Epilogue: Styx

I look at you now, and the way you make me feel takes me by cold surprise.

I used to hate your eyebrows. Those dark twins that arched in a mocking display of self-satisfied assurance. You could do no wrong. So I must have been the wrong one.

I hated your eyes. I hated them for being so beautiful and so cruel. You acted as if you did not know what you were doing. But you knew. We both know that you knew.

I loathed your lips. I loathed the careless words they formed for your amusement and my mortification.

Your hair. The tilt of your head when you pretended to listen. The shape of your shoulders when you stood up straight. The curve of your spine when you slouched. Your goddamned voice. I knew them intimately and I hated them all.

You danced capriciously through my consciousness. You laughed your hollow laugh and left behind a wasteland. You twisted the knife with a smile and a glint and walked away. And so there was a time when I hated you with all my heart.

And now? Now I just don't care.