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Chapter 18 - Garden Soil Heals Emotional Wounds
Leo couldn't have thought his life could be any crazier. At least, until he got his soulmate tattoo.
The problem was, Leo fell in love with almost every pretty girl he saw. Like, when he first met Thalia through Annabeth and Piper, he thought they were meant to be. And then he found out that Thalia's soulmate was dead. Then, the same thing happened with Reyna. The feelings went away soon enough, but it still hurt that he didn't even have a soulmate. When he met Annabeth, he was way too scared to try anything, in fear she would judo flip him, or punch him all the way to Mexico.
And then he met Calypso two weeks ago. By accident, obviously, but a miraculous accident. Even though he almost gave her a concussion with his hammer.
With other girls, Leo felt attracted to their looks and the fact that they were way out of his league. But it was different with Calypso, sure she was beautiful and also out of his league, but he felt a strong urge to protect her from other boys and felt a flare of jealousy when he saw other boys staring at her. It was a new feeling, and it scared Leo a lot.
So when the first thing Leo saw in the morning while he was stretching in the bathroom was a pair of tattoos on his left wrist, he couldn't help but shriek.
Leo tried running out of the bathroom but ended up slipping on a towel and landing face-first into the carpet.
"Ow," Leo groaned as he sat himself up on his elbows and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his nose.
Then, excitement overcame the shock, and he jumped up faster than you could say "soulmate" and literally flew down the stairs and into the kitchen. Hephaestus was sitting at the kitchen table and working intently on a blueprint. When Leo came and sat across from him, his dad pushed a plate of pancakes towards him, barely looking up.
"Hey dad, guess what?" Leo said with his mouth full of pancakes.
"Don't talk while your eating son," Hephaestus grumbled, "What is it?"
Leo swallowed his food and continued, "I got my soulmate tattoos."
Hephaestus's head snapped up in surprise, "Really?"
Leo nodded and rolled his sleeve up a little bit to show the pair of tattoos inlaid on his wrist. A basket that was full of flowers and a gardening shovel. They weren't all that vague, all Leo had to do was stand on top of the table at lunch and ask (read: yell) if anyone likes gardening.
Hephaestus clapped, "By the gods Leo, this is great! You've always wanted a soulmate, haven't you? I bet all my worth that it's that Calipio girl next door."
Leo's face turned red from embarrassment, "It's Calypso, dad! And how would you know if she likes gardening?"
Hephaestus snorted, "Because I have eyes, boy. Every morning, while you're still sleeping in, she's out in her front garden watering the plants and tending to the flowers."
Leo rolled his eyes, "Maybe that's another girl you're seeing. I doubt Calypso is my soulmate, and she probably doesn't even like gardening."
~~~~~~~~~~
Turns out Leo was wrong, and Calypso did like working with plants and getting dirty.
He decided to go on a walk because the weather was so nice today, and he liked the smell of fresh air and the crunch of leaves beneath his feet and-
Actually, his dad kicked him out of the house, saying he needed some air that wasn't infested with smoke.
This is coming from him, Leo thought idly, The person who leaves the house once in a millennia.
A little ways away, Leo spotted a community garden. Covered with fences to keep out the rabbits and mice eating away at the plants. He thought, why the heck not. Might as well try to get used to what his soulmate liked to do.
The gate creaked as Leo opened it, and creaked again when he shut it. There didn't seem to be anyone inside, and he was about to leave when he heard some rustling coming from the other side of a row of bushes. Leo stood on his tippy toes and managed to see a head of caramel-colored hair braided down one shoulder. The girl's head was down as she concentrated on pulling something out of the ground, so Leo couldn't make out the face.
He decided to approach her and walked to the other side of the tall bushes and shrubbery. The girl was humming a sweet tune, which sounded suspiciously like "The Schuyler Sisters" from Hamilton.
He accidentally stepped on a twig and when it snapped, the girl's head jerked up so fast that Leo winced watching it.
Gods, he thought, that whiplash must feel horrible.
She winced and rubbed the back of her neck and opened her eyes to see who sneaked up on her. Leo would recognize those almond-shaped eyes anywhere.
"Calypso?" Leo asked, surprised, using all his resistance to not look at his wrist.
"Leo?" Calypso responded, standing up and wiping the sweat off her face, "What are you doing here?"
Leo didn't know what to say, so he decided to tell the truth.
"Actually, I got my soulmate tattoos today. And they are gardening tools, so I came here," Leo said, trying not to sound weird.
Calypso nodded and said her congrats to him and went back to pulling weeds out of the ground. Leo felt awkward just standing there and not doing anything while Calypso got sweaty gardening, so he asked if he could help.
"Sure," she said with a blinding smile that made Leo want to melt right into the ground and stay there.
Leo got down onto his knees and started pulling out things from the ground. He kept glancing over to see what Calypso was doing and trying to follow her example. He tried to pull something out of the ground, and Calypso laughed and told him to only pull out weeds and that he'd pulled out a flower. Leo couldn't really spot the difference between the green weed and the green flower. He was no good with organic life forms, being around machines, and his dad (who was 90% machine too) all the time.
Calypso was pretty fun to talk to, and she also had a quick tongue of her own. If Leo said something stupid, which was a lot, then she would snort or scoff and retort quickly as a whip. Her bubbly laughter was contagious, and Leo could see the love she had for gardening in her eyes and the way she handled plants.
They were laughing at something Leo said when an ambulance interrupted them. Leo craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the truck.
There was a kid on a stretcher, black and blue bruises all over his or her body, and bleeding in various places. It was a horrible sight to behold because this was a kid. Not even over 18 yet, they still had a lot of life to live. Mutilated beyond belief, some of them died from their wounds.
And the mayor wasn't hearing any of it. All of the news stations have downplayed the disasters, made it seem like not a big deal, and none of the police are investigating it. The number of kids this had happened to was substantially larger than what was said on news channels.
Leo frowned at the ambulance and looked back down and tried to forget what he saw when he heard sniffling next to him. He turned to stare at Calypso in surprise as tears rolled down her cheeks and she blew her nose on a handkerchief.
"Oh gosh, uh...um," Leo stammered.
Leo didn't know what to do. Here was a girl, one he had a crush on, who was crying and he was just standing there like an idiot. It was times like these when Leo wished he had people skills.
"Uh, are you okay?" he asked Calypso, laying a hand on her shoulder.
That didn't calm her down at all. She started blubbering and Leo started freaking out. He didn't understand anything she was saying, but he was afraid that if he tried to stop her, she would slap him or something.
"Oh man, Calypso," Leo said, talking over her, "Please, I can't understand you. Just calm down, and then tell me what's wrong."
Calypso shuddered and started taking deep breaths, which seemed like a good sign to Leo. He rubbed her back but didn't say anything, for fear she would start crying again. Finally, after she was fresh out of tears, he started talking.
"Okay," he breathed, "What was that?"
Calypso shrugged, and when it seemed like she wouldn't say anything, she opened her mouth.
"If I tell you," she started, then stopped, only continuing when Leo prompted her to speak further, "Do you swear not to tell anyone?"
"I swear on the River Styx."
So Calypso spilled all the toxic thoughts that had been building up in her head for a while. She told Leo about her dad, and her sister, and how every kid on the stretcher looked more and more like her sister each time. A little part of her brain tried to reason that she only knew Leo for a couple of weeks now, and she shouldn't be telling him anything. But she really needed to tell someone, she couldn't keep it cooped up inside her any longer. And Leo was the only person who would listen.
Most other people who saw her crying would look at her annoyed, give her a tissue, and walk away. Probably thinking, Stupid depressed teenager, I have to get to work!
When she finished, Leo was silent. He didn't say "I'm sorry" or look at her with pity, which she was glad about. Slowly, he started telling her about his mom. And how she died in a garage fire because of a gang woman with evil-looking lipstick. He told her about his fire addiction, and pulled off his gloves and rolled up his sleeves to show her the burn marks.
When he finished, Calypso gave him a big hug, and Leo returned it gratefully. There weren't any words said. There didn't need to be. Each other's company was enough.
None of them mentioned it, but they both felt a bond between them grow stronger. Somewhat like a soulmate bond.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hazel's feet swung back and forth, hitting the sofa on every backswing. She was staring at the ceiling with nothing to do while they waited for their dad.
Nico was sitting next to her, trying to see if he could fit an entire Crayola marker in his mouth sideways, with the cap on thank goodness.
The silence in the room was unbearable, with the only noises being the air conditioning whirring in the background, Hazel's legs hitting the sofa, the clock ticking, and the clack of the marker against Nico's teeth.
The door opened so suddenly that Nico almost choked on the marker. Hazel jumped up from her seat and turned to the door.
A man with slicked-back black hair and a tired and weary expression came in, with a beautiful tan-skinned woman after him. Hazel could clearly remember how healthy her father had looked when she first came to live with them. Then he threw himself into his work after Hazel's mother and Bianca died, leading to a very unhealthy pallor and sunken eyes.
Hades owned a jewelry and mining company, and that's where he met their stepmother Persephone. She seemed like a kind motherly person from her features and stature, but she mildly disliked Hazel and Nico because they were born from two different mothers.
He came home every night, unlike Jason and Thalia's dad and stepmother, but he was always too busy to talk to them or even give food to them. Persephone would make them dinner, which is one of the only reasons why they even tolerated her.
"Hazel, Nico," Hades said tiredly, surprising Nico and Hazel. He barely addressed them at all, much less by name. They had started to keep track of how many days had gone by without their father speaking to them.
"Yes, father?" Nico answered, confused.
"We have something to tell you," Hades continued, and Persephone came and stood next to him, "You're stepmother and I are going to be away for the next week on a business trip. You two are going to have to stay at home alone."
Then he left the room, Persephone trailing after him. Hazel and Nico exchanged a look. They knew they shouldn't have even hoped that Hades would spend time with them. He never did.
Hazel wasn't too worried about staying home alone, she had Nico. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nico bit his lip. She recognized it as something he only did when he was nervous.
Hazel turned to face him, "What's wrong? You have that expression on again?."
Nico flinched, "I have something to do Monday after school. Will asked me if I wanted to go out after school, and we won't be returning until late in the night."
Hazel didn't see what the big deal was at first, but then realized she would have to stay in this creaky creepy apartment alone all night.
"I can cancel it if you want me to stay, I'll just go call Will," Nico said, backing up to the phone in the corner of the room.
"No!" Hazel exclaimed, "No, don't do that. That's unfair to you. I'll just... think of something before the weekend is over."
"Oh," Nico said, his hand falling down from the phone, "Okay, but if you change your mind, just tell me."
Then he too left the room, leaving Hazel alone with her thoughts.
-Blossom ;)