Collapsing As It Sees The Pain (Percy Jackson)

All By Himself

Luke:

I followed him, trying to ask if he was okay or what was wrong. If I said or did something to him that hurt him. And I guess that wasn't a good idea.

"Would you just leave me the hell alone!" Percy shouted after ten minutes of following him through the woods to a little clearing. He was facing me..He was crying. He was... He was a mess.

Shocked at the tone and level of his voice, I froze. Not really knowing what to do.

"Oh really?" He remarked. "Now you shut up? Now that I've said something, you suddenly have nothing to say?"

I opened my mouth, yeah. But words failed me.

"Exactly." He pointed out. "You know, people don't always want others around."

"That doesn't mean they don't need others around."

The son of Poseidon rolled his eyes and sat down again a tree. Annoyed with me.

"I don't need anyone at the moment." Percy informed me, looking at the ground. Tears continued to run, and his voice seemed to just flatten. Like he's given up. "Okay?"

"Bullshit."

"And what makes you say that?"

I sat down next to him.

"I've never been depressed." I confirmed for Percy. "Okay? I've never have to deal with that hell. But I've been to the point where you just don't want to deal with anything and you think that walking away for a while is a good idea and the turns out it's not. It just gives you more problems."

"Yeah, okay, Dr. Luke."

"Seriously." I insisted. "Percy, people are going to give you crap no matter what. It's how you take the crap that depends on how you end up. I was headstrong and took things personally. It didn't end well for me in the case of my dad. But other things ended well. If you learn to ignore the crap—'

He stopped me before I even started that.

"You can't just ignore the crap, Luke." He snapped on me in a calm  once. "When the crap is the only thing you know and the only thing you've heard your entire life, you can't ignore it. You can pretend like you don't hear it. But you do. When people constantly are calling you a freak or a faggot and telling you to kill yourself and you don't know why, you can't ignore it."

He stopped for a second.

"This was my get away, Luke." Percy explained to me. "This was the one place I could go where that wouldn't happen aside at my parents apartment. But now because... Because of this stupid case bullshit that won't be the case. I know how teenagers work. They get mean. They'll hear about this, about the things I do, and they'll get mean. It happens every time. Okay? There's no escaping it anymore."

I gave him a hug and he didn't really do anything. But he didn't push me away, so I guess that was a plus.

"The bullying can't be that bad." I insisted. "At school, it can't be."

Percy shook his head, just keeping it in my lap as he positioned himself lying down.

"It's worse." He told me. "I'm that kid who stays by the wall and tries to not get noticed. Because if I am, it doesn't end pretty. I hide in the bathroom. I eat lunch with the school nurse because she's nurse and I'm there that often. I do everything I can manage so that way I don't have to deal with the name calling and the shoving and beating that I get throughout the day. I graduated. The school did nothing. Now I just get harassed online by the people I graduated with. And it's just.... Not getting better."