Prompt: You declare to the heavens that you will never fall in love. Aphrodite herself took it as a challenge.
I found this prompt on Pinterest last night, and I just had to write it.There isnât a fandom here, just writing. Enjoy!!
You were eight years old when your father died, serving his country overseas. You can still remember the day the news came, the smell of the manâs cologne as he knelt down to comfort you in a hug. You remember the smell of the soup burning on the stove as your mother collapsed into grief and sobbed for hours on the couch. And the crunch of leaves as you walked through the military graveyard, one hand in your mothers, the other hand clutching onto a rose. The butterscotch given to you earlier on by an old aunt crinkled in your pocket, but you just knew that if you put it in your mouth, you wouldnât even taste it.
        But what you remember most is your mothers face as she knelt down beside your fatherâs coffin after everyone but the preacher had left, and just cried.  You watched her face, and it looked like there should be noises coming out, but there wasnât: just silent sobs. There werenât any tears left to roll down her cheeks; those had been spent earlier, during quieter moments in the pantry and when she went to bed at three in the afternoon. And as you watched your mother sob over your fatherâs remains, you watched her heart break into a million pieces, and you watched it happen slowly and painfully. And so, with the resolve of an eight-year old, you declare to the heavens that you will never fall in love. You will never put yourself in a position where you could hurt so deeply, in such a raw way as you see your mother hurting.
        Aphrodite, sitting somewhere, viewing the world, took your declaration as a challenge. And you know, of course, that Aphrodite doesnât mess around when it comes to love. So in that moment when your frail, tear-stained voice reached her ears, Aphrodite began to shape the heart of a person for you.
        You continued to live your life. Your mom got a job, you moved off base. You found a good school and made friends.  Despite all these changes, you never forgot your dad. Every night before you went to sleep, you would kiss the picture of him on your nightstand goodnight, and on especially hard days, youâd lay in a field or on your bed and talk to him as if he was there listening, just like he used to. But as you grew, your resolve to never fall in love never wavered. All it took was one look at high school dating drama, and reality TV to remind you of why you made that promise to yourself. When you graduated, you and your mom cried on the couch together, because your father would be so proud of you, so proud of how smart and beautiful and kind you were. Your mother cried because try as she might, she could never work hard enough or do anything to replace your daddy. And you cried simply because you were the only girl in your class to sit on the side for the daddy-daughter dance, and you missed him. So you cried together.
        And donât get me wrong, of course there were days when you would watch a Nicholas Sparks movie at a friendâs house, and afterwards, your heart would long for the kind of love you saw onscreen. Your skin would crave a loving touch, your soul yearned for someone to care about so deeply. Then you would get home, and hear your mother quietly crying as she looked through old photo albums, and you would remember. You would recall the image burned into your mind of your mother crying hopelessly beside your fathers coffin, and that would be enough to shut all the emotion down.
Now? Now, youâre twenty three. You moved to a bigger city, went to university, got a degree that would make your dad proud. You have a job you enjoy, an apartment all to yourself, and you have a dog. Friends come and go, but thatâs alright with you, because you havenât allowed yourself to get close to anyone since the funeral. At prom, your guy friend told you he loved you in the middle of a dance, and you left him there on the floor. Now, he has a wife and a baby on the way, so he must have never loved you, and youâre thankful you never gave yourself the opportunity to get hurt. And since then, as soon as the sorrowful puppy dog eyes come out, you cut all contact. Itâs not going to happen, not for you. Youâre convinced that you are not going to have your fairy tale ending. Â Youâll just work, have a great career, have a dog, and take care of your mom.
Thereâs always a âbutâ in our stories, isnât there? Some unexpected turn, an unprecedented path that shows up as an alternative, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something different.
Yours came as unexpected as a slip on the ice. It was just a regular day, until Aphrodite decided that now was the perfect time to interfere with a man. It wasnât a boy, because Aphrodite knew that it would take more than a boyish love to make you believe. He was a man, because Aphrodite knew that only a man could hold the shattered, walled up, defended pieces of your heart and love you so hard your heart would have no choice but to come back together, no choice but to heal and beat again. Aphrodite knew, because Aphrodite knows love and how to make it happen.
And when you called your mother later that evening to tell her, you couldnât tell her what color his eyes were, because all you saw was his heart. He was handsome beyond your wildest dreams, but you couldnât describe him because his soul poured out in his voice and his gaze, oh but his gaze. The way his eyes held you, as if you were the most precious gem in the world, as if suddenly he had chanced upon the rarest and most beautiful, precious flower there is to find. His eyes held you, all of you, and it was exhilarating.
The two of you met for dinner, because you just couldnât help but be drawn to him, to crave the way he looked at you. For a while, you forgot about your promise, and just let yourself go, you let yourself live in the moment. So you chatted, and laughed, and slowly, ever so slowly, the heart that shone through his eyes wiggled and squirmed and made its way into your heart. His voice and his gaze, the way his hands gently brushed yours, the sound of his laughter, soft at first and melting into chuckles that rolled like the waves of the sea, all of it, it took your heart captive. You didnât even feel yourself fall; it happened so fast and at the bottom he caught you with that gaze. You didnât even realize what had happened until it was too late.
You asked him, âWhat do you do for a living?â
âIâm in the armed forces, active duty.â
Your captive heart screamed in pain as your childish promise rang through your head, but Aphrodite simply smiled, checked your name off of her list, and moved on to the next heartbreak.
