Thanksgiving
As Thanksgiving approached, Reyna felt something tug at her heart.
It ached in her. It reminded her that she didn't have her sister around while she was leading the Amazons. Her parents weren't around, and she shouldered all of this by herself…
Yes, she had Jason, and, while he had come a long way from the serial dater party boy that everyone had known him as, he wasn't… well, he wasn't there yet. He was strong, he was proud, and he was on his way. But he looked to her for guidance.
He… well, he was the newbie, no matter how much she defended him.
This was still her cross to bear, and she…
She wanted… help.
She wanted sleep. She wanted to crawl into her bed and relax. Reyna didn't want to wake up at five in the morning for bitter coffee and working until late in the night, when it was either get a few hours of sleep or have a life.
She often chose sleep…
As Thanksgiving came closer and closer, Reyna watched as everyone enjoyed their families.
It was like watching a cute little family movie during the epilogue when everything gets perfect.
There were cute little families. Grandparents taking their little grandkids for hot chocolate and playing at the playground. Older parents talking with their college-age children and hugging them and saying how much they missed him. And teenagers rolling their eyes at their embarrassing families as they came in from the camp.
As her favorite waiter, Samuel, would smile as he brought her another cup of hot chocolate, she would smile and then her black eyes would wander to the families sitting just out the window.
Something that she blamed on being a hormonal teenage girl underneath this warrior face hurt in her.
Moms chased after toddlers, putting them in a high chair and giving them spoonful after spoonful of gross looking baby food. Dads reminded their son to be nice when their annoying aunt came for Thanksgiving. And the parents rolled their eyes at their kids with smiles to each other.
Would she ever have that?
Or was she too strong for someone to ever work past it?
At risk of sounding like a daughter of Venus, she never told anyone about her fear of being alone. Of being like this forever. Of never having anyone to share the burden or even the happy moments, too.
"Well, I have Ella," she would smile to herself.
When it finally came time for Thanksgiving, her annual pain was beginning to subside.
She had bought a feast of five minute pizza, candy, soda, and every other unhealthy food she knew she shouldn't have.
But Jason was stuck sitting on his kitchen tile, staring at the fridge.
As they did every year, Reilly and Jordan invited him to their Thanksgiving. It was tempting.
Reilly rolling her eyes at her over-protective mother in law who had trouble realizing that her son was thirty-five, not five. Ella twirling around in her new cute little red tutu with a brown tee shirt with a tree on it, showing him what she learned in ballet. And Jordan kicking around the soccer ball with him.
During Christmas, he loved being over there.
He was a member of the family.
But there was something weird about Thanksgiving.
Maybe it was because of his few memories of his family…
His blood family.
Whenever he thought about it, he shuddered.
Nothing seemed to dull the pain.
Not talking to Ella the morning when he went out to get that pumpkin coffee Reyna had suggested. Not working out all morning until he collapsed to the mat and had destroyed the punching bag. Not trying to sleep. Not candy. Not even the small amount of vodka he got from Brett, which just made him puke up the marshmallows he had been eating all day.
Finally, he reached desperation.
When he said desperate, he meant desperate.
Even disturb Reyna during her day of rest.
He knocked but got no answer.
She must be sleeping, he told himself, but he didn't think so.
He found her front door unlocked, and he pushed it open to look for his best friend.
"Reyna?"
Nothing.
He closed the door quietly behind him and walked through the house, and he gasped.
On the tile of the kitchen, there she sat, just as he had earlier.
Her baggy New Rome university tee shirt hung off her like it was made for someone triple her size. On one foot, she had a purple knee sock with a big picture of Mickey Mouse at the top. On the other foot, she had brown sock with multi-colored leaves falling. Her hair was in a bun behind her head, and she was showing off a nose stud that she usually kept out of sight.
But that wasn't what he was staring at.
Her cheeks stained red. Her lips were getting dry. And her eyes were turning red.
And she was… crying.
Her chocolate brown eyes stared at him, her eyes wide.
"W-What are you doing here?" she quickly wiped away her tears, hiding her stained face in her tee shirt.
Jason Grace.
If his Adonis face wasn't already burned in her brain, it was now.
He was the first boy ever to see her cry…
"Um, I just… I knew you weren't doing anything… and…" he stuttered, unable to believe his eyes.
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.
Pretend it didn't happen. Demand he leave. Or keep crying…
She couldn't decide.
So, instead, she just sat on the floor.
Jason's ocean blue eyes wandered to the floor, where she had been looking at as she sobbed, and his eyes widened.
On the floor, there was a photo of two girls. One of them reminded Jason of a cruise director with that perky smile and clipboard. She matched the beautiful Caribbean scenery behind her, as did the spent-my-summer-in-the-sun tan she had earned.
And then there was the girl beside her.
Her black hair seemed immune to the humidity. It looked like something you see in a shampoo commercial. She had it pulled her hair behind her ear to show a silver stud on the top of her ear. She dressed the same as the other girl but made it feel different. Less monochromatic. This girl couldn't be more than thirteen.
Reyna, Jason told himself. He knew it was her. But he was shocked to think that the cruise director was Hylla, Queen of the Amazons.
Jason unwillingly felt he worst thing he could ever feel for Reyna.
Pity
He sat down on the tile across from her, and she still sat silent, staring at her perfect friend.
"So where is she now?" he motioned towards the picture on the floor.
Reyna hesitated.
He's already seen me cry. Why act tough now? Reyna asked herself.
"China. Fixing some shipping issues," Reyna shrugged.
She hesitated but kept going anyway.
"We weren't in America in Circe's island, but then again, even if we had been, we wouldn't have celebrated. But Hylla and I were used to Thanksgiving since we were from Puerto Rico. So, we used to go to our private little place on the coast and eat candy corn until we had no room for anymore," Reyna smiled to herself, thinking about when things had been easier.
She was free to do whatever she wanted as long as it didn't involve boys.
The days of sleeping in and only having orders when visitors floated around were like a dream these days.
"You're from Puerto Rico?" Jason asked.
Reyna began the story of her life in Puerto Rico, how she and her older sister got to Circe's island, and she spared no details about the boy who took that life away. The rest of her story was stuff he knew.
He began to feel petty for his years of skirting by with his good looks.
While he had been doing everything to get to the quests to enjoy local stardom, this had been her life.
"So what do you have to keep you from giving thanks today?" Reyna asked, popping candy in her mouth as she slid the bowl over to Jason.
He had this sudden urge to tell her.
To tell her what kept him up at night, what killed him when he thought of LA.
He was only two, and he had no idea how he remembered it. But he did…
Thalia had been happy that morning. She dressed Jason up in a cute little outfit for Thanksgiving, ruffling his hair as she warned him about how their grandparents were. With a few hours to spare before their mother would return from her trip to Malibu with her latest suitor, Thalia played with Jason.
When his mother got home, she had a bottle in hand.
Thalia could tell that her mother was drunk even before she saw the almost empty bottle of cranberry vodka.
Her mother often had trouble remembering her name when she had too much to drink. Or maybe she didn't want to. Maybe, since she looked just like her father, she didn't want to remember Thalia. She didn't want to remember the god that left her with a baby…
When Thalia corrected her, their usual fight began. It was something baby Jason was used to. He didn't cry when their loud screams reached his small ears. He was over that. This was normal.
But then normal broke.
In her drunken anger, their mother threw the bottle. It hit Thalia's head with a thud, and she toppled to the marble floor. Jason began to cry, and their mother yelled for him to shut up. Though she remembered Jason and liked him most since he didn't look as much like his father, he still reminded her that she had fallen for it twice.
The baby's cry made her leave, and no one was there that day. After what felt like an eternity, Thalia woke up, and she reached for Jason. She wrapped him up in her arms and whispered his favorite lullaby.
Jason had never told anyone this. He remembered a few things about his sister, but this was the only thing he remembered about his mother…
"What's wrong, Jason?" Reyna asked, her brown eyes really wanting to know.
Jason bit into a piece of candy before he began.
He told her everything. He told her about how his mother was an actress in LA back in the eighties. She was a beautiful party girl, and Zeus hadn't been able to resist. They had an affair, and Zues left when he heard from Hera she was pregnant. Nine months later, a little girl was born, Thalia. The woman was a terrible mother and a drunk.
Then Jupiter rolled around. She forgot his anger towards him and had another affair. Once again, when he found out she was pregnant, he left and didn't return again.
Things got worse for Thalia and the new baby, Jason. She got worse. Thalia decided to take all of her anger instead of Jason. She wanted to protect him, she wanted a better life for hm.
Jason felt a horrible feeling rise in him as he finished the backstory and began to tell Reyna what happened that Thanksgiving.
As Jason began to tell her about the only memory of his mother, regret flooded Reyna.
How could she think that he was just a party boy who didn't deserve her attention?
Had it all been a ploy? She began to wonder, Make everyone think he was just a Ladies Man you should steer away from so that no one would ever ask what happened. So that no one would ever bring up why he was here or what happened before then.
As he finished, he wasn't sure what to expect.
Actually, he expected Reyna to remain silent. To sit on the tile, hiding her face in her tee shirt like she hadbefore. He almost wanted her to. He didn't want everything to change. He didn't want her pity.
But, instead of shying away from this moment, Reyna crawled on her knees toward him.
"Don't tell anyone I'm getting soft," she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him and did the weirdest thing Reyna had ever done.
She hugged him.
Jason was shocked to say the least.
Any other time, he would have tried to hug her. But it would have been too awkward, making him pull away and offer his friend to go pick up pizza or something.
Today was different though.
He wrapped her arms around her, too, and he accepted her warmth. Without realizing it, his blue eyes began to water, and a stray tear wet her neck, making her wrap her arms around him tighter. Maybe it was the thought that this would probably be their only hug, but they made the most of it.
They took in the others comfort. It was something they needed but could never get.
So it was natural that they took the moment for all it was worth.
Finally, as they were both relaxing a little too much into each other's arm, Reyna pulled away to where she was sitting on her knees in front of him.
"How does pizza and that movie you like, Eagle Eye?" she smiled weakly, avoiding the subject of the hug.
That was for them to remember and pretend that they didn't.
"Sounds great," Jason stood, letting out his hand to help Reyna. Usually, she would have rolled her brown eyes and stood on her own. But, today, she had already cried in front of him, told him her entire story, and hugged him.
Accepting help up was nothing.
"By the way, what's up with the socks?" Jason nudged her,