Close Your Eyes (Percico)

So Big, So Small

Nico

Fredric ate dinner was us, he was a really nice kid. Percy told me that him and Finn have been friends for a while, Fredric has problems with depression. Problems his mom refuses to help with. Which is sad.

I kind of deal with depression. It's not as bad anymore. I mean, that one month was really shitty, but that wasn't just depression. Depression just made it worse.

Yeah, I tried to kill myself a few months ago when Carlos wasn't home. He was at a school event, I'm not sure what, I didn't really care enough to know what it was at the time. He was out of the house a lot.

For a few years, he strayed away from me and I strayed away from him. I was still his dad, I fed him, made sure he'd be home at a good time, drove him places and all. He was just about to turn 13. He was in middle school. Which is just a bad time.

And I tried to reach out to Hazel for help, it had been a really shitty week and Carlos wasn't home for the weekend, he was with a friend I didn't have the heart to say he couldn't go because their parents are super strict and they'd planned it all out a month ahead of time.

But Hazel refused and she made me feel worse about myself and she told me to go kill myself.

So I tried to kill myself. I was really lucky that Carlos had to come home and get his stuff before heading to his friends house. They found me in my room. His friend did, I guess. I was already out cold.

He lived with Sally and Paul got a month before I could prove to a judge that I could take care of my kid and of me and ever since then I think he's been afraid to drift away from me or to let me drift from him. We've been really close ever since that happened.

That was actually how he found out about having an aunt. I never talked about her before. What was the point? She was never around.

But of course, my phone was open and I guess they called Hazel and she wasn't very happy with the call. Didn't even get to know that it was her nephew and his friend.

So yeah. That's what happened. I haven't tried anything close to that since. I cut maybe twice. Once was during a flashback in Tartarus, though.

It didn't occur to me that I haven't told Percy about it yet. Until after dinner, that was. The boys went to their rooms, Luana, Paul, and Sally were doing something in the living room. I was in our room when Percy walked in and gave me a hug from behind.

"Hey," he said, sounding slightly worried, but not overly so. "You doing okay?"

"Hm? Yeah!" I insisted, putting my hands over his and smiling, even though he couldn't see it that well. "I'm doing pretty good, why? Are you alright?"

"Mhm," my boyfriend assured me. "I just like to make sure. With Fredric here, it brought back to memory what happened a few years ago."

"What?" I asked him, because we haven't talked about it.

"You know," Percy said in an almost awkward tone. "When you like, tried to kill yourself?"

"Oh, ye—"

And then I realized that I haven't told him about that yet. I was going to, and then I got wrapped up in that whole month of January and it didn't happen.

"Babe," I recalled, confused on how he obtained this information. "I don't think I ever said anything about that. I was going to. And then the month of January happened. What... Did Carlos tell you?"

"Hm? Oh, no." He agreed with what I said, that I never told him. "when it happened, the hospital called me because I'm not really sure why. They probably had a camp medical file and my number might've been there, I don't know. But I was called about it, they wanted me to take Carlos. I said I couldn't, I was in another continent, and gave them my mom's number."