Dolce Dissonance // 'Sweet Dissonance'

Chapter 28

Disclaimer: everyone experiences grief differently and I am by no means trying to encapsulate what it looks like for all. My writing reflects my own experiences with grief and my interpretations of Nico's character.

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ANGEL ✔️ (@ANGEL)

Ho paura di dimenticare il tuo viso // I'm afraid of forgetting your face

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December reminded Nico of the ocean tide.

It came suddenly but not unexpectedly, like the change of current in the early hours of the morning.

It washed away the residual warmth of the Fall past, leaving only the bitter sting of winter.

It was the low tide that drove itself forever away from its home shore. And it drowned Nico under the weight of his watery grief.

The school counsellors had told him that grief had five stages. His school had made him attend for a few months; grief counselling was mandatory after a death in the family, but eventually, they stopped booking him appointments, and Nico never asked for more.

Perhaps they thought he'd ' moved on' as they had always encouraged him to do, but how do you even move on from something like that?

He had discovered some of the stages they had spoken of.

Denial, almost certainly. He'd outright demanded to see his sister's body on more than one occasion because how else was he to believe she was gone. His sister, his best friend, the one who taught him piano, and the one who wrote him lullabies when he missed the arms of their mother so deeply that it chased away his sleep. How could she be gone if he couldn't imagine life without her?

Of course, he wasn't shown the body. Probably for the best, no sensible adult would allow a ten-year-old to see the crushed remains of his sister. But still, without proof - denial was made easy.

Anger didn't feel like a stage he would ever move past. Not when there was Percy Jackson and his perfect fucking face and his girlfriend and his new band. A new keyboardist who wasn't Bianca. Percy had moved on , just like the counsellors said Nico should, and Gods that made Nico angry. Anger sounded like screaming and seething words and broken silences. Anger looked like resentful glares and tightly curled fists. It boiled under his skin at the same time as unrequited love made skeletal butterflies come alive in his gut.

Bargaining was short-lived, the wild imaginings created by a sleep-deprived brain. Dreams of a universe where he had the powers to undo what happened. What if he could bring her back? What if he stopped her from getting into that tour bus with Percy Jackson? What if, what if, what if? He asked the shadows of three a.m. as though they'd give him the answers. They never did. No one could ever tell him how he was supposed to get over it, just that he should.

Depression was a friend in the loosest definition of the term. Perhaps a better word would be reliable or loyal, unmoving no matter the time that passed by. 'Friend' implied it was kind to Nico; it was not. It was biting and cold and anchored him to his bed for days at a time. But it had stayed with him when Bianca had died, and Percy's old band - his found family - had fallen apart and left him behind. It had stayed with him (almost suffocated him) when his father had wished him dead. Had only truly given him some distance when he'd begun to write music just like she had wanted to and when Hazel had walked into his life. Suddenly, he wasn't alone in his grief because Hazel's mother had just died too, and they had each other.