All the kids love Nico more and I don't get it. I'm always there for them. I'm always being supportive of things they want even if I don't think they should.
The things I don't encourage: getting drunk, recreational drug use, killing yourself or putting yourself and your friends and family in danger, threatening people. Those are things that make them not like me and typically makes me feel universally hated.
The only person who has cared about whatever this is. I don't know if it's depression or grief or both or something else entirely. But the only person who has cared is Kayla. I got my voice to work enough to tell Nico "I'm dying" to which his response was "you can't die". But it can't stop me from feeling like I am. This pain hurts more than my heart. This pain makes my entire body ache. My back hurts. My legs ache as if I've run a marathon. An elephant might as well be sitting on my chest. Maybe this is all the grief I wasn't allowed to feel. Maybe this is the grief I've had to hide because almost all of my siblings were and still are dead.
The first fall that I stayed to run the infirmary, the empty cabin was awful, it was usually bursting at the seams (my dad really loves getting laid). But I told myself it was fine, nobody stays in the off season anyways. Everyone goes home or to school. Then when summer came back around, I would tell myself that they were just away doing normal teenager things, like visiting colleges, going to other camps with their friends, working summer jobs to make some extra money. The kind of things I missed out on. And the kind of things that my kids probably think they are too good for.
Kayla is supposed to visit today. I hope I can get my voice to work enough to tell her that I love her. Maybe todays the day that she drags me to the shower because she cares and hopes that it will fix me.
I can't help but feel that Nico is annoyed with me. But I don't care. I can't control this. I don't want to spend my life in bed, alternating between sobbing and staring into space. I wish I could get up and go to breakfast and see all my kids at the table reaching over each other doing various things that really shouldn't be at the table. I honestly don't know how more of Phe's projects haven't been ruined, she's always sewing something.
I wish I could see Estelle again, and let her know that she is a part of the family. To let her know that I'm excited for the baby. But I can't. Because they're gone. And Nico wouldn't let me go get her.
Estelle, I am so sorry. James, I am so sorry. Percy and Annabeth, I am so sorry. Sally and Paul, I am sorry that you too have to know what it's like to lose someone who you love so deeply. Whose presence is missed in everything you do. The grief will come when you least expect it. In the batch of cookies you pull out of the oven. In the mention of their favorite band, or food, or color. In the middle of the night when a dream wakes you up and you realize that it's not real. In the middle of the day when you find something they wrote. It's there. Sometimes it's harder than others, but it's always there. And no matter how much you want it to go away, it never will. It will always be there, tugging at the back of your mind. In everything you do. And for that, I'm sorry.
