"For you? I'd hold the skies on my shoulders, if it came down to it."
*****
He didn't think she'd ever look his way. Let alone, stumble into him- and into his life. But all things happen for a reason, and sometimes- when you love someone from afar...
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MY DAD USED to read to me when I was a lot younger.
Very often, he'd read me Greek mythology- something that I was admittedly interested in, being named after someone from it.
A very distinct memory from the blur of all the tales he had told me, was one of the first things he had said to me while telling me about Aphrodite.
"You know what they say?" he had said, "They say that since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the way Aphrodite looks to you- is what you think is true beauty."
I had been nine then, maybe ten- and I had snorted very disbelievingly at his words.
"That's stupid," I had told him, very dismissively. A very small part of me was interested in the prospect of true beauty- or whatever the heck that was supposed to mean, so I didn't care about any of it.
Frankly, it sounded like a whole load of poetic bullshit.
He had flicked my nose in response. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. To me, Aphrodite would have long brown hair, bright blue eyes, and the prettiest smile."
Less than a few seconds later, my mom had walked past- giving us both a small, distracted smile because she was in the middle of doing something- and I had instantly understood what he had meant.
My face had scrunched in disgust.
"You think Aphrodite would look like mom," I had told him with another disbelieving snort and an eye-roll, "and that's because you're in love with mom. Gross."
His lips had curved upwards slightly in response, but other than that he hadn't commented on my opinion on it. Maybe he knew that I'd realize on my own what it meant.
It was three days after he had said that, and we were at school, sitting in the first row. Fynn was talking to our teacher Mr. Hale, and I was fiddling with my pencil, bored out of my mindand my dad's words completely forgotten.
"You have a boyfriend, Mr. Hale?" Fynn had been asking our teacher, positively giddy, "Does that mean, when I grow older I can have a boyfriend too? Just like you?"
Mr. Hale had chuckled, looking through someone's notebook on his desk. "Sure you can, kid. You can be with whoever you like- don't ever let other people's opinions change that."
Fynn's smile had fallen slightly. "Other people's opinions? Do people not like it when boys have boyfriends?"
Mr. Hale had shrugged grimly. "Sometimes. People who don't like boys with boyfriends are homophobic and I'll tell you what- you shouldn't ever listen to them."
"Well, I'm not homophobic," Fynn had declared, chin in the air before they turned to me, "Are you?"
