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Pirithous
He didn’t follow immediately, watching instead as she slammed the door behind her and disappeared inside. The sudden swirl of irritation and anger in her thoughts had surprised him, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. Thalia had very little patience when he did not respond the way she wished him to, and he had already pressed her much further than he liked. If she wished to take him to this place, or to see her friend, it was a small thing to grant her in exchange for all she had done.
Pirithous climbed the stairs and opened the door. Thalia stood staring into the large metal cabinet she called a refrigerator. He closed the door behind him, and though she must have heard, she did not turn.
“We have little enough time together to waste it with anger,” he said softly.
She shut the cabinet and went to the tap, filling a glass with water. “Whose fault is that?”
So this was the heart of the matter. Not his refusal of her help in the woods, or his annoyance at the number of men who surrounded her. “Thalia—”
“Don’t,” she said. “No matter what you say, it isn’t going to make it better, and no matter what I say, you’re not going to listen. It’s just typical that I finally find a Greek guy who doesn’t make my skin crawl, and I can’t even keep him.”
“You think the same frustration does not grip me?” he asked.
“For all I know you get off on being some kind of martyred hero.”
He shook his head, stepping around the counter between them. “You know my heart, Thalia.”
“What I know,” she said, finally looking up at him, “is that you’re just as bad as Nikki and Alex, so busy trying to protect me from the world, you’re keeping me from living in it.”
He stopped. “Is it so offensive that I might wish you a long life, safe from harm?”
“Wish whatever you want, Pirithous. But it’s my choice! How I live my life, who I live it with, the risks I think are worth taking—all of that is my choice.”
“As it is my own,” he said. “And however much I might desire it, I do not believe sharing my life with you is worth the risk to yours. Once I might have been so selfish, but I will not lead those I love into doom again, Thalia. You must understand that.”
She turned her face away. “I should have known this was about Theseus. Everything is.”
“Only insomuch as I have learned from the failures of my past,” he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek.
She caught his hand, holding it away. “Don’t.”
The word cut through him and he studied her face, searching for some explanation. She stared at his hand as she slowly withdrew her own.
“If you really aren’t going to change your mind, this has to end now.” She pulled the gold cuff from her arm and set it down on the counter between them, the clink of metal against stone hollowing his heart. “You can stay in Nikki’s room until your shoulder is healed, and I’ll leave you a key to the garage when I go, for shelter in winter. But the rest of this, whatever it was, I can’t keep doing it.”
She gathered her keys and the small metal rectangle she called a phone, but it was not until she had nearly left the kitchen that he understood she did not mean to stay.
“Where will you go?” he called to her, his voice rough.
She hesitated. “I’m not sure it really matters, Pirithous. Just away, for tonight.”
“I would not force you from your own home,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it.” She even smiled, stubborn and generous Thalia. “I won’t be in any condition to drive home by the time I’m done, anyway.”
And then she was gone. He wondered briefly if she realized she had taken his heart with her. Perhaps if she did, it would help to heal what he had not meant to steal from hers.