Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold(14)

Now, for some reason (maybe the repressed memory had become tired of being suffocated), that night had unfurled in Psy’s mind, crept out of her mouth and calcified into a crisp awkwardness between them.

Psy swallowed. ‘I, uh . . . I was joking. I didn’t mean to bring that up, E,’ she stuttered, as the people from the lift streamed past them. ‘Sorry. I just . . . I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have given up a lot for this job. It means a lot. I know you’re trying to help, but . . . maybe don’t trivialise it? Understand that it’s a big deal.’

‘Psy—’

Psy passed the coffee back to him. ‘Nope! We— Let’s not do this. Seriously. I’m good. We are good. I’m really nervous about today and I’m saying things I don’t mean. Thank you for the shirt. I appreciate you. I have to go.’

And Eros let her go, just as he had six months before.



When Eros offered Psy a tour, the first day they met, she looked at him like he was a specimen for scientific study, with sparkling, shrewd eyes that ran across him in fascination. It was like she was saying, so this is what a Shallow Fuckboi is like . . .

‘Is that what you do with all the new girls? Give them a tour and, in doing so, point out all the best spots to make out? Establish yourself as a friendly, welcoming face, so they imprint on you like a duckling?’ Her voice was gently enquiring and non-accusatory. She was holding a coffee as she leant against the copy machine.

Eros wouldn’t have put it in exactly those terms. He opened his mouth to smile, disarm, but the way she was looking at him made him acutely aware of the taste of his own bullshit. He rubbed the back of his neck, ran a hand through his curls and nodded. ‘Yeah. I mean . . . that’s usually what happens. But the beauty of it is that, by doing it, on the first day they get tired of me quite quickly. An office romance is a rite of passage, so I just help them get it out of their way so they can focus on the corporate ladder—’

‘Ah. So you’re doing them a favour—’

‘Exactly.’

‘You think you’re easy to get tired of?’

Psy never let him get away with anything. She had a way of sharply swerving the journey of the conversation, making it more interesting, making him unsure of the destination. All his usual breezy, self-deprecating flirtation got heavier when she got a hold of it, turned it around in her incisive, curious mind and gave it back to him, showing him his own soul. It freaked him out, but he kind of liked it. He really liked it. He wasn’t the god of his own destiny when she was around.

Before he figured out a reply, Psy was smiling. It was warm and soft, and to Eros it looked like the perfect place to lie in and just be. He wanted to sink into it. ‘Show me all the alcohol stashes in the office. I think I’m gonna need them.’

Eros fell in love the moment he met Psy. He knew enough about what love wasn’t to know exactly what it was. He had had his flirtationships, transient stints, late nights, tequila-tainted kisses, quick unzipping and clothes ripping, but it was all empty, with both parties knowing that their connection wouldn’t last until the morning. It was clean, it was controlled and Eros had been certain it was enough. Until he met Psy. Then he became intensely cognisant of the gaping vacuum surrounding the Enough. He realised that it was possible to be connected to someone without being physically connected, that when it was real, when it was true, there was no clean, no control, it just happened and it was beautiful and messy and spilt out of him, making his game malfunction.

Psy saw through Eros without trying, and Eros never had a chance to use his flirtation techniques on her because she had an energy field surrounding her that reacted with him in a manner that destroyed any pretence. Any smoothness that Eros thought he had became clumsy around her. He bumbled, incapable of saying anything but the bald truth, and the truth always came out cheesy, but he leant into the cheesiness, because it made her laugh. He liked her laugh. It pierced his skin and lit him up from within. Eros knew that Psy enjoyed his company, but part of him felt as if it was anthropological. She was ambitious, driven, and strong enough to withstand Venus’s petty tests of endurance. There was no way she would genuinely see Eros as a viable option. Eros was a connecter, the Mr Right Now you went through before you met Mr Right. He was the guy for fun anecdotes; soft memories with no hard feelings. Girls were never upset that whatever they had with him didn’t last because they never believed he was capable of anything more than transient romance. His friendship with Psy, however, made him feel like he had been running on 30 per cent. That he had untapped reserves. That there was more.

That night, sat on a blanket, up on the roof of their building, before they kissed, with his tongue loosened by wine and the stars blurring through tears of laughter, Eros had told Psy that she was the best person he’d ever met. He’d told her that he was glad they never hooked up because the thought of her never speaking to him again scared the shit out of him.

Psy had held very, very still and looked at him curiously for a few seconds, eyes narrowed and so sharp and scintillating they provided fierce rivalry to the stars that were surely watching them agape. As if in a kind of bodily self-protection response to the intense awkwardness he was unused to, Eros had suddenly felt like he had stepped outside of his body and was watching the scene like a spectral spectator. His body somehow knew that, if his soul remained fully inside of his body, he would have combusted from the sheer mortification; and so, it expelled it. An incorporeal version of Eros watched the scene from above as some idiot whose shirt was unbuttoned too low waited for the only girl he had ever truly cared about to try to figure out the best way to let him down easy.