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CHAPTER THIRTY TWO the last night
VERONA ( CAMP HALF BLOOD )
June passed by in the blink of an eye.
Literally. She had blinked and June was beyond them, a series of memories of campfire songs, capture the flag games, busy dinner rushes and the crying that came with the return of the summer campers, particularly in the Aphrodite cabin, where this would be the first real summer without Hart present and returning from Ohio for the season. It dimmed the prospects, but they had worked through it — well, most of them had. Catarina had shut herself off, if there could be a word to describe what she looked like. The blonde had completely decided to ignore the fact that Hart was gone, not wanting to face her reality and instead had immersed herself in helping out the Apollo cabin in the Infirmary, suddenly interested in medicine and healing. She looked deader than she had last summer, in the nicest way. Verona had noticed her deteriorating over the year while the rest of them got better. Her hair if possible had become slightly lighter, in a pale, dim soft of way, her eyes had become rimmed red more than white, as though she hadn't been sleeping enough, and her smile had turned into a small frown.
Yet, she seemed unready to speak about anything to do with Hart, so she had shied away from all contact to do with grief in the slightest.
Verona got it, she really did.
She had grown up with Silena as her own version of Hart, though if it was possible, a slightly closer version. Though her sister was only one year older than her, in a place like Camp Half Blood it felt like she held the knowledge of five more years. One year at Camp was equivalent to an eighth of a lifetime of knowledge, you learned more in three months than most mortal kids did in their whole lifetime. Silena had, in every metaphorical and practical way, become Verona's family, whole heartedly and without any backing away, and when she left for college this year, Verona would be sad to see her go. Nonetheless, she knew that if there was one person that would stick by her for the rest of her life, it was her older sister.
Silena and her were in it together until they day they died, as they had promised each other one afternoon while sparring on the gym mats in the arena.
July came with an explosion of fireworks.
The fourth of July, campers spread out around the Long Island Shore on everything from beach towels to tiny chairs, gathering around with their dates, their siblings or simply on their own and watching as the Hephaestus cabin released into the air a series of fireworks telling stories of past heroes once again. They lit up in the sky in every possible colour, illuminating faces in hues of orange to purple and tones of pink and blue. They moved, telling stories of supposed heroes who had saved the gods and Olympus, stories the campers could relate to more than any mortal one. Last year, the fireworks had started with the story of Jason and the Argonauts.
