Calling Day: Conversion with Azucena Osuna
Orpheus collected himself as he waited for a reply, some notion that his words had reached their destination. A faint tap on the front door answered his call, his heart pounding in his chest as he swung open the door.
And there she was. As beautiful as the first time they had met.
His Lilith.
How strange to have those watery eyes still call to him the very same. There held no love or devotion between the two of them now, yet they still begged for him to step closer. Still pulling him in deeper. Still begging for him to drown within their depths. After all this time…the pull was still so strong.
He felt a weight in his chest so heavy and painful he might’ve ripped his heart out himself if she had not already done so. The oddest blend of betrayal, longing, and pain. It seemed a cocktail Orpheus frequented these days despite his distaste for them. The inescapable swirl of betrayals and lies that he was so often caught in.
However, the moment of longing faded as quickly as the door swung open, replaced by a deep-seated mistrust and anger that filled every inch of his body.
He placed a silencing finger over his mouth after she started to speak, his eyes cold and unfeeling as he looked to her now.
With a force that shocked even him, Orpheus pulled Azucena inside and led her up to his bedchamber, the furthest room from his father’s study. The only place where they would be guaranteed privacy.
Orpheus could not help but attempt to shake the dejavú as he stared at Azucena now standing in the very same spot Finch stood just hours prior. Another betrayal, another forgotten friend, another past memory come back to tear open his chest just as the scars began to heal.
“Is it true?” Orpheus’ spat in a voice so dark and raspy the sound sent shivers down his own spine. An anger stirred within him like a slow boiling kettle, threatening to spill over at the slightest of movements.
Orpheus had regained much of his mental and physical strength as the day carried on, yet the dark bags under his eyes from a lack of sleep were ever present, casting shadows under his even darker eyes, making him look eerily demonic.
He towered over her now, looking down with the knowledge of the upper hand, with the pained eyes of a scorned lover, and the anger of a Langston heir.
“I do not want an apology or more nonsense lie-filled poems about love. I want to hear it from your lips. The very same that kissed me and whispered my name. I want to hear it. Tell me…is it true?” Orpheus said, his voice breaking slightly as he questioned her.
Orpheus had dealt with enough pain and emotion to kill a man. A spiral of mixed feelings so great it consumed every part of him. Facing Azucena now was its own poisonous concoction, mixing itself in with the rest, a brew of confusion and lust and heartbreak he had never quite known before. It was pain enough to bring a man to his knees.
Orpheus had met Azucena while grieving. Grieving a lost love. Grieving a friend. Grieving a life.
She had taken him and kissed each bruised inch of his heart and made it whole again. She had held his hand and promised a new life. She had wiped his tears when the pain of it all became too much. She had written poems to fill his loveless heart. She had cared for him, intimately, slowly, building over so many months that Orpheus had nearly forgotten why he was sad at all.
She had been his first.
His only.
He had trusted Lilith with the darkest parts of himself, been vulnerable and broken, honest and pure. He had given her everything.
And as quickly as she blew into the Crow Bar that cold fall night, warming every inch of his dying heart, she had vanished.
Having filled his world with lies and betrayal all over again. Leaving him cold and alone. More broken than when she had shown.
Yet some part of him longed for her to say it was not true. That she was simply a girl. He was simply a boy. And that their love had been as honest and real as he had imagined it to be.
That he could love her still.
That love was possible for him.
He wanted it more than anything.
Yet he knew from her guilt ridden expression and flushed face that he had not been wrong in his assumption of her.
She had lied.
She knew of his pain and had chosen to break him anyway.
To step on the already broken pieces of his heart.
To use him as a weapon against the one person he had always loved.
To use his longing for love as a weapon against him.
She had used him for revenge.
And if that was her game.
Orpheus would play.