Affairs that had been kept secret. And that was just in Greece… How long ago was all that? I scrolled up and tapped on the link to the page about the Iliad. That had apparently been written around the 8th century BC - which meant that almost three thousand years might have passed since all of this happened. Probably a lot more.

I swallowed. Despite what else he'd told me last night - that I made him happier than he had been in what seemed like a significant period of time - I wondered how many girls, women, there had been since Greece. Or this past decade, for that matter. How many he was seeing now, casually or otherwise. How could I even assume that I was the only one if he was literally famous for having a lot of sex?

As if to answer that question, my phone rang again. Noah wasn't giving up. I looked at it scornfully now. His picture seemed to taunt me with that ridiculously appealing smile, his hair that had been blown entirely out of place by the strong winds that had made even walking difficult that day, his brown eyes that were so warm there was almost a tinge of red to them.

I waited for the picture to disappear from my screen and scrolled down on the Wikipedia page. Apparently his father had called him a 'double-faced liar', 'the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus'… The only reason he hadn't thrown Ares off the mountain was because he was his son. I frowned. Zeus struck me as a horribly unfriendly man and a worse father, and I found it difficult to imagine anyone saying these things to Noah. But then, I reminded myself, I didn't know him and even if I did, I didn't know Ares or whatever he had been like all those centuries ago. For all I knew he was still like that and he just hid it very well. I shouldn't be surprised if a 'double-faced liar' had, in fact, been a double-faced liar to me.

His name and picture appeared in my screen again and this time I hit ignore. With an annoyed groan I threw my phone across the couch and burrowed myself into the plaid and pillows, trying to fall asleep, but failing miserably. I stared at the remnants of a water leakage on the ceiling - I really needed to get the landlord to paint over that spot - and sighed. What had I gotten myself into? Should I have realized from the start that a guy this exceptional and this mysterious would come with strings?

But then I'd never gone for anything casual with him anyway. I'd never expected to date him for a little while, dump him or get dumped when things got boring, and then move on to other guys without looking back. I'd known the moment I'd met him that he was unprecedented and that he would be unforgettable. But of course I had never in a million years anticipated what was to come, and how difficult it would really be to let him go. Could I even let him go? Did people walk away from gods and live to tell the tale, if only to themselves? In art history lectures, I'd seen the sculptures of gods who had chased women who didn't want them. The women never won. One had been of Apollo, if I remembered correctly - No surprise there, rockstar, I thought wryly. Judging from that list on Wikipedia, Ares also usually got what he wanted.

Despite everything he'd said, though, and everything I'd just read, I didn't want it to end. I figured the smart, healthy thing to do was to heed Apollo's warning, break up with Noah and - if he'd let me - try to live my life with this knowledge. Maybe he could make it easier for me and somehow wipe my memory. Of the things I knew now, of him even.

I didn't know how I felt about him. I didn't feel like I was in love with him anymore, the way I had felt until Friday night. But there was another sensation - it wasn't in my head, I wasn't quite sure if it was even in my heart. It was a yearning. I had to stop trying to lie to myself and admit that even though rationally I shouldn't, I longed for my phone to ring again, for his stupid fake name to appear on the screen again. The thought of walking away filled me with dread, not of the consequences I might have to bear, but of the idea of never seeing him again.

But my phone stayed still, the screen stayed black, and I finally fell into an uneasy dreamless sleep.