meraki.

Me And You

"Ok. Great, we estabilished that. Now, would you mind repeating to me the myth of Orpheus one more time?" 

"Again? Really?! It's not going to change from the last time I told you, it's still the same fucking thing." 

A rainy November Friday afternoon had ruined Harry's plans to go out and have his daily workout. He had tried hiding in his room for a while, fearing what might've had happened if Anna had caught him lounging around on the couch, doing nothing. 

But, in the end, she had seen him as he made himself an afternoon snack and she had maliciously smiled, before disappearing into her room again and coming back holding the stack of papers she had prepared for him some time before. It was too late to escape her and the study routine she had came up with in the past three weeks. 

For some odd reason, their work shifts had matched up after the All Saint's day four-day-holiday, and they had found themselves at home at the same time. The thing had only spurred Anna's mind to come up with the idea to study one hour everyday, to help Harry's brain to digest all the information and estabilish the various myths in his mind. 

She hadn't let a day go by without having him narrate to her at least one myth, making sure he didn't miss one thing from it. She also liked to interrogate him about the family tree of the Olympics (the thing he hated the most, because literally everyone was related to everyone). 

That day had been no different for him: once she had seen he wasn't out working out, she had quickly made sure he sat down on the couch and had him repeating five different myths. 

Harry had ended up sprawled on the couch - he knew Anna disapproved of that position, but he couldn't care less. Plus, he was almost done with it, so might as well. 

"Repeating it only engraves it more in your memory." - Anna reasoned, staring at him from over the coffee table, as he dramatically placed a hand over his eyes. 

"I swear to God it's so engraved in the back of my mind I'll start dreaming about Orpheus and Eurydice being dumb and losing the chance to spend the rest of their lives together." - he said, purposefully using a dramatic tone, hand still over his eyes, legs sprawled over the couch and the fingers of his free hand scratching at his belly. 

At this comment, Anna's ears perked up, and her eyes started glimmering a bit. - "Was that some kind of reflection I heard you make about a Greek myth?" - she asked him, just to be clear. 

"I mean..." - Harry started, without moving his hand. - "You get the chance to take the person you love the most back from the dead, and the only condition is that you don't have to look at them until you're both outside of the Underworld. It's not that hard?" 

"Well, Orpheus thought that Proserpine had tricked him, so he tried to make sure that the woman following him was really his wife." - Anna reasoned, feeling ready to have a long and in-depth conversation about the myth with Harry - someone that had expressed his complete disinterest with the subject when they had started the tutoring program. 

It was a nice and well welcomed change on her part: she had been wanting someone to discuss mythology with her for months - years even. No one would've compared to her first real debating partner - no one would've reached that level of conversation they once had - but a substitute would've always be well welcomed to her. If anything, it would've kept her mind occupied and stimulated. 

"Well, I think Orpheus is just dumb." - Harry said, taking his hands off his face and letting it fall to the ground, crushing all of Anna's hopes at the same time. 

"Excuse me?" 

"If I was given the chance to take back the love of my life from the dead, at the simple condition to never look back, I would simply not look back until we'd be out of the Underworld. My deepest condolences to Orpheus, but I'm different." - he stated.