I wonder if I'll ever be able to tell Eleanor about the incident. That's what I've been calling it in my head all these years, although I guess it wasn't one incident so much as an entire year and a half of my life. But it was mostly the one incident. I haven't even told my siblings. There are only a few people who know about it—Dad and Nathan obviously, and then Sophie and Heather. Telling Heather was one of the hardest things ever, especially since Dad and I have only talked about it once since it happened. I got close to telling Annabeth that one time, but only sort of. She doesn't know the worst of it, not at all. Sometimes I can pretend it didn't happen. I can almost convince myself that it didn't. But occasionally it comes into my dreams uninvited and suddenly I'm six years old and I'm back there all over again. Sometimes I think maybe it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be so messed up. Or not as much as I am now. Maybe. Sometimes I think back to that time in my life and I get so mad. At my dad for letting it happen, and at Apollo for not caring, and at myself, even though I was only seven. And at him, of course. How could you do that to a little kid? It's not fair. But then again, nothing ever is. Not when you're me.
