Nico

Whoever said feeling like this was normal, fuck you.

I don't want... I just... I think my arms might be bleeding but I don't really know and I guess I don't care. It didn't matter.

He's gone. He's dead. And I can't even summon him because fucking Will and he freaked out and...

I never got to tell him. Never got to hug him. Never got to kiss him. Never got to tell him how much he meant to me.

And unless I kill myself and end up at the same place he's at, I'll never get to.

But if I kill myself, what happens?

I mean he... Fucking selfish. He spent his whole fucking life worrying about everyone else until he died. And then he didn't care and...

Now I'm in at 3 AM, debating whether or not I should kill myself right now.

Trying to write something so they don't... So they know. My hand was shaking and I couldn't... Couldn't write and even I tried and... It just sounded dumb. After like four attempts I threw my pen down and slammed my desk before realizing I should be quiet. Frank and Hazel are still here.

If it wasn't for Frank, Hazel, I wouldn't do this. Maybe. I don't know. If Hazel was alone, maybe it'd be different.

But maybe doesn't mean shit.

He wouldn't want this.

The thought invaded my head like the Romans did a few weeks ago. It's not... This is fucking fair. I shouldn't have to feel like this. Just because I didn't... He had a girlfriend. What was I supposed to do?

I could've...

I was an asshole. I am an asshole.

It's my fault, right? That he did it? Because he thought that I didn't... It was my fault. He died because of me.

At least this day my death is in my hands and not some sick fucker.

Sitting down, leaning against the wall, I grabbed the orange bottles. They were old. Antidepressants from... When Bianca... That. There was 9 left. Just enough.

Nobody gives a shit.

I struggled to open it, shaking the entire time. My arms were still bleeding. It wasn't that bad.

I'm fine.

Downing the pills in one go, small sobs started to form and I covered my mouth with my pillow.

I couldn't... Can't fucking... And he's... He's gone. I can't bring...

I never got to tell him when he was alive. So I'll do it when we're both dead. When... When...

My vision started to blur. Whether that was from the tears or the pills, I didn't really care. I wanted this to be over.

He just... Want... I just want him here so he can... So I can tell... That I love...

Trying to maybe speed this thing up, I grabbed the knife I stole from the dining hall tonight and I... Cut my... Arms and my uh.. stomach? It felt like my stomach.

Before i got much further, my mind fogged up and that was all I remembered. Excruciating pain. Emotionally, not so much physically.

That was it.

Leo

Breakfast seemed kind of quiet, or like emptier and it took me a while to figure out why.

Nico wasn't there. Like, it's weird, without Percy. Annabeth went back home. She's taking it hard. We all kind of are. But she was his girlfriend and he... I mean, he killed himself. Here. At camp.

He shot himself. When that didn't work, he cranked up the IV before he went to bed and that was it.

That was a week ago.

Everyone else was here that was year round. Well, Piper and Jason leave tomorrow. Jason's going to a public school. Hazel and Frank are supposed to go back to Camp Jupiter tomorrow, too. So it'll be me. Nico. Which will be weird.

Hopefully I'll make friends. Nico's cool, I guess. I just weird vibes and I feel out of place around him.

"Did Nico sleep in?" Jason asked Frank and Hazel, knowing we were all wondering. Every once in a while, I looked over at Will or Grover. Will looked exhausted. Like he might've been crying. Grover just looked like shit. I felt bad for both of them.

"I think so, but I guess we didn't really look this morning." Hazel answered, shrugging. "He said he was gonna go stay with Dad for like a week, so maybe he left early. You know how it is."

"Yeah," Piper agreed. "It's just not like him to miss breakfast."

I offered to go check up on him and... Well, he wasn't in his room.

Having a mini heart attack, I found Will after breakfast, walking towards the infirmary.

"Hey, Will, quick question." I said, trying not to be too hyper for his energy level. "Do you know where Nico is? He's like not in his room and it's probably not a big deal but I don't want to freak Hazel out."

He looked sorry for me. Like there was bad news. So I followed him to the infirmary.

We walked a few minutes inside and stopped at an urgent care room. He opened the door and we stepped inside. Nico was there.

I kind of went in shock by how shitty he looked. Nico had been fine all week. He probably took the news about Percy the best out of us. Not like great. But he cried like maybe the one time and that was it.

"What...?" I was suddenly really confused and didn't know what to think of this. He was asleep. His arms were covered in cuts.

"I went to get him for breakfast," Will explained to me. "It was early, but that was the plan. It was like 5:30. We were gonna go on a run and then eat and I walked in his room and he was on the floor and... he had antidepressants that were like 2 years old and he was bleeding from his arms and stomach and he wasn't responding and um... I tried to wake up Hazel and Frank, they wouldn't budge. So I took him here and they did scans and they figured it was somewhere around 10 pills that he took all at once and for whatever reason he tried to kill himself and..."

Will stopped himself. It's not unknown to me, or to Nico, that Will likes him. Will deals with it. He knows Nico's straight. He's okay with it. He just tries to like be his friend and like help him and I guess that didn't work out.

I mean, he just said that Nico tried to kill himself.

"He tried..." I said, my voice failing. "So is he gonna..."

"He'll be fine." Will insisted, nodding his head. I hoped he was right. This would crush Hazel. "He's in a coma but... It is what it is. He's alive. I'm trying to like get ahold of his mom.or whoever he used to live with but... No luck so far."

I offered to go get Hazel and the others so he didn't have to search. They were still eating. Waiting for me.

He agreed that it was a good idea. So I walked back. In shock. Lost my appetite.

"Was he in the cabin?" Hazel asked me and Jason saw my expression and suddenly he had a lot of reasons to look worried.

"No, but I found him." I told him. "Come on."

They all followed me, and when we got to the infirmary, Hazel stopped.

"Are you sure?" She asked me.

"I'm sure."

We walked in. Found his room. Jason noticed pretty quickly that it was urgent care.

Hazel noticed his arms pretty quick. That he was asleep.

"What happened?" It was a legit question, coming from his sister.

Will told them what he knew. He tried to overdose and cut himself up. They didn't find a note or anything. A bunch of torn up papers that only had a word or two on them. Most of which said sorry. Outside of those papers, the knife, and the bottle, his room had been cleaned really nice. He was in a coma state. They have no idea how long it'll last. People never commit suicide here and suddenly it's twice in a week.

Hazel lost it, of course. Frank took her outside to help calm her down. Piper was... She was shocked. Like I was a few minutes ago.

Jason wasn't. He looked disappointed. Kind of guilty. Like he understood.

Will walked out. So it was the... Well, three of us. Piper went with Will, she had questions. Including Nico, it was three.

"Are you okay?" I asked my best friend, knowing he knew Nico a lot better than I ever have. "I know he was like kind of your friend and... You don't looked surprised."

"That's because I'm not." Jason confirmed, just looking at Nico's still body. "I was kind of waiting for him to text me or show up in the middle of the night because he was having a hard time."

"Why?" I asked, confused. "I mean, he wasn't close to Percy so this last week hasn't been too bad—"

Jason gave me a look like I didn't know what I was talking about.

"What?" I asked again.

"It's not... Wasn't like that." Jason corrected his tense, which was depressing. "Nico's made remarks to me before about the whole what if thing. He said if Percy died he didn't know what he'd do with himself. And I mean, he watched him do it. Nico was there when Percy... I found him hunched over Percy's body, yelling at him wake up. It wasn't funny. I grabbed him and called Chiron, telling him what happened. He already knew when everyone found out. I knew he... I didn't think he'd get this had this fast."

"You knew he what?"

Jason looked at me as if I didn't really want to know.

"Jason, he tried to kill himself over the fucking situation." I pointed out the 16 year old in a coma. "He didn't leave a note. You knew he what?"

"I knew he cared about Percy." Jason explained to me like it was this big secret he wasn't supposed to tell. "Like... Fuck you up give a shit. He told me that even with Hazel, it felt like Percy was all he had most of the time. Percy was his solid Rock. He kept him at bay. Stable. Whatever. He didn't want to make things weird so he kept Percy at a distance and I hated that. I told him it wasn't a good idea. He should talk to him. But he..."

Jason shrugged.

"I mean, Nico loved Percy." My best friend told me as if Nico we're gay or something like that. "Like, hardcore. He was— is, gay. He's not dead. He's right there. But he had such a hard time being able to accept it because it was Percy and Annabeth was there and he never had the nerve to talk to him about it. He said he would like as soon as he could say it in the mirror. He was almost there once we got back here."

"And then Percy killed himself." I finished off the story. "With Nico as witness."

"Yeah."

For a moment, it was quiet. But then I remembered what will told me about his family.

"They're trying to contact his parents." I told Jason, hoping he might know. "Will said they haven't found—"

"He doesn't have any family." Jason confirmed what I kind of suspected of Nico a while ago. "His mom died when he was younger. No other known relatives. That's why Percy and Hazel were so significant to him. His older sister died a couple years ago. I think Annabeth might've known her. That or Thalia."

So that's why he was so... Just like him. He was still grieving.

I kind of felt like an asshole.

"It's okay," Jason insisted. "He didn't tell me, either."