I thought I had my shit together
Can't lie, the pills are lookin' temptin'
I thought that I was gettin' better
No, I got better at pretendin'
(Chapter TW's: Same as last chapter—depression, anxiety, underaged drinking, and disordered eating)
Reading it from her perspective, Percy could understand why she'd kissed some random hockey player at a party—she was depressed and lonely and needed a distraction from how much she missed him.
But that didn't stop it from stinging, or stop his stomach from clenching with uncomfortable jealousy.
He knew that he shouldn't be angry or jealous. Him and Cassie weren't even dating. But the thought of her kissing someone else—of someone else kissing her—made those emotions bubble under his skin and a sour taste take up residence in his mouth.
Gods, reading this was a bad idea, he thought, running a hand through his hair.
But he couldn't stop. It was like when Annabeth described being unable to put down a book at night because she had to finish the story.
He had to finish Cassie's journal. He had to finish this story.
It was like his arms physically wouldn't allow him to put it down. And so he continued reading.
Dear Someone,
Josh and I got into an argument last night. It started as what was supposed to be a regular conversation but quickly turned to him lecturing me and then turned into an argument.
He got mad at me for all of the driving and then for being rude to him and Courtney and not respecting their authority and then he got mad at me for the drinking—which he found about because he checked the alcohol fridge and found some of his favorite whiskey missing.
That must've been what him and Courtney were arguing about the other day.
For a few minutes, I sat there silently. I listened to him lecture me about the negative effects of drinking and how he was worried I might be developing a "unhealthy and codependent" relationship with alcohol. I rolled my eyes and continued typing out a text to Kate as he started talking about how he "understood what I was going through but that turning to something like alcohol is never the answer."
But eventually I couldn't keep biting my cheek.
I don't know why I chose that time to make a rude comment. Or why I chose to say that in the first place.
But as he droned on and on about how lucky he and Courtney were to have me in their lives, and how I was a miracle because of Courtney's infertility, I scoffed and muttered, "Yeah, well some things are for the best."
That's when the lecture turned into an argument.
I said some mean things. I knew they were mean. Even before I said them, I knew that I shouldn't say it. I knew when I saw his face. I knew when I heard Drew gasp. I knew when Courtney stepped in and told me to go to my room—the first time they've been civil in days.
But I just got so fucking mad. Mad that he was sitting there trying to claim that he knew what I was going through. Mad that he was judging my coping mechanism. Mad that he was being a hypocrite—judging me when he's been leaving the house and going to bars after almost every fight with Courtney.
I wanted him to hurt. I wanted to make him feel like I've been feeling for years. I wanted him to get angry. I wanted him to say something back to me. For him to confirm my worst fears.
Annabeth called it self-sabotage. She was trying to explain it to me over the phone one day, but then I got upset, and said something mean to her to get her to shut up.
She dropped the topic. And she hasn't brought it up again.
It's a cycle.
1. People try to bring up serious conversations with me.
2. I get upset and say something that hurts their feelings so they'll stop talking.
3. They drop the topic, but they don't forget about what I said. They don't forget about the topic I got so defensive about. And they definitely don't forget about the fact that I never made an attempt to apologize.
Josh won't forget what I told him last night.
Neither will Annabeth. Or Drew. Or Courtney.
But they won't ask me to apologize or bring up how shitty I made them feel when I said it because they're scared that they'll get their feelings hurt again.
So the cycle repeats.
Over and over and over again.
—C.O.R.
Annabeth knew more than she was letting on, was the main thing Percy gathered from reading it. Or maybe not the main thing he'd gathered, but the main thing he'd chosen to focus on.
After that phone call with Drew, he'd tried asking the blonde about how Cassie had been the last few months, and Annabeth hadn't given him a clear answer—"I don't know, I didn't really talk to her", "She seemed fine on the phone", "I'm sure she was fine", etc. etc.
But the way that Cassie talked about her in this entry suggested that Annabeth had known. Or known part of how she'd been at least.
Dear Someone,
Drew won't admit it, but I know that her and Kate have broken up. Kate won't tell me about it either, but the two of them aren't exactly good at hiding it.
I think Drew hoped that maybe if they broke up, I'd stop being friends with Kate. I think she hoped that maybe if they broke up, I would stop the partying and the drinking and the anger and the depression. I think she hoped that if she cut out one bad thing, the rest would follow.
They didn't.
I'm still friends with Kate (or at least, I hang out with her a lot), I'm still going to parties, I'm still drinking, and I'm still angry and sad.
But I don't think cutting Kate out would change any of it. It's not like she's the person making me upset or making me drink. She's just the person enabling me (which at this point, everyone is enabling me).
If anything, her and Kate breaking up has only made me party more. Kate seems to be coping with the breakup by partying harder and more frequently. And of course, she can't go alone, so she drags me with her.
Courtney doesn't like her either. She makes it clear every time I come back home or she catches me texting her when I'm supposed to be listening to her.
But Josh does—although that's probably just because he wants to spite Courtney and not because he actually likes Kate.
And if I'm being honest...maybe that's the only reason why I like Kate too.
Sure, she's nice. And she can be funny when she tries hard enough.
But if she wasn't constantly taking me to parties, then would we still really be "friends"?
Answer: probably not.
Without her giving me the setting I seem to need for me to escape my own mind and emotions for a few hours, she would just go back to being the neighbors granddaughter. If she wasn't the person I can always bring up in an argument to make Courtney or Drew upset, we would go back to being strangers.
I've thought it for a while, but I've never really been able to put it into words.
But writing it down, looking back to read it, and admitting it in my mind, makes me feel really fucking shitty.
I never thought that I would be sitting here and feeling sorry for Kate of all people. But I guess life has a way of surprising you, huh?
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
Nowhere is safe anymore.
His eyes are in the ocean.
His scent is in the salty air.
His voice is in the wind.
His laughter is in the living room—where we laid on the couch watching reruns of Gilmore Girls and laughing about how much Josh seemed to hate him.
His smile is in the pictures hung on my walls, stuck to the fridge, and saved in my phone—smiles that came from happy memories and stupid jokes.
His warmth is in the hoodies I pull over my head everyday and the bed I crawl into every night—the hoodies that used to be his and the bed he once crawled into to prevent my nightmares.
His energy is in the coffee I drink each morning to stay awake throughout the day.
His happiness and humor is in the alcohol that slips down my throat every night to help me sleep and repress my emotions.
His boldness is in the music that blasts through the random house I'm standing in, making me focus on the noise rather than the thoughts coursing through my brain.
And his absence is in the sense of sadness and isolation that crushes me every night before I fall asleep and when I wake up in the morning.
He's fucking everywhere.
And I fucking hate it.
—C.O.R.
Percy closed the journal for a moment, taking a minute to close his eyes and take a deep breath.
Her being in Tartarus was bad, and he knew where she was, and if she was alive. She'd only been gone for around two weeks.
He couldn't imagine if he had had to sit around and wait for her to come back, not knowing if she was alive or where she was, for almost seven months.
That would be torture.
Dear Someome,
This time, it was Courtney who blew up at me. Courtney—the woman that rarely yells, never swears, and cries at the animal shelter commercials on TV—completely exploded today.
I'm not surprised. I've been waiting for it to happen. I just didn't expect for it to be as bad as it did. And I completely expected for her to blow up at Josh, instead of me.
Her and Josh had gotten in a fight the previous night, resulting in Josh leaving, and not coming back the next morning to get ready for work.
I knew that she was on edge, but that part of me that I hate so fucking much only wondered how much pushing it would take to push her over it.
She was trying to talk to me, but I wasn't fully listening to her. I was too busy on my phone, texting Kate to find out when the next party was, or scrolling through some form of social media.
She got frustrated and snapped at me. She made me give her my phone.
That made me angry, and I snapped back at her with some stupid, mean comment.
The argument was brief. She got mad at me for being mean and for constantly partying and for refusing to listen to her.
She got mad at me for acting like a stereotypical teenager.
I tried to argue back—argue that I had every right to act like that when I was cursed and my best friend was missing.
That was the end of the argument. Because then she blew up at me. She said that she knew that I was going through a rough time, but that she had let me live like this for months, and that it was time that I either suck it up or get help.
She yelled at me about how she was trying to keep this family together, despite how much Josh and I seemed to hate her. How she was trying to let me have freedom and independence but that she was done watching me sneak out of the house with Kate, sneak back into my room, and then sulk for days on end.
Then she gave me the ultimatum.
Courtney said that if I wasn't going to get help, and continued to ignore her authority, that she couldn't be my guardian anymore—that I could go back to camp and stay there until I either turned eighteen or died. She told me that she had a therapy appointment scheduled for me in a week, and that if I didn't go, she would send me back to camp and get the papers started for me to emancipate myself.
I didn't get the chance to respond before she stormed out of the room and angrily got started on making dinner in the kitchen.
Doesn't she realize that I hate being this way too?
It's not like I want to be angry and sad and lonely and depressed. It's not like I want to have to drink my feelings away, or kiss a random guy at a party to forgot how much I hate myself for a minute.
I don't want to give Courtney what she wants. I want to continue living how I'm currently living. I don't want to go to this therapy appointment.
But she seems serious about sending me back to camp and pretending I never existed. Drew told me that she heard her Iris-messaging Chiron that night, discussing how to get me back to camp, and that she saw Courtney looking for youth lawyers on her computer one night.
I want Courtney to leave. But I don't want her to be the one to leave.
Because I'm tired of hurting her. But I also know that I couldn't take it if she left me.
Gods, my brain is so fucked up.
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
I will give credit to Dr. Hayden for trying.
It's not her fault that I refused to talk.
She asked me all the right questions.
But as I sat in that chair, trying to listen to her and be normal, I couldn't comb through my thoughts enough to give her a response.
Although, then again, maybe I shouldn't feel bad for Dr. Hayden. Because whether or not I talked, she still gets a nice paycheck from Courtney and one less patient she has to help every week—since she's passed me off to her colleague, Dr. McIntyre.
That's what I am now. A manilla folder that will be passed over to therapist after therapist until I eventually get sick of it and "crack".
So I really should be feeling bad for whoever gets stuck with that folder when I do.
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
I wouldn't be a legacy of Aphrodite if I wasn't good at manipulating people.
No, I'm not trying to say that all children of Aphrodite are manipulative, or that Aphrodite herself is manipulative. But being able to control love and emotions is a very manipulative thing.
I've also spent enough time around children of Aphrodite to know our strengths and weaknesses.
While yes, we do experience our emotions very intensely, and don't always make the strongest fighters, when we get upset, or get pulled into a fight, it gets ugly.
We know how to make every insult hurt. We know how to intensify the bad emotions you're already feeling. For us, it's easy to find the things you're most insecure about or the cracks in your love life and prey on them. It's also easy for some of us to make you think something. To take those insecurities and cracks and use them to control you.
I used Dr. Kylie's to make her think I was perfectly fine.
Courtney gave me another ultimatum before my appointment with her. She told me that if I didn't talk at this appointment, I'd be on the nearest train back to Long Island.
But in that ultimatum, she made a huge mistake. She said I had to talk. Not that what I said had to be true.
For the first ten minutes of my appointment, I made small talk with Dr. Kylie. We talked about the weather, my plans for the weekend, basic get-to-know-you stuff.
Then she started with the questions.
And I lied. I didn't deflect, I just lied.
Sometimes I would slip in a bit of persuasion, or talk about things I knew she would relate to based on those cracks and insecurities, to make her write down exactly what I wanted to.
I picked up on the vibe that either she was going through a divorce or that her parents had gotten one when she was young, since I saw papers on her desk about a name change.
When Courtney had first booked the appointment she was Dr. Kylie-Hernandez.
When I had arrived at the appointment, the name plate on her door said Dr. Kylie.
So I talked a lot about Courtney and Josh fighting. How it was so hard to be caught in the middle of it, and that I was just so worried about them getting divorced.
I also knew she had a daughter, since she had pictures of one hung up by her desk.
So I talked about how I just felt a lot of pressure to make Courtney and Josh proud. That sometimes I felt like I was the person holding the family together.
I saw the way empathy entered her eyes. How she shot me tiny sympathetic smiles and encouraged me to keep talking.
I had noticed the way her eyes had scanned over me and Courtney when she'd greeted us, focusing on the tiny details of our faces and bodies that she wished she had.
So I talked about how sometimes being a woman was just so fucking hard, and that I felt all of this pressure to be perfect and pretty and kind.
And when Courtney came to get me, and Dr. Kylie pulled her aside to discuss what the next steps were, I knew that it'd worked by the way Courtney's expressions turned more confused and irritated. By the way her voice began to slowly rise the more they talked.
I knew that it'd worked when Courtney walked back over to me and said "let's go" as more of an order than a request. When Dr. Kylie smiled at me, her eyes filled with a sort of worry and resignation.
I'd done exactly what I'd wanted to do.
Dr. Kylie had told Courtney that she truly didn't see much going on besides the regular pressures and emotions of a teenage girl. She'd told Courtney that she might be putting a little bit too much pressure onto my shoulders, and that things like fighting and tension at home can cause children to become easily irritated and upset.
She'd said that I seemed to be handling these situations and feelings well, and that we all experience feelings of anxiety and depression but that it doesn't mean we suffer with anxiety or depression disorder.
Courtney's mad. I expected that.
She won't accept Dr. Kylie's words. Won't accept that I'm fine.
Which, yes. Maybe I'm not fine. But what demigod is?
Exactly. Not a single one.
—C.O.R.
The way that she seemed unconcerned about manipulating someone, concerned him slightly.
He knew that Cassie lied quite a bit. Sometimes it was for the good of the cause, and sometimes it was because—as she'd told him last August—lying was easier than telling the truth.
But manipulation was an unexplored territory. She didn't talk about Aphrodite very often, and she almost never talked about the abilities she'd gifted her, let alone use them.
As far as he knew, Aphrodite had only blessed her with charmspeak—which was by far her least used power.
No wonder Drew had warned him about getting into an argument with her. If she could pick up on people's insecurities and problems occurring in their love lives with a simple glance, her insults would be like a knife, stabbing you in every crack in your armor.
There were two more entries that talked about failed therapy sessions and her continued feelings of depression and anxiety. She left out mentions of her curse, but based on the seemingly large gaps between the writing, it wasn't taking a back burner in her life anymore.
Dear, Someone
Currently, I am supposed to be sitting in a small room telling Dr. Rosemary Blanchard how I feel.
And currently, I am sitting outside of a small ice-cream shop, listening to the rain hit my windshield, writing, and drinking a mango-peach smoothie.
I turned my phone off after I decided I wasn't going, but I can assume that Courtney is currently spending her time blowing up my phone.
When I woke up this morning, I did plan on going to my appointment with Dr. Blanchard. But as I started driving, I couldn't bring myself to finish the drive to her office. My head has been killing me since yesterday afternoon, and Annabeth and I got into an argument, making me much more irritated and anxious.
So instead I drove here.
Courtney wants this whole therapy thing to work so she can prove Josh wrong. So she can tell him 'see? Everything is perfectly fine.' She wants to keep worrying about me so that she doesn't have to worry about the fact that her relationship is failing.
And I desperately want her to realize that his isn't going to work. That forcing me to spend and hour every week, sitting in a brightly colored room on an uncomfy couch, trying to ignore the fact that I'm being judged, and being asked questions by a total stranger, isn't going to accomplish anything besides wasting money and time.
No mortal will ever be able to help me cope with what has happened in my life, because they can't even understand what has gone on in my life. The see through a pair of glasses that mask the real horrors from the world because their tiny mortal minds would go insane if they actually saw it.
I also don't need their help in the first place. I might be feeling more angry and depressed than usual but that's because my best friend just went missing almost five months ago. It doesn't mean that anything is wrong with me or that I need professional help for it—just like Dr. Kylie told her a few weeks ago.
But knowing Courtney, she's just going to continue to send me until I eventually give her what she wants. She'll continue to waste the money and time until she wins.
She's so desperate to fix me, that she hasn't even considered the fact that maybe I don't need to be fixed.
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
It's officially been confirmed by a medical professional: I'm a wreck!
I have to give credit to Dr. Thornton for accomplishing something that no one else could. And I guess I should also probably apologize for traumatizing him in the process.
If I'm being completely honest, I didn't listen to Courtney when she explained what he said I showed signs of having or how to treat me moving forward.
But when Drew and I talked last night, she explained that he can't be sure I have any of these disorders until he meets with me further and gives me the proper tests. So now, I have to keep going back to talk to him.
Talk to him about my supposed anxiety and depression and PTSD and insomnia.
Courtney seems unsure about how she's supposed to feel—unsure whether she should be relieved or concerned.
Personally, I feel confused.
I feel confused at the fact that I've spent centuries trying to figure out how I feel inside, and yet after listening to me talk for an hour and half, and reading through that manilla folder Dr. Blanchard passed onto him, this doctor says he knows how to describe it.
Fucking bullshit.
He's suggesting a bunch of different medications to Courtney, that he thinks will help.
I find that pointless.
Because why does any of this shit matter when I'm dying? Why does anyone care if I die anxious and depressed rather than carefree and happy?
Well the answer is that they don't. Not a single person except for Courtney cares.
Or...Courtney said she cared. But I know that she doesn't because she isn't relieved. She's unsure. If she truly cared, she would be happy, since this is what she wanted. She wanted me to get help. Get things off of my chest. So I did.
But she isn't relieved, because now this is complicated. It's hard. And people like things easy.
Just like how people only say that they want your baggage until you give it to them.
Then, they run, and leave one of their bags with you.
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
After a few more appointments with Dr. Thornton all of the prescriptions have finally been sent to the pharmacy.
There's seven different medications total. Two antidepressants. 1 for ADHD. 1 for insomnia. 1 for anxiety. 1 for my anger issues. And 1 for when I'm actively having a panic attack.
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be feeling, but I'm also not sure it's this.
It's not the emptiness, or the irritation, or the hopelessness, or the anxiousness anymore. But it's also not happiness.
Instead it's numbness.
I don't feel bad but I also don't feel good. It's this weird in-between stage that I don't like. In a way, it's similar to the emptiness, but without me constantly thinking that everything I do is pointless.
I'm also not in my head as much. But that doesn't mean I'm fully in reality.
Courtney is constantly snapping her fingers in front of my face, because I keep zoning out, and she also keep commenting about how jumpy I seem.
I don't like the numbness I'm feeling, or how my brain seems to always be fogging up and lowering my sense of alertness.
It's like the point of this medication is to make me feel like a lethargic zombie until I can take my insomnia medication, which practically knocks me out.
And it's not like it's completely gotten rid of my depression and anxiety. Every once in a while, I begin to feel those feelings of anger and sadness again, or have a panic attack.
I told Dr. Thornton all of this when he asked, and he said that it would take a few weeks for me to adjust to the medication, but that if it wasn't better, we could make changes.
Luckily for me, there's only a couple weeks until I go back to camp. A couple more weeks until I can stop pretending that this is working. A couple more weeks until I can stop taking the pills entirely. A couple more weeks until we find Percy. A couple more weeks until we set sail for Greece.
A couple more weeks until things can go back to normal. Or, as normal as it can be.
—C.O.R.
Dear Someone,
Drew and I drove back to Long Island today. Well, Drew did most of the driving. I sat in the passenger seat, flipping through the radio stations and sleeping.
My head has been killing me the past few days, and since my medication still seems to be giving me issues, I don't trust myself behind the wheel for extended periods of time.
Plus, I'd spent the previous night saying goodbye to Kate, which made me tired as hell.
Courtney's been more strict about me hanging out with Kate these past couple months—she hasn't let me go to any parties with her or even leave the house with her, so we don't hang out as frequently. Sometimes she'll come over and we'll watch a movie together, or she'll fill me in on a bunch of gossip while I do her makeup.
But seeing as I might never see her again, Courtney actually let me go out with her last night. I figured we'd just be going to another party, but to my surprise, she brought me to the fair.
And an even bigger surprise was that hanging out with Kate was actually fun. We rode the rides, played the stupid rigged games, and ate funnel cakes and fried Oreo's until our stomachs hurt from all the food and laughing.
She told me about some guy she was hooking up with—and about how she had a crush on said guy's older sister. She talked about her plans for the summer—I guess she's flying down to Arizona to spend time with her mom. And then she complained about how that guy Caleb keeps pestering her about getting my phone number.
Hearing that surprised me. It's been months since I went to that party where I kissed him. Months since I hit what I consider my rock bottom.
Gods, I'm getting really off track here, aren't I?
Annabeth seems to have put all of the rude things I've said to her aside, since the moment I got back to camp, she practically crushed me to death. And despite how much I've tried to ignore it, I've missed her like hell.
Jason said that his memory is pretty much entirely back, although some things are still a little fuzzy. He seems pretty confident that he can lead the ship to the Roman camp. That he can lead us to Percy.
Speaking of the ship, it's almost finished. Annabeth, Leo, and the rest of the Hephaestus cabin are still trying to work out a few more mechanical issues, and quite a bit of the interior still needs to be finished, but other than that, it's ready for the trip to Greece.
And Piper... Lord, don't get me started on Piper.
Drew said that the Aphrodite cabin was good—they welcomed her back with excitement and hugs—but she refuses to talk to Piper. Peyton keeps having to act as a messenger for the two of them, even when they're standing right next to each other.
My cabin is exactly the same as it was six months ago. Not a single thing has changed besides the fact that the clumps of hair I had stuck to my shower wall have fallen onto the floor of my shower.
I visited Sally after I finished unpacking. She filled me in on the little things going on in her life while I ate blue chocolate chip cookies and sipped a coffee.
Paul came back from some meeting he had and we started talking about some random political issue happening in the world, while Sally worked on making dinner for the two of them.
It was nice. I haven't seen either of them in months, and they really are the sweetest. But it hurt a lot too. Knowing that Percy wouldn't walk out of his room and steal cookies or bites of dinner, while Sally smacked his hand away with a smile. To know that he wouldn't take the seat on my left and stare at me when he thought I wasn't paying attention.
I planned on eating dinner at camp, but no normal human being can deny Sally Jackson's cooking, so I stayed and ate with them before making my way back to camp.
Courtney called me a few times today, but I've purposefully been letting it go to voicemail. I don't want to listen to her remind me to take my meds and tell me about the therapy session I'm supposed to have with Dr. Thornton next week via phone call.
She doesn't ask about my life anymore. She only asks about my anxiety and my medication and my eating habits. And I'm getting tired of it. I'm getting tired of being nothing but a problem that needs to be fixed.
Plus, I hate lying to her all the time. Had I answered, I would have been forced to lie and say that I've been remembering to take my medication and that it's working like it should be, when in reality I've only been taking my meds I need to in the morning these past few days so I can have energy in the afternoon.
And I've been fine. I've been happy.
See? Problem solved.
—C.O.R.
He read the next few entries about the weeks leading up to the start of the quest. About the flying she was doing in the mornings with Jason, and helping Leo finish the ship. They seemed like normal diary entries—a drastic difference from the previous ones.
The one page that cause his eye was written the day after she had had that panic attack and had a single sentence written on it.
Dear Someone,
Maybe I'm not okay.
—C.O.R.
There was only one more page with words on it. Written the day before he'd found her sobbing on the floor of her bathroom. Right before they'd arrived in Rome. Right before everything had gone wrong.
Reading it was...challenging. Hearing the way she talked about being afraid of herself not knowing who she was. The way she felt like she was going to burn out, comparing herself to a dying candle.
He shut the journal, his eyes beginning to burn with tears. He couldn't read this. Couldn't look at the words on the paper that told such a sad and tragic story. Couldn't do it, knowing that he was part of the reason. That his absence had made her fall into such a deep and dark place.
He shouldn't have read it, knowing what he knew. Knowing what it would say. Knowing that he couldn't do anything to help her right now. That Cassie didn't want to be helped in the first place.
Courtney had tried. She'd done her best to help. She'd gotten her to go to therapy. Gotten her to take medication. Tried to fix her. And it hadn't worked.
Nothing would work unless Cassie was willing to try. And she would never be willing to try, because she didn't think she needed help. She was fine being where she was, feeling how she did, lying to herself.
And thinking about that made Percy come to a realization that no one else had.
Maybe Cassie didn't need someone to try and fix her.
She just needed somebody to love her.
╰┈ ⋆｡˚ ❀ *· 🌬 ࿐ ࿔ ˚:⋆ ✧･ﾟ
author's note:
I actually hate this chapter so much, but I need to get this updated so...yeah.
Last Percy chapter of this act! Originally, this chapter wasn't going to exist, and I was going to combine this one and last one, but seeing as both of those chapters are over 4500 words, I split it up into two.