Hold Me While You Wait

14|to be alone with you

to be alone with you

"Oh my. I can't believe this is still here," Mrs Collins articulated, shockingly glancing at a thick, plain black covered book in her hands. It looked old with the faded color of it's cover and the worn out ends.

"What's that?" Elis asked. They were in the living room going through some old items to decide on which to keep and which to throw. Mrs Collins was going through the book shelf, looking for some books she wanted to donate to the local library.

"It's a mythology book. There's a lot of it in here, different varieties too," the woman smiled, flipping though the pages in nostalgia. "I used to read this when I was younger, I think around your age."

Elis grinned as she looked at her mom. "Why would you read mythology?"

"I was curious about a lot of things, also because people had more time to read back then than they do now. There are a lot of love stories in here, and each left me eager to read the next," the woman closed the book, placing it in the pile that she wanted to keep. "Do you want to hear some?"

The curly haired girl shrugged, but her mother grinned as she carried onto tell her anyway. "One of my favorites when I was your age was from the Greek Mythology. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It's one of the most romantic and heartbreaking stories of said mythology, and many might know of this love story because it's used to lecture impatient people, which isn't helpful," Mrs Collins laughed as Elis snickered.

"So what's it about?" The curly haired girl asked.

"It's about Orpheus who fell in love with a nymph named Eurydice, who tragically died on their wedding day when she was walking down the aisle and stepped on a poisonous snake. Orpheus was able to make his way to the Underworld and used his musical talents to convince Hades to release his true love. Hades agreed, but only if Orpheus would lead his bride to the world of the living without looking back to make sure she was following him. Orpheus almost made it all the way to the surface before he couldn't control himself and turned around. Eurydice had been following him the whole time but once he looked at her, she was immediately taken back to the land of the dead for eternity. Orpheus swore to never love again."

"So that teaches patience?" Elis stopped looking through the old discs and DVDs, turning around to look at the older woman who's memory filled with her favorite mythologies when she was younger.

"Yes. And the fact that Orpheus was prepared to do anything he had to do in order to bring back his love. And he could've achieved something he so dearly worked for, had he not been taken by his impatience and curiosity," the woman agreed, continuing to go through the books.

"Another one of my favorites was from an Egyptian Mythology. The story of Maya where the Mayan god Chin, reported from the sixteenth century, is said to have introduced a certain culture into the Mayan customs, which subsequently became associated with same-sex love."

"Same sex?" Elis articulated, Mrs Collins turned around to glance at her daughter.

"Yes. Few records of homosexuality exist in Egyptian Mythology, and the written and pictorial works are reticent in representing sexualities. The sources that do exist indicate that same-sex relations were regarded negatively, and that penetrative sex between men was an aggressive act of dominance and power, shameful to the receiver, which was a common view in the Mediterranean basin area. But it's not. That's not what I think about same-sex relationships and their intimacy," the woman contradicted, holding the book in her hand and looking at it briefly before holding it towards Elis.

"Here," she said. "The most well-known example of this occurs between Horus and Set, you can read up on it later."

Elis took the old book reluctantly, setting her gaze on it before putting it beside her. Seeing her reluctance and the curly haired girl's thoughts practically written on her face, Mrs Collins glanced at her daughter with knowing eyes, briefly, before she turned back to her work.

"Let's finish up now," the older woman said. "I ordered new sofas from the furniture shop downtown, they should be arriving tomorrow. I want this place to be ready by then."

Elis wondered, though, pondering her actual life with the Egyptian Mythology her mother had disclosed.

To lust for another girl, to have the feeling of always wanting to be in her presence and holding her so dearly close was what Elis hadn't ever experienced before. But she felt, without any judgement but hers, that it was what she wanted. Because alone with the ginger girl, Elis felt relief. For once she could actually forget about Bryson and the torturous pain that accompanied her visions of him.

And it was when she'd existed in that summer period that Elis became exposed to different opinions about who she actually was. And if she could ever express anything at all it would be affection towards another girl...towards Gray.