He was raised in a Catholic family and was pretty shy and soft spoken growing up, getting picked on by other kids and stuff. His older sister, my aunt Sophie, tried to help but was always telling him he needed to learn how to stand up for himself. His dad, my grandfather, was really hard on him and told him he had to toughen up and act like a man and stuff like that. He was 21 when he met Apollo and 22 when I was born. His parents completely cut him off when they found out he was seeing another guy and Apollo stayed for a bit but not long at all and you would think, with no money and no time and absolutely no knowledge on how to take care of kids, my dad would've given me up but he didn't. Sophie lived with us for a few years, pretty much until I started preschool and then she met this guy, got married and moved to Toronto. My dad had a couple of sort-of boyfriends during that time but they never lasted longer than a couple of weeks. Until I turned six. He was really nice, had a good job and promised my dad stability and for the first six months that he lived with us everything was good, my dad was happy. Until Grant lost his job. He started drinking, occasionally at first but it became more and more frequent and he'd get really angry and was really abusive to my dad, verbally and physically. Later he told me that he wanted to leave but Grant was really manipulative and threatened him if we tried to leave. He took it and never stood up for himself, but if Grant ever turned on me, my dad stepped in immediately. I was really afraid to be alone with him in case he got angry again and my dad wasn't there to step in. And then came the day my dad got off work late. I don't really remember what happened. I know that that was the first time I ever heard my dad raise his voice, I know that police were called and we left the same day and never looked back. Other than not knowing how to stand up for himself my dad was a good dad. He never raised his voice or got angry at me even when I probably deserved it. He always talked to me like I was an adult even when I was little, like we were a team. When I was about eight and this girl in my class asked how I was born if I didn't have a mom because babies can't be born without moms I went home and asked my dad how babies were made and he told me exactly how it all worked without sugarcoating anything. The only time he ever tried to shelter me was not telling me about Apollo which I understand now was because Apollo had made him promise not to because the sooner I knew the sooner the gods would come after me. I'm kind of glad now that he did that because I don't think my brain would had been able to comprehend it any sooner. He's always reminding me if I want to come home I absolutely can but I'm really scared to put any of them in danger and he's finally happy and after everything he's done for me I don't want to mess that up and besides what if Will needs me or the infirmary does and what about Eleanor and I just can't now. Maybe I'm just making excuses. But that's why I'm working my ass off to get better grades and stuff so that I can maybe maybe maybe get into a university there. I mean I'm applying to places in New York too but that's my first choice. I haven't told Will yet because it feels like I'll just jinx it. But I never planned to live in New York forever. I want to go home eventually.
