You couldn’t believe it.

Your husband, Odysseus, who had been gone for 20 years; was finally back. You never gave up on him, you never remarried some gross suitor who refused to leave your palace. The king of Ithaca was back; and he was yours.

Your heart was full of joy, shock, and slight skepticism. Was it really him? Or was he just some suitor trying to trick her again? You had already been harassed for years about those suitors; you hated them. Yet, you were still unaware that every 108 suitor was deceased in the halls of the palace, being killed by Odysseus prior to him entering your shared bedroom; the rooted bed he had carved from the olive tree the two of you met at resting empty and cold, like it had been resting without Odysseus for years. The same bed that he had built the whole palace around to prove his love for you.

You watched your husband, Odysseus telling you that he was now a changed man. He felt like a monster; for every deed he has done to come back to you.

“Would you fall in love with me again if you knew the things I’ve done?” Odysseus pleaded, his eyes full of tears. He regretted every move he had made in the past 20 years. “The things I can’t undo.. I’m not the man you knew.”

He wasn’t the man you fell in love with 20 years ago, anymore. And he knew it.