Chapter Six:

"Something Borrowed, Something Blue"

The ceremony had been beautiful, even if I couldn't understand it. I cried a little bit for Catya and George, even if I didn't really know them. The wedding had taken place in mid-July in one of the small, wonderfully simple churches – a whitewashed dot on the craggy, arid cliffside. The weather was as perfect as could be hoped for, the sky blazingly blue and endless, the breeze minimal. It was enough to make the day magical, rather than push inward with harsh reality.

A rainy wedding seemed, even to me, like a bad omen.

There was only one thing that Derek could have said that would have ruined my blitheness that day, so naturally, he'd said it. We were crammed together in a pew with the rest of his family (and everyone else on the island, it felt like), when he grabbed my hand during the vows. He squeezed it tightly and after the 'I do's' had been made, he whispered excitedly, "This could be us."

That turned my stomach over. And over. And over.

Derek had meant it lightheartedly, I knew, but it was too difficult not to turn the prospect over in my head. Soon, along with the prospect came images: me getting cold feet, or worse, me making it to the end of the aisle. Derek being all happy and excited to be married while I, coward that I was, stood shaking in my wedding pumps.

I decided that if we ever did get married, it would probably rain that day.

As everybody filtered slowly out of the church and prepared to go down to the Giustapoulos residence for the reception, Catya and George climbed into their old but charming Fiat and drove off. I imagined alternate-reality Derek and Carson climbing into the back of a limo, only to begin their first married argument five minutes into the drive.

Oblivious to my visions, Derek slung an arm around me. "Are you ready for a Greek wedding?" he asked teasingly, pulling me closer to him. My tension was my own.

"I thought that was the wedding," I answered skeptically.

Derek chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Well, technically," he agreed, "but the real event is at the reception."

For some reason, this scared me, and for some other reason, I believed it was meant to. "Okay," I said simply. I followed Derek into the back seat of his family's car and fell into a light slumber as we lumbered through the hills.

***

Derek was right: it was an event. There was a large cake and shouting relatives (lots of those) and alcohol (even more of that) and the atmosphere was warm and fuzzy and…well, quite drunk, to be honest. I watched in fizzy happiness as the bride and groom cut the cake, and then as George manfully took a slice to his face.

Derek was laughing. Had he forgotten what he'd said to me back in the church, or was he picturing this moment as our own in his head? I hated wondering. It cut into my fun-time.

As the reception carried on into the night, Derek and I danced…hell, I danced with some of his relatives, too. We ate a lot of good food, most of which I couldn't pronounce. I laughed at jokes I didn't understand and nodded in agreement with conversations that eluded me – I don't know if it was the drinks or just my congeniality, but I suddenly thought that I understood Greek.

But every couple of minutes, Derek's words would crash down on my head and tarnish my mood. And however short these periods of bleakness were, they amounted to a very long time if I added them up. Before long, Derek was holding fast to my arm, telling me that it was time to go home. I agreed silently, clinging to him as well. We were codependent on one another's flawed balance – it probably looked pretty comical. We were offered rides up to the house several times, but Derek insisted that we walk. The fresh air would supposedly do us good.

We began the trek silently, good-naturedly. We hung onto each other for dear life as we swayed through the empty streets and up the chipped staircases. It occurred to me how strange it was to have a town built in levels where people tended to get very drunk. I giggled, forgetting the reason partway through.

And then one of those minutes popped up. 'This could be us,' echoed dauntingly through my mind. "Did you mean that?" I asked stupidly.

"What?" Derek asked. His voice was a little sturdier than mine.

"This could be us," I quoted him, slurring and stumbling over a couple of steps. We were almost home.

"Of course I did." Derek stopped us just below the last lurching hill. The night air was thick and full of noises: oceans waves, crickets and the faint echo of the celebration far below us. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked, confused.

A massive eye-roll placed itself on my face, one I hadn't meant to carry out. "You know how nervous that makes me," I answered, as though it were obvious.

Derek groaned. "I thought we were over this, Carson!" he shouted. I was glad no one else would hear him.

"You're over this; I'm not." I started walking up the hill, but he pulled me down, entrapping me.

"You're not getting away from me," he growled, and it brought back a few very unwanted flashbacks from a certain Halloween party. I struggled, frightened; I wasn't stupid. I knew that Derek could force me into just about anything if he wanted to – he was infinitely stronger than I was, no matter how gentle he usually came off.

Self-restraint and alcohol aren't exactly best friends, after all.

"Derek," I whined, "let me go!"

"No." He spoke solidly in my ear and his arms tightened around me. I had every reason to be scared. "You're coming with me and we're going to settle this, Carson."

Whatever that meant, I didn't want it. I didn't want to settle anything. Not with Derek…not like this. But what choice did I have? As hard as I struggled, it did nothing to deter him; maintaining a fast hold on me, Derek began steering me in the opposite direction of the house, back where we'd come from. At first, I wondered if he was taking me back for some unfathomable reason. But long before we even approached the Giustapoulos house, Derek pressed me down a different staircase. For all that he was drunk, he was still pretty competent in his navigational skills…I wish I could have said the same for myself.

I don't remember what, but I know I yelled at him an awful lot, not to mention beat my curled fists against his chest. It was my only hope for discouraging him – and it failed. "Where are we going?" I asked. "What are you doing?"

He never answered me. But when we'd reached a long, old dock, he scooped me up and brought me into one of the boats. My disoriented brain put the pieces together, and I found myself lying beside one of Derek's sweatshirts. This was the boat he and Xandar and Stavros used.

Oh boy.

I looked on idiotically as Derek untied several mooring ropes with more skill than I would have guessed. If my brain was slow, my body was absolutely lethargic. After all the time it took me to realize that Derek was casting us off, it took even more time for me to object – fruitless, at that point.

"Derek?" my voice rose like the placid waves below us. "Why…?"

Derek flopped down onto the deck across from me, steepled his hands, and gazed at me. He was much more sober than me, that much was obvious. Why had I remembered him drinking so much?

"Carson." His voice was a perfect, monotonous tone; the very picture of sobriety. But then, there was still the dim, jaded twinkle of intoxication just behind his eyes. He was in between – walking that fine, fine line.

I looked down, soaking up the sounds around me. A dinging buoy, the sloshing crash of the current against the boat, my own labored breath. Abruptly, Derek appeared beside me, stretched out on his back with his head on my leg.

"I've thought about it…." I said aimlessly.

Derek inhaled. "You've thought about what?" he asked tenderly. I felt a sudden surge of guilt sweep through me; this certainly wasn't where I'd envisioned the night turning. I'd thought he was going to be so much more…aggressive.

How could I have thought that? I wondered ashamedly to myself. I could feel my cheeks burning from the humiliation. I sighed and primed myself for his reaction to my answer; I was barely clinging to the direction of our conversation, still full of wine. "I've thought about breaking up with you," I admitted solemnly. I'd expected another argument, or maybe even a pleading look.

But Derek didn't deliver. Instead, he turned his gaze upward to the heavens, to the stars that cruised high over our heads. It was a new moon, an invisible moon; the night was extra dark. "Carson," he spoke evenly with the tone of a man who had been wounded but who wouldn't submit to it, "I love you. I've loved you for a long time – maybe even longer than I knew." He stopped talking and thought it out for a while. I had nothing to say, so I just let him think. Finally turning back to me, he said, "Why do you think about it? About leaving me?"

I wanted to point out that this wasn't fair, that I was still fairly inebriated, but the combination of my guilt and the rocking of the ocean forced me to answer immediately. "I don't know," I slurred, "I think about you and I think about the distance," I hiccupped, "and all those college girls…." I trailed off for another hiccup.

Derek chuckled. "I don't give a flying fuck about those girls, Carr, you know that."

"Do I?" It was meant to come out all savage and full of mystique, like those women in the movies on TMC, but it just sounded…dumb.

Derek rolled onto his stomach and gazed up at me, his big brown eyes shining with added starlight. I noticed how full his lips were, how dark his skin had become. "I. Love. You. Carson Cassimov," he said. It was the kind of thing I couldn't dispute. I had no fight left inside of me. "I want to share my name, my bed, my every-fucking-thing with you."

Classic Derek: make a martini of the romantic and the profane.

Derek lifted himself into my lap. His legs overlapped mine; his breath was sweet in my face; his back was arched so that his chest was level with mine, but with so much negative space between. "What scares you about marriage, exactly?" he asked. "If not me, it will be somebody else, won't it? Or are you going to keep running?"

"What?" I asked, confused by the elaborate set-up of his question.

"Look Carson, if I'm not the one, somebody, someday is going to fall in love with you. Will you marry him? Will you throw away this…irrational fear of wedding bands and churches and receptions or will you continue to try and avoid the one thing that most women beg for?"

It was his closeness. It was his countenance. It was his absolute seriousness in the face of permanence. It intimidated me and made me feel endlessly inadequate. Was I good enough for him?

Derek kissed me; he sucked on my lower lip, he kissed my nose and he nuzzled my hair. "I love this," he said, softly and slowly. "I want this forever. Why don't you?" The way he asked it was so painful, so full of sadness. Did he really think that? That I didn't want this to go on and on and on…?

"I…" I stumbled over the lump in my throat. Whether he'd meant to or not, Derek had made me want to cry. This was too hard. "I do want this forever," I said. With the tears, the alcohol was leaving me as well, it seemed. Slowly, I was coming down, crashing into reality. Reality was dark. "I want you forever, I want things to be like they are forever."

"Then why…?" Derek trailed off. He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. I saw that his eyes were wet.

I sniffed. "It won't be, though!" I exclaimed. I jerked suddenly, knocking Derek away from me. "We'll…" I faltered, trying to regain control and losing the battle. "We'll get married and we'll fall harder and harder," I was screaming uncontrollably, "and then we'll have kids, Derek! Kids!"

Derek had fallen back onto his hands. He looked scared.

"And we'll watch those kids grow up and it'll all be great until…until…." I stopped, images of my parents flashing before my eyes like so many ghosts, so many ragged, terrible specters of my childhood.

"Until what, Carson?" he asked. It was the first time in a while that he'd allowed his voice to tremble before me.

"The kids will grow up, Derek," I informed him, "and we won't be able to have any more. And we will stop loving each other. And it will be over and I'll be too old to love anyone else, damn it!" I broke down, becoming a puddle on the deck. I sobbed harder than I had in years. I turned into a shuddering heap, curled up within myself, too afraid and depressed to come out.

But Derek found it in himself to care for me. He wrapped himself around me, his whole self around my whole self. Despite my tears and my overwhelming sobs, he more than held me: he locked me inside of him. "I will never leave you," he said. There was anger in his voice, and the sort of certainty that I was so afraid to trust. "I am in love with you. I want you forever. How can I make you see what I see? What I feel?"

Through my irrepressible weeping, I managed to sneak out, "You can't." And it was true. What power did he have? Over me? Over anyone? Wasn't it true that you couldn't change someone? That you couldn't change how they saw themselves? The world?

No, it wasn't, I realized. Derek had changed the way I'd seen the world before. Could he do it again though, I wondered.

Derek squeezed me so hard that I wondered if he might break me. "I want what we have now to get better. I want it to grow, Carson. I want it to get bigger and bigger until it reaches beyond the corners of this world." He was on the verge of tears, but he wouldn't let them go. "I want you to take up all my space until we have kids, and then I want you to take up all the space left over when they grow up," he said. It forced more tears that I hadn't known were there. "If we divorce, it will be your fault and I will spend a lifetime being bitter and jealous and I will loathe you and myself even more for ever hating you."

These were words that didn't usually make it to the surface with Derek. This was scary and overpowering and too emotional to be right.

"I'm not asking you now," he pleaded, "I'm just asking you not to murder me when I want to talk about it. Sometimes," he went on, "I just want to speculate, to fantasize. I want us to picture it together. What guy does that?"

It was rhetorical, but I answered anyway. "No one, that I know." I choked up a very haggard bit of laughter. Derek laughed too. Intensity had that effect on us; afterwards, we were both left incapacitated to the point of hilarity. "So." I said. "Just…speculation? It isn't always hints?"

Derek shot me a sideways glance. His skin was hot on mine. "Maybe there's always a little bit of hinting, but not as much as other times. I can't help myself, Carson. I love you." He pushed back some my hair and pressed his cheek against mine.

After a moment spent in silence, I sighed. "I can't just…get used to this. The idea of even thinking about marriage. I will still lose my temper, for a while."

"Okay."

"And I'm still going to roll my eyes and sigh and make annoying hand gestures."

"Okay." Derek was fighting hard not to let the small bark of laughter out.

"This isn't over," I promised, however ineffectual.

"Okay."

***

Dawn had long since come and gone by the time we'd made it back to shore, and once we'd walked into the kitchen of the house, the sun was high in the sky. Derek walked with his arm around me, and we fell in and out of step with one another, his height considerably disabling.

"You had sex with me on the ocean," he said to me cheerfully. "You might as well say 'yes' to the beach. It's practically one step away."

"No." I was still in some kind of argumentative mood. "And shut up. I don't want your family to hear you."

"They're not dumb," he chuckled. "They know we fuck."

"What?"

"We sleep in the same room," he shrugged. His lips seemed extra pouty; had we kissed that hard? "In the same bed. We're a couple – like I said, they're not dumb."

"Stavros too?"

Derek barked loudly at this. "He knows," he said. He strained the look of mirth on his face as he pushed through the wooden front gates.

"What does that mean, exactly?" His phrasing had worried me.

"Uh…" Derek paused in the courtyard, looking embarrassed. "He's my cousin. We talk."

"You talk?" I asked skeptically. "What does he know?"

Derek wouldn't look at me while he answered me. "…Everything."

"Ugh," I groaned. We walked into the house and sat down, exhausted and completely deprived of sleep.

"Where have you been?" Delphi asked, frantic.

"Out." Derek answered her with such finality that Delphi seemed to retreat from him. After she left the room, Stavros looked up from his cup of coffee.

In a conspiratorial tone, he asked, "Etsi, eseis blepe be exo olio nychta. Pano arthro barka?"

Derek nodded tiredly, happily.

"Eseis gamo?" he asked, a note of congratulatory derisiveness leaking through the Greek.

"Thee mou nai," Derek answered, "mesa schedon kathe tropos." It sounded to me like he was bragging. I told myself that I didn't want to know.

Stavros looked at Derek with a mixed expression of reverence and disgust. "Ego boulisi kamno eseis tribi arthro katastroma prin ergasia avrio," he said, pulling another sip from his mug.

Derek just laughed.

***

So work continued to come and go, taking Derek with it. Finally, I'd learned not to mind so much. I spent time with Derek's family and I explored the island more. It was difficult sometimes, as I could barely spit out a 'good morning' or a 'how are you doing?' let alone answer any questions that were fired my way.

I was standing around and examining the large array of sea creatures that lay packed in ice on market stands, trying very hard to disguise the wrinkling of my nose. It was tricky, but in the end, I'm sure I just passed it off as squinting in the sunlight. I was waiting around, kicking my feet absently against the dock, waiting for Derek to come home.

When he did, he was very surprised to see me.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked. The sunset's fiery glow settled across his skin, an iridescent shimmer over his whole body.

"I wanted to meet you here." I hugged him, even though he smelled like some funny combination of fish, salt water and cigarettes. It was almost comforting, now that I'd become accustomed to it. Now, not only would garages and gas stations remind me of Derek, but so would supermarket seafood stands.

Great.

"How was your day?" I asked. I stole his hat off his head and put it on; it was too big for me, so it sort of drooped over my hair comically.

Derek sighed heavily. Glancing behind us to make sure that Xandar and Stavros were sufficiently engrossed in their own conversation, he leaned close to me and murmured, "Long, tiring. I might be glad when we have to go home and I can…get back to the cars." He sounded vaguely forlorn. I don't think he'd ever felt that way about working with his family before, and I wondered guiltily if it had anything to do with me.

"I'm sorry," I apologized for no obvious reason.

Derek smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "Don't be." He squeezed me against him and chuckled. "Besides, after I've eaten and had a nice, hot shower," he paused, "I might not feel so tired."

"That's good, I guess," I answered.

Derek shook his head at me. "At least, I wouldn't be too tired to go for a ride."

"But Derek," I said, "we don't have a…. Oh."

Derek laughed heartily, scaring a large group of birds. Several stray cats chased futily after the flock. "God, you're cute."

Behind us, I heard Derek's name enveloped in a pretty string of Greek. It was Xandar, and even though I couldn't understand it fundamentally, I understood that he had some faith in us.

***

If I had thought that mid-July nights were hot back at home, then this was absolutely miserable. But somehow, the heat faded into the background compared with the hellish air that had developed around Derek and I.

I felt his nails claw down my back and in response, I wrapped my fingers in a tangle of his dark, curly hair. I pulled, but however accidental, it caused a growl to cascade out of Derek's perfect mouth, his teeth barred like some kind of animal. My consciousness faded in and out like a badly tuned radio station, challenged by each thrust of his hips. How he managed to do this from under me, I'll never know.

"I want," his voice churned like the ocean outside. But he never finished his thought.

"You want what?" I breathed, letting my head fall forward.

Derek just groaned, refusing to answer. Unwilling to put one more nail in our night, I didn't push it. Suddenly, he shoved me back. "Turn," he panted, "over."

"What?"

"Now."

I did what he told me to, as so often was the case. Derek planted himself on his knees behind me and wrapped himself around me. He slid his hands down both my sides, letting one trail down my stomach until…. "Oh," I sighed. It felt like if I let any more breath go, I might not live.

"Yeah?" he asked, his lips and teeth bumping against my skin. It was the best sort of torture.

"Derek," I whined, "please?"

Derek stopped touching me altogether, and I swear I could feel his scrutiny. "Okay, I guess," he teased.

It's a good thing my head had fallen forward into the pillows, now that I think about it; with Derek's body pushing roughly against mine, it became impossible not to moan. His big hands mapping me out, his teeth sliding remorselessly down my spine, and his growls loud in my ear, he was an insatiable monster.

But a monster with whom I was madly in love.

In my state of hyperawareness, I began to feel a strange twitching beneath Derek's skin, just in his naval. It was the slightest motion – if not for my sensitivity, I'd probably never have noticed it. But it was hard to focus: beads of sweat ran like rivers down the crags of his body and mixed with mine. His smell poured off of him and soaked me, sinking deep into my skin. Despite the disgusting implications for morning, I reveled in his sweat, in his smell.

It would be all too long before I got to have this again. Earlier, Derek and I had had one of the usual discussions, about work. Except this time, it had left me feeling broken inside. Two weeks. Two weeks was so long. Two weeks would leave me lonely till August.

The twitching had spread: there was a tender breaking inside Derek's arms, biceps working to keep himself from caving in on top of me. I could feel the tightening of his thighs in his effort not to collapse. I could almost taste his adrenalin. Derek wasn't having an orgasm, he was having a breakdown; he was going to miss me as sorely as I would miss him this time.

Or had he always?

Either way, it didn't matter, as Derek's breakdown wasn't unfounded: not only would we be missing each other, but it would also be on bad terms. The moment he'd mentioned the words 'two weeks,' I'd lost my infamously raw temper. This wasn't lovemaking, this was war, and as two factions, we were causing earthquakes in the wake of our angry passion.

Our bodies and our hearts contained multitudes for one another.

***

I was both glad and anguished to watch Derek leave the next morning. I met him at the door the way Delphi did every time they went out – Nadine always met Stavros at the dock. While Delphi and Xandar exchanged quick, ardent kisses, Derek planted his lips forcefully to my cheek.

"I'll miss you," he admitted gruffly. But I still knew it was true.

"I can't wait for you to come home," I told him flatly. He knew it was the truth, too.

Unfortunately, Derek won the upper hand; he placed his mouth softly beside my ear and murmured, "When I come back, I'll make this up to you."

And callously, like the bitch that I was, I thought, I'm sure you will. On my way back up the stairs, I remembered how the night before, we'd yelled. How we'd said all sorts of nasty things to each other. Some things we hadn't meant, some things we would never take back. Those were the things we would always say we never meant, when really, we'd meant every word. I'd meant it when I'd said I felt ignored. And I'm sure he'd meant it when he'd told me I was selfish and immature.

From our window, I watched the love of my life walk away from me.

***

I'd been left alone for the most part; Delphi had work to do, Elektra was busy with her roaring social life, and Nadine had left for school. I was reminded sharply of the fact that I would be going back soon.

Greece had somehow sunken into my skin, and for a moment, I'd forgotten that this wasn't my home. It was Derek's, and he wanted it to be mine too, but…it just wasn't. And at the rate we were going, would it ever be? After two days spent trying to avoid any pain and resentment, I decided it was time to sort through my feelings. Not just about Derek, but about my behavior of late. A sinking suspicion told me that I wasn't really as angry about Derek's absence as I was about something else. It was something I had to identify, and even face, if I wanted to be with my boyfriend.

So once more, I holed up in our room. But this time, I think Delphi knew I was okay, that all I needed was some time. I think she knew I was trying to sort things out. I stayed in bed a lot, at first curled into myself. But as I became more comfortable with myself, I relaxed and allowed my limbs to spread out under the sheets. I let my thoughts wander without much guidance while I busied myself with soaking in what was left of Derek's smell.

I took my meals upstairs, usually sitting on the balcony. I wanted to see what Derek saw. I wanted to feel what he felt. I wanted everything that he wanted me to want. So at first, I'd been sad that Derek had to work all the time, but I was coming to realize that it was simply a cover-up for some other emotion. What was I really so upset about?

Well, I thought, I hadn't even been prepared for coming to Greece. But then thinking on it a little harder, I knew that had nothing to do with this. I'd been surprised, but happily so. And besides, Derek already knew that. We're always so far apart, though, I remembered. And honestly, that was a small part of it. The distance that separated us had gouged out a small part of me, and it tortured me at times. Derek never seemed to be so bound up by the many bitter miles that ran between us. I'd always suspected that maybe he'd found other ways of ignoring it…other girls. It didn't mean he'd have to cheat, but he could look, and even that would hurt.

But he didn't look, I came to understand. He didn't even look. His wall was covered in images of me and of us. I was his one and only. Meanwhile, during my moments of doubt, I'd wondered briefly what it would take to break it off with him. Who was the monster now?

So, distance was a problem, but one I could learn to overcome. There was still more, but I wasn't sure how to find out what. I'd leave it alone for a while, and just be alone with my little smidgen of secret.

I was sick of secrets. I was sick of keeping them from myself.

***

Sometime in the middle of the week, I got restless. I left the house without any particular direction, and also without my usual melancholy. I would not be a victim of my own love, I'd decided.

I wandered down through the endless staircases and past countless vibrantly colored homes. Whitewashed cliff walls shrouded me in on one side while a panorama of the gorgeous Aegean stretched across the other. Somewhere, they met. Like a ghost, I meandered listlessly over the streets and through the darkened passageways of the village until I found myself wobbling down one particular staircase; it was the one that led down to the beach.

Without Derek there to talk with, the walk down felt longer. But not bad. I took the extra time to expel all my thoughts, instead choosing to focus on every outside force: the crash of waves against the craggy cliffs, the cries of gulls wafting over the wind, the sound of the wind as it rattled through hollows in the rocky face of the island.

The wind blew through my clothes, dislodging and resurrecting wrinkles. I passed under countless Cyprus trees, their arches like those in a cathedral…perhaps prettier, in their simple way. As the walk grew steeper, I could see the sandy beach. I clung to the stony cliffside for support, wondering how I'd allowed Derek to carry me down these stairs before.

And then I remembered to block those thoughts out.

Having finally reached the beach, I stripped down without even looking around. I knew I was alone, but I didn't care if that changed. I laid back in the sand and just immersed myself in the beach: the sunset soaked into my skin. The sound of the waves as they combed the shoreline helped banish all other thoughts from my mind. Beneath me, the sand gave way to the shape of my body. I let my fingers dig into the dirt, making sure to trap a few grains under my nails to be cleaned out later in the bathtub.

As the breeze drifted in eddies over my naked body, I felt my hair fan out a little at the edges. I imagined what I must look like, a siren washed up on the beach, a goddess resting quietly…a lonely girl, lost on the shores of a country that wasn't hers. I fell in and out of a light sleep, sometimes dreaming, sometimes observing…sometimes both. I imagined Derek a number of times, coming out of the water and wrapping his arms around me. My body cooled with every inch that the sun went down. It was dark when I finally opened my eyes.

I was met with the wide-open sky. From this angle, I could see a lot of things, both literally and metaphorically. I saw how high off the ground it really was…to ride the highs I normally did. From the ground, I could see the inflexibility of my expectations; the dangers of staying so lofty all the time. It was a long way to fall. And anything discarded would fall and land hard on someone else, no doubt.

From so low, it seemed stupid to always fly so close to the sun.

The walk back to the house was spent in silence. Even my thoughts stayed still for once.

***

On Sunday, I went to church with Derek's family, even though it was just Delphi, Elektra, and I. I even went up for Communion, which I hadn't done since I was maybe five. I moved as myself. No longer did I appear to be missing a part of me. Instead, it was clear that I simply missed Derek.

Oddly, the same things that reminded me of him in the beginning of the summer were now just objects. The things that sent my memory reeling, however, were of a much deeper context: smells, tastes…touches. Every time some clumsy Greek boy brushed my arm, I was reminded faintly of Derek. But of course, it was nothing like the real thing. Some detail was always slightly off: the hair on their arm wasn't coarse enough; the consistency of their shirt material was all wrong; the hue of their skin wasn't quite the perfect shade. It was these little things that kept me up at night still, missing him as I did. Still, I was functional. I was myself.

I'd found my balance.

***

God had bestowed upon me a mixed blessing.

Derek had returned home injured – nothing severe, only a sprained wrist and a few crushed fingers. It seemed like a trivial thing, but Xandar had instructed him to take the rest of the time we had here off. Later, I would come to find out that the reason Derek had injured himself was because he'd been distracted. I think, the last few years considered, Xandar knew what had distracted his nephew.

When I met Derek at the docks again, he wasn't right. I knew that inside, he must be happy to see me, but he wasn't showing it. There was no hostility, no expressed unhappiness with me…but there seemed to be an amount of indifference. And I knew not to take it personally: it was August, now, after all.

A few more weeks, and it would be the anniversary of Derek's mother's death.

"I got these for you," I murmured quietly as I walked beside him, pushing a bouquet of flowers into his uninjured hand. It may seem strange, buying a man flowers, but Derek has always harbored an unusual appreciation for pleasant smells.

"Hmmm." That was his way of thanking me, and I took it without resentment. He wasn't mad at me. He was just upset. Derek lifted the bouquet to his nose and immersed his nose amongst the petals, inhaling their sweet scent. "Lilies," he acknowledged finally. "Is that dittany in there too?" His face was scrunched up in curiosity; the way his brow furrowed and his chapped lips pouted warmed me from the inside out.

"Yes." I knew that for the time being, simple answers were all he was looking for. Derek's mind was slowly entering a defensive protection mode, a way to avoid any more pain and suffering than was necessary. Three years of love between us had taught me that much.

What hurt me even worse, was that just in time for him to get over the pain of his Sirena's death, October would arrive, bringing forth the frothing, angry memories of his brother's death.

Derek had been a victim of life's unkindness, but he was also one of the lucky ones: he was strong. My Derek was a survivor.

***

Derek was upstairs, asleep. Xandar had gone to bed and Delphi was in the kitchen; the clumsy sound of pots, plates and cutlery clattering against one another inside the little sink was familiar and comforting to me by now. I was sitting in the living room, abandoning the couch for the thick, hand-woven rug instead. With a book in one hand and a highlighter in the other, I was doing last-minute prep for an essay that I should've written over a month ago.

After a time, Delphi finished her dishes. She clicked off the light in the kitchen and bid me goodnight. I nodded and returned her words, only in Greek; out of my peripheral vision, I saw a faint smile tug at the corner of her slightly withered mouth.

Usually when I read, I was completely engrossed in the words. But that night, my mind had been freed from such concentration by Derek's pain. Every year, I wished and wondered about how I could help him. In the end, I always came to the same conclusion, though: it wasn't up to me. Somehow, eventually, Derek would come to terms with the two deaths in his life. It would still hurt him, but no longer would it cripple him.

I sighed loudly into the dim light, and was startled when it was echoed. The echo did not belong to me, however, but belonged to Stavros. The silhouette of his strong, bulky frame fit nicely inside the arch of the door.

"Carson."

It was the first time he'd addressed me directly. His English was guttural and choppy, but it was pretty in his deep voice. Stunned, I answered softly. "Yes, Stavros?"

With another sigh, Stavros stepped forward into the living room and took a seat on the couch. Between the two of us, he towered over me. He draped his long arms across the back of the couch and said, "I hope you know that Derek misses you terribly whenever we leave."

"I know…." For some unfathomable reason, I felt chastised. What did that mean?

Stavros chortled, not meanly but certainly as though he found me amusing. "Do you? I am forced to wonder sometimes." He leaned forward and steepled his hands, gazing at me through the dark.

Slowly, I put my book down.

"How do you think Derek hurt his hand, Carson?"

It seemed like a silly question at the time. I looked up into Stavros' celery eyes and squinted until I could see an answer behind them. "He wasn't thinking about Sirena, was he?"

Stavros shook his head gently. His face was mild and kind, and it made sense now as to why his features were so much more delicate than Derek's. "It was you." With a brief moment of hesitation, Stavros slid from the couch and sank onto the carpet beside me. "As I wrapped his hand the other day," he continued, ensuring my attention would be with him, "he told me how disappointed he was in himself. That he can hardly think of anything else but you." Stavros turned his chin up and in a very pompous (albeit accurate) impression of Derek, said, " 'Stavros,' he said to me, 'she is the reason I wake up each day. She is the reason I work so hard. She is the only reason I try.' So can you imagine how I must feel about that?" It was a pleading question, and I was afraid to answer it.

I couldn't meet those green eyes with my answer, so instead I stared carefully into the fibers of the rug beneath me. "It must worry you."

"It does," he agreed. I was faced with the fact that Stavros was a man and I was but a girl in comparison. "Derek loves you with his whole heart; he gives you his life, you know. And most often, I see you turning your nose up at him, or I hear you yelling at each other. Can you not see how much you mean to him?"

It almost brought tears to my eyes. He was right, certainly.

"You are a good girl, Carson, but you seem fickle at times." Then, one of his big, calloused hands landed on my shoulder. It wasn't uncomfortable, but rather, it was a consoling gesture. "Be everything you can for him, just as he is everything he should be for you."

I nodded. "I understand," I told him.

Stavros smiled, and it was genuine and sweet and loving. For the first time, I could see what Nadine saw in him.

"Thanks, Stavros."

"Any time," he said, and I had a pretty good idea of what that meant.

Slowly, decidedly, I climbed the stairs, and with a method I hardly knew I possessed, I stumbled down the hallway and into the room I shared with Derek. He was crumpled on our bed, dead-looking and sad. It was more than death that troubled him.

I fell onto the bed beside him and rubbed his back. The measured sound of his breathing comforted me, and somehow, though I couldn't see his face, I knew he was still at least half awake.

"I love you," I spoke into his hair, which had grown long and curly. "I love the things you do for me. I love that you do everything you can for me." In a way, it felt like we were experiencing a death of our own: the death of our young love, and the birth of something…something more grown-up.

Suddenly, his voice rumbled across the sheets and into my ears. "I don't do it for you, Carr," he mumbled. "I do it for us."

For the first time in two weeks, we fell asleep together.

---

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