Gods this is so much harder than I thought it would be.
I found Austin's old journal. I totally forgot about it. It's been over two years since I last picked this up and it still hurts so bad. It's exactly what you'd expect: day-to-day camp life, shenanigans, tons of references to songs and musical artists I've never heard of. Not to mention what's got to be several dozen that have to be originals.
And then there's the other stuff. Why did he have to write in so much detail the day we watched Lee die? It's too vivid, the memory of naive ten-year-old me sobbing into Austin's chest, praying to our dad that Will would be able to save him because that was what Will did, saved everyone and I knew that demigods died sometimes but until then it had never been real. Before then the thought had never come into my mind that I might not actually make it to adulthood.
My heart lurches whenever the name of one of our siblings is mentioned. Lee. Emily. Michael. Gods. We used to be a dozen at least
And now we're down to just the three of us.
And it's really just two.
Sometimes I still think about them. The songs, the movies, the stories the world will never get to witness. Lee wanted to be an actor. Emily rarely shared her poems but she few she did were some of the best I've ever heard.
We'll stick together though. I swear it.
I think the thing is that Will and I are just so alike it can feel hard to get along with him sometimes but it also means we just kind of get each other, you know? Sometimes we don't even have to say it. Gods, I don't know what I'll do if I lose him.
I know Nico wasn't always bad. I mean, he did threaten to kill you-know-who when I told him what he did to me. Their relationship wasn't all bad either, in fact, it was great at the beginning. Will seemed so much lighter (maybe no one else noticed how tense he was all the time but I sure did). It was really only when Jason died and they had this fight and Nico shut himself in his cabin for like two weeks and wouldn't talk to him and Will started having panic attacks multiple times a day from the stress of not being able to help him. I know it wasn't Nico's fault but that didn't stop me from kind of resenting him. And then he was just so reckless and Will was so, I don't know, moony-eyed over him that he didn't seem to realize but I was sure he was going to get hurt. I didn't really understand back then, how could I? I'd never felt anything like that for anyone and highly doubted I ever would. And yeah. I could've handled it a hell of a lot better but whatever. And then Austin died and Will left and how was I supposed to feel? Can we excuse fourteen-year-old me for acting the way I did when I'd just lost the two most important people in my life in one swoop? And how dare Will be angry at me for leaving and then do the exact same thing? I coped the only way I knew how. Was it healthy? No. Not at all. But if it wasn't hurting someone else I figured, what was the big deal? And then it just kept getting worse and worse. And so did their relationship. Everyone said they were soulmates, especially Dad. Seeing the way Nico acted I was so sure he was wrong. Maybe it could've been a right-person wrong-time kind of thing. I don't know. I remember when they finally got divorced this sick twisted part of my mind said "this is what you wanted" and I felt so horrible but what I later realized was that no, this wasn't what I wanted. It's not that I didn't want them together it's that I wanted Will to be with someone who actually deserved him, I wanted Nico to be what Will needed and he just wasn't that anymore. You need to understand what it's like to watch your best friend hurting so much and know that there's nothing you can do or say to make it better. It's the worst feeling in the world. The same thing Will probably felt when Jason died.
I've spend so much of the last few years wishing things could go back to the way they were before. I wish I could be nine years old showing up to camp for the first time with no idea how violently my life would soon be upturned. Is it fair that I'm still here while most of my siblings aren't? No, it's not. Those are the worst kind of nightmares: the ones where I'm ten again and on the battlefield clutching my bow for dear life and I'm seeing things no ten year old should ever ever have to see and one of my siblings turns to me with cold dead eyes and whispers that it should've been me before the ground collapses under me and I wake up feeling like I've just run a marathon. But I'm learning to cope now, in better ways. Someday maybe the nightmares won't plague me at all. Someday maybe I'll be able to think about without wanting to cry or break something. Someday maybe things will be fair.
