Until about a month later, I was so happy. Just like I had always imagined I would be. But how was I to know that maybe my mother was right all along? Just two months later, I could almost feel my heart breaking. Zeus was actually unfaithful to me. OK, so it was just once, but still, once was enough. One single solitary time was enough to make my heart break. Apparently some nymph called Leto had slept with Zeus. I still can't get my mind around it. It seemed unbelievable to me. Mind you, I didn't find out by myself. Helios, the sun, had told me, because he has a very convenient spot up there in the sky, watching everything that goes on in the world, and then telling everyone who will listen. So I learned this from him. I couldn't believe that my mother had probably been right all along. At first I thought that Helios was just making things up, but then I thought, why would he? But how could Zeus do that? I thought he loved me. Was it all a joke then, everything that had happened between us? Was I just one of his conquests, and I had been stupid enough to fall for it?
Strangely enough, Zeus acted perfectly normally to me after I had found that out. He didn't even realise that my eyes were all red and puffy from crying when he came home that night. He acted his usual lovey-dovey self, but today after what I had found out, I really was not in the mood. I still couldn't believe it. Excuse me for repeating myself too much, but I'm just in a complete shock right now. Surprisingly, I never told Zeus what I had found out. After a few more weeks passed, Zeus didn't sleep with Leto or with anyone else, for that matter, in those precious few weeks. I was actually starting to feel a bit better. I thought that maybe what had happened was just sort of a spur-of-the-moment-thing. Maybe it just didn't mean anything. It could even have happened to me. I didn't want to tell Zeus, because I didn't want to ruin our relationship. I still loved him more than anything, and he acted like he did too.
But then one day, I decided that I couldn't live with us keeping secrets from each other like this. I couldn't live knowing that Zeus was unfaithful to me once. Then I thought of what my mother had told me. I thought, since he cheated once, he was of course liable to do it again. And now, since he was the king of the gods, he could do anything that he wanted to. Once a cheater, always a cheater, I thought. But still, that's why I couldn't help but tell him what I had found out. He was actually rather casual about it, and that was what bothered me the most. When Zeus heard this he took me in his arms and said to me, "Oh honey. Whoever told you about that did not even know what they were talking about. This was just a one-time thing, because I was feeling pretty depressed that one day. Don't pay any attention to it. It meant absolutely nothing at all. I am so, so sorry if it helps. I still love you more than anything in the world, and I will never ever even look at any other woman as long as time itself."
To which I replied gently and sadly, "I just want to know that you will never do this again. I want to know that you truly love me, and that I'm not just one of your silly conquests."
"Of course I do, my love! I've said that to you hundreds of times before haven't I? I will never do anything else to upset you, never ever!"
And so I believed him. I was actually stupid enough to believe him. I still loved him so much, so I wanted to believe that he did as well. It's liked that expression that my mum had once told me when I was little, "I'm bruised but I'm not broken." And I was definitely hurt. But still, there was one difference. My heart had not completely broken yet. I could still be happy. I could still think positively.