Melpomene stared at him, breathing through her nose, her chest rising and falling. "Yes, I know what I did to him," she said, voice like Clio's, voice like ice, but Clio's ice had been solid and true, where Melpomene's was cracking. Cracking where Will's words fell, cracking faster and faster and with each moment there was less and less between her and the black, frozen water beneath.
"And he knows what he did to me." Her face was a mask of pain as she spoke, hands clawed in emphatic gesticulations. "He promised. From the first time I saw this child, he was there with me. He promised! And everything he told me was true; he loved me, we were going to have a child together and he loved me! It was REAL." Two tears cut down her face in streams, and she grabbed one clawed hand at her chest, holding her shirt in the tightest fist. "And then it WASN'T, in a SNAP, and now NOTHING is true and NOTHING is right. You think I'm doing ANY of this to make myself feel better, Clio? As if there is ANYTHING IN THE WORLD that will make me feel better? No! NOTHING can fix this! You think you can LOOK AFTER me? When I've had NOTHING BUT SILENCE from you since he left? Why did I think YOU would understand ANYTHING? FUCK!" She wanted to throw something. She terribly, terribly wanted to throw something but the only thing in reach was books, and she wanted something that would smash. With a small scream of unrestrained emotion she spun and stormed through the front door, slamming it behind her so hard she felt the bones of the house rattle. A few furious steps further and her legs gave out, and she sat down hard on the bottom of the brownstone's stoop, gasping for breath, and slammed the side of her fist one-two-three-four times into the stone pillar beside her: Fuck it, fuck her, fuck them, fuck everything!