Invisible ― Jason Grace

ii. camilla makes a choice

"OKAY," HAZEL SAID as she and Frank followed Camilla back to the barracks. "What was that?" 

"What was what?" Camilla asked, playing dumb to hide her complete embarrassment and unjustified heartache. 

Hazel rolled her eyes. "You know what I'm talking about, Milla," she said. "You haven't spoken to Jason since the warship got here. What's wrong?" 

"Nothing's wrong!" Camilla insisted, a little too quickly. 

Hazel gave her an unimpressed look. "Seriously? You practically ran away from him." 

Camilla huffed a sigh. "I just got... nervous, I guess." 

"Nervous about what?" Frank said, ever the oblivious when it came to relationships of any sort. 

"What if he doesn't want to be my friend anymore?" Camilla asked, chewing on her lip to keep it from quivering. "What if the eight months away were the best months he ever had because I wasn't in them? What if—" 

"Whoa, slow down, Milla," Hazel said gently. "You can't know any of that. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to come up with answers on your own." 

"But he looks so... happy now," Camilla mumbled. "And that girl, Piper, they seem so close, and—" 

"You're wondering if they're together?" Frank asked. 

Hazel smacked his arm lightly. "Frank!" she hissed. 

"What?" he said, half-confused and half-defensive. 

"No, he's right," Camilla groaned. "She's so pretty it's not fair. And it's not fair for me to say it's not fair. Of course he'd fall in love with someone so pretty and so cool! I mean, did you see how she shut Octavian up, of course Jason would—" 

"Are we going to just ignore the way he glared at Percy the entire time up until he found out you were siblings?" Hazel interrupted. 

Camilla's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?" 

Hazel looked up at her with an incredulous look on her face. "You seriously missed that? He and Annabeth totally thought you and Percy were into each other." 

Camilla gagged. "That's disgusting, we're brother and sister!" 

"Yeah, but they didn't know that," Hazel reminded her. "I mean, seriously, Milla, you missed the dirty looks Annabeth was sending you from across the table?" 

"Wha—I just thought she didn't like me," Camilla admitted with a meek shrug. "She wouldn't be the first." 

"Milla, everyone likes you," Frank said. 

Camilla raised an eyebrow. "My mother certainly doesn't," she grumbled.

Hazel wrapped a comforting arm around Camilla's shoulders as they reached the Fifth Cohort barracks. "Everyone who matters likes you," she amended. "Now, come on—let's pack up."

◈

For once, Camilla's procrastinator genes were a virtue. Her bag from their quest for Thanatos was still mostly packed, save for the dirty clothes and the empty Ziploc bag of rations. Still, she wasn't sure a single backpack would be enough for a quest to Europe, so she switched her previous supplies—including her bracelet stuff, obviously—to a bigger duffel bag and went to work packing intact clothing. 

She slid a her pugio into the side pocket of her bag, then double-checked her hand to make sure her ring was still there. As resentful as she was that it had come from her absentee father, she had to admit she didn't want to part with it. With her old gladius lost somewhere in the Amazon warehouse, it was her only sword.