Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Percico)

Chapter Eleven

Bianca

I had asked Nico if there was any strange rules my girlfriend should know about beforehand. For either him or Percy, because Percy was coming with. And he sent me the weirdest response.

Yeah, don't try to high five Percy. Or raise your voice a lot. I doubt the latter will happen. But just in case.

So I warned her about that and asked Nico why we can't do that. I like high fives.

Anxiety and shit. He explained to me. It's weird, but it's a trigger. I haven't expierenced the high five myself. But I expierenced the yelling because I was blowing off steam one day and I felt like a very shitty boyfriend when he was on the verge of an anxiety attack after that. So just don't do it. Please.

I assured him I wouldn't.

Percy

Life became interesting at lunch. We met with her girlfriend, and I thought she looked a little familiar.

She introduced us. To fucking Nancy Bobofit. Who was here girlfriend. And fun fact: when I'm not at camp, I'm like the cover of punk rock. If my mom would let me dye my hair, it'd be complete.

I wasn't punk in the 6th grade. So she only thought I shared a name.

"I knew this kid back in middle school," she explained why she was just kind of taken back by that name. "Sixth grade. Percy Jackson, he was new to Yancy. I was never close to him, though. We actually hated each other. It was dumb. He had one friend. Grover. Grover never came back to Yancy and Percy got expelled. Nobody likes him because I don't know why. But he never did put himself out there. I heard he went missing the next summer. Never heard if they found him or not."

"That's kind of sad." Bianca didn't connect that it was me and Grover.

"Yeah," Nancy agreed. "I hope he's doing okay. I heard he had a shitty home life from somebody. Maybe overheard one of our teachers talking about it. I don't know. That'd be sad, though. If he died."

I'm not crying. I'm balling up my emotions and looking like I really don't care.

"What do you mean?" Nico was out to find out shit I don't tell him. "He had a bad home life?"

She shrugged.

"Kids always picked on him because his dad wasn't around." Nancy told the three of us, but mainly the Hades kids. "I never really pegged on his home life. I think he might've been abused, too. I don't know. I asked a friend once and she laughed. Said if he was, he had it coming."

She let out a huff of air.

"Whatever that means."

I didn't say anything.

"That's just cruel," I didn't like to think about that kind of stuff. Not anymore. It hurts and I'm supposed to have a good time. But Bianca insisted on talking about this furthermore. "I hope he's okay, too."

He's not.

"Anyways," Nico noticed how uncomfortable I was getting, thank gods. "How did you guys meet?"

To be honest, I zoned out most of the conversation just trying to keep myself under control. I didn't think it's be hard. But it is. Because life sucks, and I don't know what to do about it.

I can go to therapy, but with what what money? My family is broke. In more ways than just one. Because fucking Paul had to leave and leave his kid just to do the same thing to her that my dad did to me.

My dad...

Fucking hate him.

By the time I started paying attention, Nico and Bianca weren't there. We already had our food. Most of it was gone.