Melpomene held Alan's shirt up in front of her face, her thumb gently stroking the soft fabric. Her own dress had still been damp around the sleeves and the neck and the hem round her knees, and was deeply unpleasant to wear compared to the soft, sleepy warmth of the shirt.
Don't act like it was out of your control Will had said.
We're our own stories, written and out of our control Alan had said.
And she was angry at both of them, for saying opposite things.
She could control her life, write her own story, and she could also be driven by nothing but pain and emotion and anger. Both could be true. Whitman had said I contain multitudes and Mahmoud Darwish said I am besieged by contradiction and Wilde said to define is to limit. She could relish both being in control and out of it. She could be so many things! She was a goddess, a daughter of Zeus, for fucks sake!
She not just angry at the two of them. She was angry at the whole world for how few people left remembered how complex and unfathomable goddesses were.
There was a bang of a knock, then, at the door, and Melpomene lifted her head toward the sound. Tragos was here, and she smiled to herself in relief.
She left Alan's shirt lying on his pillow, and started to gather her things.