𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐀'𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐗! heroes of olympus²

vii. merry-go-round

chapter seven!
007. merry-go-round

claire

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

    CLAIRE HAS not thought about her mother in a long time. 

    That was a deep, dark and black hole she knew better than to let herself get dragged down into. It never ended well. It always ended up with her struggling to breathe, falling further and further down until someone dived in and pulled her back up to the surface before she drowned. The story was always the same: her mother had left her in that street in Maimi when she was just five years old▬and that was the last time she saw her. She waited until morning, and she waited still, even after Luke and Thalia found her. She had been waiting for her mother to return until it turned into a desperation to swim after her, clawing for a grip on her so she wouldn't leave again▬even though she never showed up again in the first place. 

    Claire had a pattern. She knew she had a pattern. It was her fatal flaw. 

    It happened with her Mom. It happened with Luke and it happened with her brother Jay. It happened with the pictures she took with her from Camp and the hoodies she stole from Percy's drawer in his cabin. Claire couldn't let things go. She clung onto them▬and she clung onto them tight; even if they hurt her and broke her down and nearly destroyed her. She did not let them go. And when she was forced away from them, she was dragged with her feet skidding on the ground, screaming and crying▬begging for them not to let go of her, too. 

    But they always did. 

    She had clung onto Timmy like he was that little boy that she didn't get to say goodbye to. She had held onto him▬ screaming and crying and begging for him to not let go of her, too, as fire rained down on New Rome...

     But he was not that little boy anymore. Her brother had let go of her▬he had thrown her aside and left her there ... and Claire had been that scared little five-year-old girl all over again, sitting there and waiting for him to come back to her until Hazel found her and had to pull her away before she drowned, all over again. 

    She was feeling much better now. Even though she used a good amount of her energy by muttering a prayer to her father to help Jason recover, Claire no longer felt that cloud of sickness weigh over her. But it didn't take away the rock that seemed to just sit there on her chest and not move, slowly crushing her until she forced herself to breathe. 

    It was strange how much a child remembers and what a child doesn't remember. Claire's memory of her early childhood was fuzzy▬part of it because she was so young, but there was this other part of her that wondered whether she didn't remember because it was better not to remember. It was easier to think that her mother was happy all the time. That she smiled and sang as she baked cookies and gave them to Claire while she coloured in at the coffee table. But that apartment was always dirty. There had always been a strange smell in the air that still haunted her, now. And the cookies were always burnt. 

    But Claire remembered them to be the best cookies at the same time. Warm, soft and fresh out of the oven▬they would melt as soon as they touched her tongue. 

    Little Claire remembered nothing except the fact that her mother loved her and it destroyed her to question what had changed. Older Claire now knew that wasn't the truth, at all. Maybe some part of it had been her father's influence, but most of it, she knew, was because her mother just couldn't handle having her around▬and what Apollo told her was just the excuse she needed. She had left her there and ran off with her younger brother. Claire had always wondered what had happened to him▬had nightmares about it. Grew sick, some nights, when the thought haunted her.