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“There are beautiful things in the world,” Orpheus says, and Eurydice nods as if she believes him.
He’s holding her hand, leading her from the crumbling city to the hills. Their steps are slow, and Orpheus makes them linger in the places Eurydice would normally pass. He finds hidden spots of beauty, moss on the undersides of rocks, sunlight that hits the gravel infused with mica just right, bubbling streams barely making their way through the pebbles.
Everything moves slowly here, like the world is crawling through molasses. The stream isn’t in a rush to get to the ocean, and the sun isn’t in a rush to find the ground. Eurydice can take her time inhaling and exhaling for the first time in a long time. It takes a special kind of peace to be able to enjoy breathing.
“Just because the world spins as the speed of light doesn’t mean we have to live our lives fast,” Orpheus tells her, and she nods again. She likes listening to his voice more than she likes telling him that he’s wrong.
He picks a flower for her, a red poppy that smells like cherry vanilla when she presses it to her nose, and she thinks maybe she is learning something from him. That’s new too, learning things. She dropped out of school when she was younger, never learned calculus or English literature. Orpheus has a wisdom he learned in university, and he also has a wisdom you can only learn by listening to the old gods (she has never believed in magic).
Orpheus walks along the meandering footpaths with a confidence in his step. The confidence is well earned, Eurydice thinks, from years of walking along this path.
The path leads towards a horizon that she has never stopped to look at. The way is paved only by dirt, hardened only by the feet which have stepped on grass which had died here ages ago. Orpheus tells her that he goes here when he needs to think. She thinks he probably comes here a lot.
Orpheus is a thinker, the kind of person who aches and agonizes over everything that he can. He worries about the little things, like what color bandana he has tied around his neck and whether he’s using all his instruments equally so as not to show favoritism. He likes to turn things over in his mind before he says them or writes them down, Eurydice knows. He likes to play things over and over again before they’re good enough for anyone to hear.
The path is shaded by trees which arch over the two of them, reaching up into a heaven that is far, far away from Eurydice. Orpheus looks up, pointing at a bird’s nest in the branches. His eyes are soft as he tells her about the birds that he’s seen in this forest, the robins (with their red bellies) and the wrens (with their gaping beaks) and the goldfinches (with their lemonade bodies). He can name all of them. Eurydice has never paid much attention to the birds, except out of annoyance for their song when she’s trying to sleep.
“Just because it’s in the way,” Orpheus says with a laugh, “doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful.”
She smiles at that, kisses his cheek (she is still learning to be gentle), and wonders aloud if that means she can be beautiful.
He squeezes her hand and says, “Of course,” and blushes as if maybe he actually believes that. The flush of his cheeks reaches the tips of his ears, and Eurydice resists the urge to kiss him again, pull him closer, whisper how beautiful she thinks he is (but that is almost too heartfelt, too truthful, and she does not know how to be tender).
They keep walking, the leaves crunching under their feet, and it sounds almost like a song. Orpheus must think so too, because his mind is in another world, even though he walks beside her. She thinks maybe that should annoy her, that he’s composing songs in his head instead of paying attention to her, but instead it gives her time to watch him and love him and smile at him without being noticed.
Eurydice doesn’t fall in love easily. She prefers easy men and women who will give her a drink and a roof for a night. She doesn’t let people hold her hand and lead her to pretty places without pockets to steal from or sidewalks to beg on. She doesn’t let people tell her she’s beautiful unless it means they’ll pay her for a smile.
But Orpheus has no money to give, only love and affection. Perhaps these things are worth just as much, she thinks. He has given her flowers to keep in a cracked vase on the shelf, ones that bloom in the sunlight and don’t lose their color when the day fades. He has given her kisses and songs and poems and all the love she didn’t know she wanted, didn’t know she needed.
Orpheus asks what she’s thinking about, and he turns to look at her as if he actually cares about the answer (she doesn’t think anyone has seen her as vulnerable as she is). There’s something completely earnest in his eyes every time he opens his mouth, as if the man has never told a lie.
Eurydice has told so many lies, but this love is not one of them.
“I’m thinking about what to eat for dinner,” she says with a laugh. “I think I’m feeling apple pie and lemonade.”
He grins at her, unabashed and soaking with life. “I’m feeling blueberry pie and champagne.”
“Fancy,” she says, returning his smile. His hand fits perfectly in hers, and she squeezes it gently, a reminder that they are together, they’re connected in a way she has never felt before. In so little time, Orpheus has completely integrated himself into her life, into her palms, and she loves it.
He chuckles again, glancing at her. There’s a fondness in his eyes that makes her melt.
“Be serious though,” he says. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about how pretty the world is,” Eurydice admits, “if you stop to look at it.”
She’s never stopped to look at it before. There were always bills to pay and food to buy and candles to light and treasures to sell. There has never been time for birds and flowers and holding hands. But Orpheus makes time and maybe, just maybe she can spare a moment for this poet (she stops herself before she can confess that she would spend a lifetime with him, with the beauty he sees in the world).
“That’s why I like this trail,” Orpheus tells her. “It makes you stop at every corner.”
They stop, then, because Orpheus has found a patch of flowers and he wants to pick the prettiest one. He combs through the patch, until he finds a red one, brown eating at the edges and thorns on the stem. It’s dying, Eurydice thinks privately to herself, but Orpheus doesn’t care about that. He cares that it’s still alive, just in this moment.
He hands it to her.
“It matches your eyes,” he says.
“Rotting?” she asks. There’s a laugh on her lips. She knows he sometimes doesn’t realize what he’s saying, even for all that thinking he does.
He shakes his head, eyes saying that he has thought this one through. “No,” he tells her. “Surviving.”
Eurydice wonders if that’s what this is-- surviving. She thought it had been desperation or fascination that led her to take his hand and let him smile at her. She wonders if maybe she needed someone by her side to truly survive. Or, at least, to enjoy surviving. Orpheus smiles at her, and she wonders how she ever lived without that smile.
Eurydice holds this new flower and the poppy in her free hand, and the sweat sticks to the stems. These flowers will die as all things do, she thinks, but Orpheus must be able to read her mind, because he says, “And I will keep picking more flowers, until there are none left, and then I will start a garden just for you.”
She doesn’t blush easily, doesn’t keep compliments when she thinks she doesn’t deserve them, but she can feel the heat on her cheeks as she ducks her head from his gaze. There’s a fierce loyalty in his voice, an unfamiliar melody to her ears. Her hand is warm between Orpheus’ fingers, and she can barely remember the time she almost lost her own fingers from frostbite. All of that is so far in the past that it almost doesn’t matter.
The path comes out from between the tees, opening into a wide clearing. They’re reached the top of a hill, and from there, the two can see the whole world.
There’s the city they live in, the broken concrete taking sharp turns around the bar and Orpheus’ apartment and the corner where Eurydice used to sleep and the amphitheater where Opheus plays on Mondays. There’s the lake where she taught Orpheus how to swim. There’s the diner where they shared a milkshake. There’s the railroad tracks starting at the station and carving its way through the hills and down into a tunnel Orpheus shivers at the sight of.
“It’s like being in heaven,” Orpheus says.
The sunlight is crashing onto his pale skin and he seems to glow as he closes his eyes and the light catches on his long lashes.
“It’s like being king of the world,” Eurydice says.
She lets go of his hand to find a boulder to climb onto. Her feet are steady on the stone, the rock firm under her shoes. She spreads her hands and imagines that she is reaching up into the clouds, tearing the rain out of their grip and crushing the thunder between her fists. She imagines Orpheus is with her, protecting her from the burn of the lightning. She imagines there is nothing to be afraid of in this place.
Orpheus climbs onto the boulder with her, reaching his arms around her waist. They stay like that for a moment, in a position so familiar it’s beginning to feel like home. The city is waking below them, the people crawling along the street lines like ants, off to work or school. They’re too high up for anyone below to see them, secreted away on nature’s arms.
She begins to see what Orpheus does, how pointless all the gold in the world is. Money and riches and hunger shouldn’t matter in this world, not when there are so many beautiful things they could be seeing. Not when there are so many flowers to be picked and raindrops to drink and lips to kiss.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Orpheus asks, his voice soft in her ear.
She has never loved soft things before, opting for dense coins and the cheap, rough fabrics of her clothes. But Orpheus is soft and kind and beautiful, innocent in all the places where she is cynical. She thinks maybe she loves it.
“It’s beautiful,” she tells him.
She speaks it like its a confession, something she might never have said aloud if it weren’t him with her. She knows that other people know the world is beautiful, but it still feels like something secret that Orpheus has shared with her, something she’s going to keep close to her forever.
He kisses her neck, making his way up to her cheek, and she turns, letting him find her lips. It’s a learning process, she thinks, her and Orpheus finding the beautiful parts of each other (oh, and there are so many). She changes her footing, pressing her chest against his, wrapping her arms around him.
Orpheus sighs happily into her kiss, and they are at peace here. The sunlight is falling down onto them and warming up all the cold in her heart. She wonders if Orpheus was the sunlight in a past life (or perhaps even in this one).
“Come on,” Orpheus says, pulling away. He jumps off of the boulder, reaching out a hand to help her down.
She grins at him, ignores the hand and jumps off. She lands hard on her feet, but she has never minded pain. He laughs (independence is the most beautiful thing about her), taking her hand and leading her further down the hill. He speeds up, coming over at a run, pulling her behind him.
He lets go of her hand, slowing as they come across the valley at the base of the hill. The hill slides out into a bowl, a large dip in the ground where thousands of flowers have made their home. The ground is littered with red (blood and sunset and heartburn) and blue (ocean and sky and berry) and pink (cotton candy and sunrise and valentines).
Eurydice laughs freely, bending over to take over her shoes. They have holes at the heels, but they keep her warm in the winter months. Now, though, they feel unnecessary, and she drops them at the edge of the field. Orpheus does the same, his smile never faltering.
The grass and flowers are soft beneath her feet, cold with morning dew but warm with light. The sun is painted over the field, casting the flowers in brilliant yellows and golds and pinks. A bird is singing somewhere behind her, a song she doesn’t have a name for but that she is sure Orpheus has written (he has written every beautiful thing into existence).
Orpheus smiles at her, spreading his hands like wings, spinning in the sunlight like a pinwheel. Eurydice turns her face to the sky, soaking up all the warmth of the morning. There is something serene about it, the quiet of the morning which is not quiet at all-- it is birdsong and violins and trains and Orpheus’ laugh and their feet in the flowers.
“I love you,” Orpheus says. His honesty is bleeding through his words, staining her tongue with tenderness. “I love so many things, but I love you more than all of them together. Eurydice, I could write a thousand songs about love or about you, but none of them will ever capture just how in love I am.”
Eurydice closes her eyes again and thinks about burnt red poppies and cream colored lilies and intrinsically complicated nature and at the center of it all is Orpheus, loving her. At the center of all these beautiful things she suddenly knows, there is Orpheus.
“I love you too,” she says, and she means it. “I’m not good with words like you are, Orpheus, but I love you too.”
Your songs have already brought back the springtime, she thinks to herself. The birds and the flowers and the sunlight all agree with her, and she smiles.