Wait For Me ✓ (Hadestown)

chapter 10

//TW: domestic abuse and hinting of nonconsensual sex, kinda flashbacks

If an afternoon was perfect in Eurydice’s mind, this would be the closest thing to it. A warm bath with lavender epsom salt that had a sweet aroma wafted through the room as she sat in her thoughts, but they weren’t bad thoughts. She liked how the warm water helped her muscles relax. It felt like the embrace of a lover or a mother.  She could hear the finches chirping and the water trickling at her every movement. The Lemon Verbena tea lingered on her taste buds.  Serenity consumed her whole.

After the bath, Thalia helped dress Eurydice and braided her hair. The nightgown fell over Eurydice, almost perfectly. It was a little big, until Thalia tightened the straps of the piece. There was white lace around the seams of while, almost pink gown. Eurydice had never worn silk, she could never have afforded it. Not in her youth nor her adult life.

“You look uncomfortable, is everything alright?” Thalia said in concern. She fitted a lacey robe over Eurydice, being extra careful with her arm. Eurydice saw herself in the mirror. She looked feminine….very feminine. Eurydice couldn’t tell if she liked it or not. Not that femininity was bad, it was just she wasn’t used to it. Rarely she wore anything feminine, for she thought of it as another way of conforming. Not to society, but the strenuous and stifling home life she had in her past lives. Every time she attempted to wear something that brought out any feminine features in her, all she could see staring back at her was the young girl in the dresses that were too small for her, and had longer sleeves to hide the bruises, whether it was from her father or…..Aristaeus. The story of Eurydice and Aristaeus was complicated. He was her significant other before Orpheus, and a horrible man to say the least.

They were two broken souls who thought they could fix each other, one more than the other. Aristaeus saw Eurydice as grimey, though he wasn't much better himself. He wanted a woman who would clean the house and cook dinner. A woman to kiss him goodbye. A maid and a toy. Eurydice had her own opinions on that. So he would fix her. He would destroy her and rebuild her. If she didn't do what he wanted, he did horrible things that would lead to emotional damage, scars, bruises, and many broken glassware. He controlled how she dressed, whether it be feminine and conservative, or nothing at all. He reminded her of her father, so she ran again.

They were the cause of her habit of running away. They were the cause of her warped view of femininity.
They were what pushed her to put up her walls and flee at the first sight of danger.
They were the reason she could never wear a dress normally again.

That’s why she liked her black slip. It wasn’t too small, or fitting just right. It was oversized, but it fit around her shoulders. It didn’t show curves, nor did it fit like a normal dress. It was just a black slip, and no one had to focus on what she was wearing and whether it was too loose, too tight, showed too curve, or if the was too feminine or not feminine enough. It was like the background of the painting, the filler of the cake. People focused on her personality, not her looks, even though she believed there was no looks to compliment the outfit, which was entirely false.

With this, she felt feminine, yet she didn’t see the little girl who she was in the mirror. She looked like an entirely different person. She was feminine, but she liked it. She looked beautiful, but she didn’t look like herself. She knew she would never look like this again, because she couldn’t afford it. Eurydice would never see this woman in the mirror again. A woman with tame hair, skin that glowed and nice clothes. This distinguished her from a girl to a woman. Part of her liked the woman, but part of her wanted the girl because that’s who she truly was. The hungry young girl whose only care was surviving. The girl who wore whatever she stole. The girl who didn’t define herself with her clothes, but with her wit. She felt stuck between the girl and the woman. Not with the clothes, but she wondered who she was becoming. Was she a woman or a girl?