Throwing James in his face again and again was cruel, but I couldn’t stop myself. Out of all the people in my life besides my mother, Henry was the one who was supposed to understand and know me best, not James.
“Then perhaps I should leave you and James be,” said Henry, and the thunder in his voice gave me goose bumps.
“Is that what you want, Kate? My permission to be with him? You have it. For spring and summer, you may do whatever you wish with whomever you wish.”
“And what about fall and winter? Am I supposed to sit pretty and wait for the day you decide you love me?”
“I do love you.”
“Then show me.”
“I am trying,” he said sharply. “My apologies if it is not good enough for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Doing nothing is never going to be good enough, Henry. Right now, from where I’m sitting, it looks like the last thing you want to be is my husband.
You can say you love me all you want, but if you only ever act like the opposite’s true, then I can’t trust your words anymore.” My voice cracked. “Dammit—is this what it’s going to be like forever? Tell me now. Save me the misery if you’re never going to look at me the way you look at Persephone.”
“I cannot simply stop feeling something for her,” said Henry through clenched teeth. “She was part of my life for a very long time.”
“I know. I know you love her. I’m not asking you to forget she ever existed—I’m asking you to put her in the past, where she belongs, and live your future with me, not a ghost.”
Henry’s throat constricted. “That is what I am trying to do.”
“But you’re not.” I ran my f ingers through my hair, frustration building up inside of me. “Henry, you kissed her.”
“She kissed me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I slammed my hand down on the mattress, and Pogo scurried underneath my pillow. “Don’t you get that? You wanted it. You enjoyed it. You wanted more once it was over. And everything she was trying to show you—she doesn’t love you anymore, don’t you get that? I do. I love you, and you’re going to lose me because you’re too afraid or too—too uninterested or—I don’t know. I don’t know why you won’t let me love you the way I want to.”
I waited for Henry to say something, anything to help me understand, but he was silent. Wildly I searched through every excuse I’d made for him since arriving, every possibility that had occurred to me. Anything that would explain the man I loved turning into a stranger.
The thing he’d said to Persephone, the reason why he’d bolted from the throne room that afternoon. “Is it because you think Calliope’s going to kill me the moment you let yourself feel something real for me? Because I’m immortal now, Henry. She can’t kill me anymore.”
“Cronus can.” The words came out so choked that I hardly understood them, but there it was. His excuse. I softened.
“Cronus didn’t.” I slid to the edge of the bed, close enough for him to reach me in two steps, but he stayed put. “He hunted us down, and when he had the chance to kill me, he didn’t.”
Finally Henry looked at me, his eyes glittering with confusion, but I kept going. If I let him change the subject, I would never be able to f inish this.
“You don’t need to spend every waking moment protecting me now. I’m supposed to be your partner, not your burden, and if that’s all I’m ever going to be to you, then I don’t want to be here anymore. I want you to love me.
I want to look forward to coming here every fall. I want winter to be my favorite season because I get to spend it with you. So tell me that’s going to happen, Henry. Tell me things are going to be better, that you’re not going to think of Persephone every time you touch me. Tell me that you’re going to love me as much as you love her, and that I won’t spend the rest of eternity paling in comparison to your memories of my sister.”
Silence.
“Please,” I whispered. “I’m begging you. If you don’t…
if you don’t, I’m going to leave. And I don’t mean for the summer. I’m going to leave the Underworld, and I won’t come back.”
He f linched, and I instantly knew I’d said the wrong words, but I couldn’t take them back now. “Perhaps that is best,” he said. “You will be safer on the surface, and the others can protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting.” I was crying in earnest now, and my throat was thick and my voice strangled, but I kept going. “I need to know I’m not going to be miserable for the rest of my life.”
“I should not be your only source of happiness,” said Henry stiff ly. “If that is so—”
“It isn’t. You’re not. I have my mother and Ava and—”
“James,” he f inished for me, and I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I didn’t want to lie to him. James was my best friend. “Yes, I am aware. I will not give you an excuse to leave. If you wish to do so, then there is the door. I am sure James will be happy to have you all to himself. Now, if you will excuse me, I have preparations to make.” I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his assumptions, but his last words caught me off-guard.
“Preparations for what? What’s so important that you have to leave when we’re in the middle of this?”