Painted Blind Part 40

"What are you doing?" he asked the dream.

"Pa.s.sing my curse on to someone else."

His face tingled, and he closed his eyes. "I worry about you."

"Don't worry. I'm happy now."

He didn't doubt it. She made it to heaven and come back as an angel, magnificent beyond human description. Psyche moved the cloth over his entire face, then squeezed the liquid onto his lips. He opened his eyes and tasted sugared nectar. The juice sharpened his vision. Behind her he saw a young man, but it wasn't Aeas. This guy was older, more strongly built, and when he looked at Psyche, his face lit in a way that made Rory ache for a love of his own.

Psyche bent and kissed Rory's forehead. "Remember, only the beauty in your heart matters." Rory squeezed her hand, then she vanished.

The next morning Rory woke to the buzzing of his alarm and rolled over trying to remember why he'd set it early. Clouds in his memory parted. He needed to double-check his calculus homework and reprint his term paper. Rory pulled himself out of bed and powered on the computer. He brought up the paper and hit print, then dragged himself to the shower.

With the mirror still foggy, he ran a comb clumsily through his hair, not really caring how it turned out. He dressed, piled books into his backpack and trudged down the stairs to the kitchen, where his mom was slicing oranges. She looked up, let the knife slip and sliced her finger.

"Mom!" Rory grabbed her hand and pressed his thumb on the cut. He dragged her to the sink and ran cold water over the wound.

Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared up at him. "My beautiful boy." She'd called him that a lot when he was little. He tolerated it until his body betrayed him in seventh grade and turned his face into a war zone. "I knew you'd grow out of it," his mom said. "No scars even."

Rory touched his face, but the b.u.mps and ridges weren't there. He ran to the bathroom and threw on the light, then stared awestruck at his refection. "Only the beauty in your heart matters." He touched the gla.s.s. Psyche healed him. It was the face he'd always had under the acne, but he hadn't seen it in years.

Rory remembered the guy he used to be before the worst of it hit. He joked with girls, stood with his shoulders straight. It was later he started hiding in fantasy novels-when girls cringed to look at his face.

He grabbed his backpack and keys and ran toward the door. For once he wasn't going to sneak in right before the tardy bell. There was something he had wanted to do for months.

"Breakfast!" his mom called after him, but Rory could miss a meal for this.

He parked and jogged toward the nearest door, skipped going to his locker and headed straight to his first period cla.s.s. Only one student was there. She sat in the front corner with a lock of dark hair tucked behind her ear. Her homework and calculus book were neatly stacked in the top corner of her desk, and she was hunched over a book.

"Hi, Vanessa."

"Hey, Rory." She didn't look up.

He knelt beside her desk and watched her eyes move back and forth across the page. "If I buy, do you think you could ditch Koontz for one day and have lunch with me?"

"Are you serious?" She looked up and went doe-eyed at the sight of his face. "What happened?"

"Do you believe in magic?"

"Not really."

Rory smiled and was surprised by the slight change in her eyes. She'd drawn a quick breath, too. "Then, I grew out of it. Isn't that what everyone says will happen?" He pulled the book from her hands. "I realize I'm not nearly as intriguing as Dean, but you have to eat."

She smiled into the faux wood grain of the desk. "If you don't mind being seen with me."

Rory touched her chin with the tip of his finger and drew her gaze to him. "I would love to be seen with you."

He blessed the G.o.ds of love and beauty.

Author's Notes.

The myth of Cupid and Psyche first appeared in the Roman work The Golden a.s.s by Lucius Apuleius in the second century AD, although it is believed the tale existed before. Since that time Cupid and Psyche have been the subject of numerous stories and works of art.

Although a Roman myth I chose to use the Greek names of the G.o.ds because they are generally more familiar to young adults.

Acknowledgements.

My journey as an author has been long, mostly uphill, and I would have fallen by the wayside long ago without the love and support of many wonderful people: my mom, Barbara Kerr, who read and loved all my novels, even the really bad ones; my husband, Nathan, who never resented the hours I spent writing and did his own laundry when the writing disease set in; Esther Davidson, Aimee Davidson, and Hank Wyborney for reading countless drafts and offering suggestions; Jessica Hansen, Emily Hansen, Janae' Hansen, Tiffany Coulson and Ashley Yorgesen for loving this story; Ashley Yorgesen, Keitra Calaway and Conner Coulson for the cover photo; and to everyone who encouraged me to push on when the rejection letters piled up. Thank you. I needed you more than you know.

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