Word Count: 1141

“Where were you last night?”

Paris hadn’t even realized his mother had arrived, too busy scanning through the menu and attempting to find something he would actually eat that wasn’t comprised of liver or an assortment of odd vegetables he’d never eaten in his life. The lighting of the restaurant he’d been told to meet her in was low, the other tables seating various couples and work associates in their fine dresses or business attire. He could hear soft piano music drifting from somewhere, playing slow and easy love songs -- most likely due to the recent passing of Valentine’s Day.

He looked up and was met with his mother’s conflicted expression of worry, exasperation and disappointment. She had her coat hanging over one arm, which held a designer bag to match her blue shirt and black pants, her curly blond hair held together behind her neck with a sparkling clip. Paris almost laughed, amused by the similarities between their attire, though he didn’t know why he should be; he’d dressed more similarly to his mother than his father for years. His black slacks were perhaps cut a bit differently, his shirt a pale pink to her peacock blue, and unlike her he’d taken the time to straighten his usually tightly curled hair, only to sweep it back into a fancy French twist. Despite that he looked more like her daughter than her son.

When the Maître D’ had guided him over to their table, he’d referred to him as Miss LeFay. Paris hadn’t bothered to correct him.

“Paris,” his mother stressed his name, looking at him with slightly narrowed gray-blue eyes and a creased brow. “Where were you last night?” she asked again.

“I… fell asleep,” he replied, glancing back down at the menu. It was difficult for him to lie even to his mother, though he didn’t feel nearly as guilty as he did when he lied to Ladon. “I must have been tired, what with dance and stuff.”

And stuff. Stuff that required him fighting for his life. Stuff that had nearly made him lose it.

Unconsciously, Paris brought a hand up to his chest and rubbed through his shirt.

Still alive. Still whole.

He’d gone to sleep on purpose the night before, not just because he’d been tired but because he’d wanted to avoid meeting his mother for dinner. It had worked, but not without consequences. The evening of his birthday had been spent in Elysion, by an active ******** volcano, struggling to maintain his hold on existence against a Negaverser who seemed intent on ripping it from him, trying to make sense of it all the while, only to end up no better off than he’d been before.

Seventeen years old and he was supposed to be fighting for something bigger than he was, something he didn’t even really believe was his to fight for. Seventeen years old and he was facing death.

How sick was that?

Once it was over, he’d decided he would rather have dinner with his mother than save the world.

He didn’t feel like he was saving much of anything anyway.

“What happened to your neck?”

Paris didn’t have to see it to know what she was talking about. He’d been chocked and strangled, and in the place of the offending hand was a faint redness and pale purple bruising. Leave it to his mother to notice something he’d been hoping wasn’t all that noticeable.

“I got into a fight at school yesterday,” he lied again, lifting a hand to gently touch his neck as well.

He’d been so close to dying. What would his parents have done if he had? What would anyone have done?

“Does this happen often?”

“Mom, just sit down. It’s fine.”

She took her seat, laying her coat across the back of it, and she opened her menu with the intention of looking through it, but her eyes remained on him from across the table. “I could go to Hillworth and talk to someone about it,” she suggested.

“Yeah, like that’s going to make it better,” he said, his voice unconcerned yet slightly sarcastic. “Drop it. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal if someone’s giving you trouble.”

“If I said I started it, would you let it go?”

“Baby, you know better than that.”

He closed his menu and set it down on the table, unable to decide between the pork and the duck but figuring he’d make a last minute decision whenever the waiter came over to take their order. He gazed at his mother, frowning lightly as he noted her concern. She certainly wasn’t the world’s best mother -- far from it -- but he supposed it said something that she could still worry about him, that she could still be concerned when bad things happened in his life. It didn’t make him feel any less bitter, and he wasn’t about to start opening up to her because of it, but it made him feel a degree of relief, a small grain of hope.

“I can take care of myself, Mom,” he told her, “I have been for seven years now.”

She frowned back at him but didn’t argue, merely nodded and conceded the defeat. She had no right to question it when it was because of her that he’d had to learn. Instead, she perused the menu, making small comments here and there about a few of the dishes and asking him harmless questions that he could give less defensive answers to.

They shared a tense though uneventful dinner. Paris consented to speak with her about certain aspects of his life in the hopes that she would be satisfied and not pry too deeply. He told her about his dancing, about the high opinions his instructors had of him, about the productions he’d tried out for -- some that he’d been in and some that he had not. He even told her a few things about Ladon -- how long they’d known one another, a slightly different version of how they’d met so that she wouldn’t start looking at him in disapproval, how often they saw one another, what they did when they were together, even agreeing to let her meet him if the circumstances were favorable the next time she was in town, whenever that would be.

Every once in a while, his eyes would inadvertently dart to the small black bag he’d brought with him and sat by his hand on the table, which contained his wallet, his cell phone, his second cell phone, and the offending pen he would like nothing more than the throw into the garbage. Each time he did, his hand would invariably rise to his chest again to feel the steady beat of his heart.

Still alive. Still whole. Still Paris.

Not Ganymede. Not broken. Not dead.