My Life without You

My name is Atlanta Hunter. I'm twenty-three years old and my boyfriend just killed himself three months ago to save the world...

'I can still remember the last time I saw him, only it wasn't him; it Kronus. And even after all he put me through; I still love him, even in death. I don't care if anyone resents me for that relationship, I will never stop loving him. Even my mother can't stop me.

'Most people think I'm over him, but I'm not; I never will be. I'm not crazy enough to revive him either; patterns repeat and I'm not repeating Orpheus and Eurydice. I'm going to live my life as long as I am allowed. I'm going to die at twenty-five anyway. It has been planned since I was born. I never told anyone, not even Luke. No one knows...well, maybe Chiron might, I'm not sure though.

'Gods, I miss him. I miss virtually everything about him: his eyes, smile, caring nature, and his gorgeous, gorgeous body. I can still remember how his muscular, invulnerable chest felt under my hand, tracing the muscles and feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. I remember thinking how I never wanted that moment to end. I remember every time I was close to him, even though the last time was almost two years ago.

Two years...I didn't realise it had been that long. I was with him two summers back, but it wasn't him, I mean it was him but it wasn't. Argh! I can't say it...it... wasn't the Luke I feel in love with.

It seems like yesterday that my life perfect and I had everything that I needed at my side. *sigh* How things can change...'

"Atlanta..." A voice brought me out of my train of thought. "Atlanta, are you awake?" I opened one of my eyes, one of my new, creepy eyes.

I loved my eyes, so did Luke, 'greener than a forest in spring and brighter than the stars at night' he had said. I loved my eyes. That all changed yesterday. I lost them, not literally (that would be seriously disturbing). They were burned out of my sockets. That hurt more than anything I could have ever imagined; more than my many run-ins with hellhounds, more than Ladon and, dare I say it, even more than Luke betraying me. They've been replaced with these 'wonderful' 'hunter's' eyes; a colour reserved for a full moon and vertical slit pupils for the most experienced hunters. They're fantastic, but I hate them.

I opened my other eye. It was Katie. "No." I sat up and looked at the clock at my bedside. 'Thanks Katie. Thanks for interrupting my thoughts at midnight.' I swung my legs off the bed I had been lying on. "What do you want?" I asked standing up and moving towards the window. 'Brilliant! I can see in the dark.'

"I, erm, was wondering, err, if you were okay and, erm, that sort of stuff..." she stumbled over the words. I looked round. She was looking seriously nervous. "That's a lie, isn't it?" She nodded. I sighed. "What did you really want to ask me about?" She stared at the floor, her cheeks becoming the same colour as her hair. "Erm, I was going to ask about..." She looked up at my, as if she had only just realised something. "Why weren't you asleep when I 'woke' you?" I raised one of my fiery eyebrows. "Really?"

"No, but it's a valid question." She'd got me there. I looked back at the stars. I can name each one and know its position in the sky at any time of year. "I guess I was thinking and lost track of time." I looked back round.

"What about?"

"Erm...The usual." She didn't believe me. I gave in. "Fine. I was thinking about Luke."

"Atlanta, again? You know he isn't coming back don't you?" I looked back out the window.

"I know that," I twisted my head round so sharply that my red hair fanned out and hit me in the face, "you don't know how hard it is to carry on with your life after a person you've known for over half your life just disappears." It came out harsher than I intended it to. It shouldn't have done, nevertheless it felt good. No one understands the pain I'm in; they can guess, but they don't know.

"I would know if you just explain it to me!" Zoe stirred in her sleep. I had had enough. I needed to breathe; the air was stuffy in here. I started to move to the door. I heard footsteps behind me. 'Great; I've got myself a hanger-on.'

The night air felt cool on my face and blew through my black blouse. It was caked in blood but my other top, my favourite top, was soaking. I still remember the first time I wore it four years a go...

I locked the door of my cabin as I was going to do every morning. I had a day of doing nothing ahead of me. One thing about leaving camp is that I have no timetable to stick to. I guess I could try to get a degree in something. I have the time.

Another thing is that I get to wear any top I want to. I had decided to ditch my Camp shirt as soon as possible. I was wearing the replacement; a black and white hounds tooth print smock. It was a bit big at the neck line but who gives a damn?

I walked down the corridor and thought I heard Luke's voice. I followed the sound and found him in his cabin talking into his cell phone. I waited in the doorway for him to stop talking. He had heard me approaching and turned round to smile at me. I smiled back. I could spend a lot more time with him than if I was still at Camp.

'No. I've got a job to do. The only reason I'm allowed to be here is to tell Camp of his plans.'

I was too busy thinking about my situation to notice that he'd finished his conversation. I was staring at the floor when I felt his hand brush past my face to tuck some of my hair behind my ear. I looked up to meet his eyes. Blue stared in to green and green stared in to blue. He moved his hand from my ear to the back of my head. He brought his face down to meet mine. I closed my eyes. I sensed his other hand rub against my shoulder and slip under my shirt sleeve. I wrapped my arms around his neck and experienced his hand move from my head down to my waist. He grabbed on to my hips; he had moved his other hand down as well.

Eventually, I broke off. I held my face about an inch away from his. "Happy Birthday, Atlanta. Meet me here at seven, okay?" I nodded and unwound my arms from his neck. He let go. I started to walk away. "Oh and," I turned round, "I like your top." I grinned and blew him a kiss before walking out onto the deck...

It was one of the best days of my life. I can still sense his arms around me when I sleep and that's why I don't. It's too depressing for me to feel him next to me and not to have him there.

I had walked out on to the balcony. We're on the third floor, so you get a decent view of California. I placed one of my feet on the lowest bar and swung my leg over the top. I swung the other to join it so that I was sitting on the bar three stories up. Kinda suicidal if I think about but, if I think about it even more, that's what I've become. I'm so desperate to see him again that I'll do anything.

I come out here to think occasionally, but mostly it's to drink. I know I shouldn't but I can just drown my sorrows in it. I've woken up with a few headaches recently. I tried a cigarette a few weeks ago as well. It was horrible but since then I keep getting cravings for them. I'm wearing one of those nicotine patches so that I can keep focused on what I'm doing. I'm almost out of them though.

I can see why Andrew got pulled in to drugs; to drown the grief of losing Artemis. They're not my parents. They were never there when I really needed them.

'My life is shit.' I kicked the can that I had so carefully placed on the bars below the night before. It fell off and plummeted three stories down before hitting the concrete parking lot. It sounded very loud in the silence of the night.

I felt a hand touch my arm and a voice spoke my name. Katie, I thought with disgust. I don't hate her normally but she was really getting on my nerves tonight. She leant on the bar next to me and looked out towards the sky line. "It's a great view, isn't it?" she asked. I hesitated before replying 'I guess it is. Yeah.'

She looked at me and I looked at her. I sighed before looking back out to the horizon. She was right. It is a great view.

"I'm sorry if I upset you, but I need your advice." I said nothing. "I need your advice on a personal problem." I still said nothing. She sighed. "I'm not going away if you ignore me." I gave in.

"What's the problem?" I didn't meet her eyes.

"Well..." She looked nervous again. "I've got a bit of guy trouble..."

"I'll help you with anything but that!" I snapped. She flinched and backed off. "Fine...I'll ask someone else..." She turned round and went back to bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I closed my eyes, 'anything but that...'

I was running through the rain. I could barely see a foot in front of me. I didn't know where I was going, just that I had to get out of the rain. I didn't know where I was either. I just had to get away. Rain was soaking into my sneakers making it harder to run. I kept running. My foot splashed through one of the many puddles causing me to slip. I landed awkwardly on my ankle. I swallowed back a scream. 'I can't show pain. Pain is a weakness.' I tried to stand but the pain was too immense. I couldn't hold it back this time, I cried out alerting every monster on my tail that I was helpless. I bit my lip. I really had to get away now. I heard footsteps in the rain. 'Oh Gods. I'm dead.' A silhouette appeared from the gloom. 'That doesn't look like a monster.' The silhouette grew bigger as the thing approached. I still couldn't make out its features when it bent down in front of me. Then, everything went black...

I woke up in a warm and dry place. I had no idea where I was. I opened my eyes properly and saw I was being watched. I held my hand to my throbbing head and stared at him. He had short blonde hair and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. He looked about my age and just stared at me. "You're soaking," he said, still staring at me. I gazed at him. "What?" He ignored me and stood up and walked out the room calling to his Mom. I groaned. The pain in my ankle was excruciating. I stole a glance at it. It was about the size of large orange and bright red. It rested on a bag of ice. I winced. 'Well, this hurts.'

I looked around the room and my eyes came to rest on the family photos, something that I had never had. They were mostly of the boy and a woman that I guessed was his Mom. 'No Dad, eh?'

I stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the pain in my ankle. I was still staring at the ceiling when he came back in. He was running and hid behind the sofa that I was lying on. 'Hide me,' he mouthed. I looked at him, confused.

After about five minutes, he stood up. "You're a street kid aren't you?' I put my hands around the back of my head and nodded. "Will you take me with you?"

I looked at him and he looked at me. "You're serious? Leave all this behind for the streets?"

"You did."

"My situation was a lot worse than yours."

"Really?"

"You have a caring parent and a nice house. I had neither."

"Good point." Silence followed.

"You were running." I looked at him before replying with a 'yes' and 'that makes a different how?'

He shrugged, "I just thought that you may have been running from the monsters." I raised my eyebrow. "They follow me. My Dad is a god." Now, if I had been a normal street kid I would have thought this guy was insane, but I am not a normal street kid. I was a half-blood street kid.

"I understand." Our eyes met.

"You'll take me with you then?"

"Sure, why not? Now, pass me my bag." He handed it to me and I took out a small square of ambrosia. I ate it. The pain in my ankle subsided. I stood up. "So then rookie, what's your name?"

"Luke and yours?"

"Atlanta."

I let him run upstairs and grab his stuff before I ran out in to the rain again...

I opened my eyes and stared at the moon. How could I remember every detail of that first moment we met? It was fourteen years ago.

I sighed and held my hand to my forehead. I needed a drink. Luckily, I kept a secret stash out here just for moments like this. I reached down and picked a can up and opened it. The liquid inside burned my tongue and throat as I drank. I placed the empty can back on the balcony and returned to staring at the horizon. I'm not proud of what I've become, but it's the only way I can focus on my life. At least I still have a life, unlike Andrew. He...he drank it all away...

'You've got to stop this. You have a life...

'But nothing to live for...

'What would Luke want you to do...?

'Who cares? He left me to tear down Olympus!

'Yes, he did, but in the end he realised what was important. You...

'He still died, there's no changing that...

'Or is there...?

'No! I'm not repeating the pattern!

'Who said that that's the only way?

'Wait... why am I arguing with myself?

'How am I to know? It's your drunken fantasy...

'Thanks.'

I shook my head to rid it of the drossiness. I needed a coffee. There were two things that keep me sane at the moment: my music and coffee. They kept my mind off the pain.

I spun round so that I was looking at the hotel. I jumped off and walked back inside. Katie had gone back to sleep. No one else apart from me was awake. I reached into my bag and pulled out my sketch pad/ diary. I had started it when I ran away when I nine and had been using it since. It had started out as diary but I started to use it as a sketch pad when I was on the 'Princess Andromeda.' It's a ring binder notebook so I can add to it whenever I want. The cover is made of ripped up pieces of black paper and on the side is a silver lock. The key always hung on a chain around my neck or in my drawer at Camp. I opened it and sat crossed legged on the bed I'm meant to be sleeping in. I flipped through the pages to get to the back. In the back cover was a pocket. I reached inside and removed the contents: a selection of the pictures that told of my life. I rested the notebook on my knees and flipped through the photos: me, Elizabeth, Toby, and Andrew, together as a family (I don't know why I keep that one); me, Thalia, and Luke (from when we were on the run together); me, Thalia, Luke and Annabeth (just before the monsters caught us and just after we met Grover); the camp fireworks; me and Luke on his quest; and then about twenty pictures of just me and him taken after we left Camp. Most of them involved him with his arms around me at least and both of us smiling. He never smiled the last time I saw him, well, he did but it was forced and when he kissed me, it was as if he didn't want me anymore, as if he didn't love me.

I put the photos back and opened up back to the front. I flicked through some of my early entries, re-reading my nine year old thoughts. I turned over some more pages until I reached the drawings and lyrics. The first was the lullaby I used to sing to Toby and Elizabeth. I turned the page. Drawing of my brother and sister, I remember how hard it was to draw. I could barely remember their faces. This is how I want to remember them.

I carried on flicking through the pages until I arrived at my unfinished 'masterpiece'; a picture of Camp from the top of Half-blood hill at sunrise. I had everything drawn; I just had to do the shading. I reached into my bag and took out my pencil. I went back outside to sit on the balcony railing again. I held the pencil in my teeth as I climbed back on to the metal bar. I placed the paper across my legs and started to shade the fireworks beach in. So many of my memories are attached to that shoreline...

I woke on a bed in the Camp's infirmary. I tried to sit up but was overcome with pain in my ribs. I then realised that someone had removed my shirt. I tried to remember what happened. 'Oh gods. Ladon...' The dragon Ladon had flung me over the edge of Mount Tam with a swipe to my ribs. I moved the covers so that I could get a look at the damage. There were no words for what I felt. It was horrible but I couldn't stop staring at it. Just below the bottom of my bra were four long, red and raw scratch marks. I heard someone coming so I lay back down before the darkness descended once more...

A few days later, I was back to my normal routine at Camp. I hadn't seen Luke since Mount Tam. His cabin assured me that he is fine and alive but it seemed like he was avoiding me.

I was just about head back to my cabin as curfew was about to begin when I saw him standing alone on fireworks beach. I shut the door and walked down to join him.

He was staring out at the ocean when I got down to the beach. He hadn't heard me approaching because of the sand so I reached out to touch his arm. He turned to look at me before he looked away again and started to leave. I grabbed his hand so that he couldn't get away. "You've been avoiding me." He looked at me. My eyes came to rest on the left side of his face. It had been horribly marred by Ladon. "Oh Luke..." I breathed. He yanked his arm out of my grip and turned away. "You don't get it. I can't even repeat someone else's glory. My life is pathetic." He started to walk away from me. I ran in front of him and grabbed his shirt so he couldn't leave this time. "You are not pathetic." My lips met his and I kissed him. I didn't care what my mother would say. He was surprised at first but then stared to kiss me back. He threw his arms around me and picked me up of the ground. We broke off and grinned at each other. He shrugged. "You are a great kisser."

"Err..."

"What?"

"Look behind you..." He turned his head. One of the harpies stood behind him. He looked back at me. "Run!" He dropped me on the sand and legged it back to the cabins.

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one who just got dropped on the sand!" I called after him. I stood up and ran after him...

Running away didn't help. The harpy still caught us. Gossip travels round Camp pretty fast. By that time the next day, everybody at Camp knew that we were going out, literally. We were taken to the Big House for breaking curfew. Together we kept the harpy curfew squad busy for years.

I laughed at the memory. It was one of the happier one. My pencil moved from the beach to the forest. I was there when Luke discovered the labyrinth entrance at Zeus' fist. I was the one kinda opened it so we fell through. Luke had 'kidnapped' me in a game of capture the flag one night so that we could make out. I must have accidentally brushed my hand on it as he led me away.

I finished shading in the forest and moved the pencil from the forest to the mess hall and from the mess hall to the climbing wall. The amphitheatre, canoe lake, arena and armoury were all shaded in in quick succession. The forge, stables, strawberry fields, big house, volleyball court and the arts and crafts site soon followed, until all that was left were the cabins. They had taken longest to draw. Each one was differently designed and each one was accurately drawn.

By the time I had shaded in the final cabin, the sun was appearing over the horizon. I love watching the sunrise over the Californian skyline. The way the light reflects off the land and the colours the sky change is perfect.

I closed the notebook on my lap and watched the sunrise above the skyline. Another night down but plenty more were to follow. I sat staring at the horizon for a long time, not at anything in particular, just at, well, life. Life that wasn't drowned in misery as mine is. How things have changed from my life before. Last year I had a loving boyfriend, a semi-permanent home and plans for my future; now I have nothing.

I sighed before getting off the railings to put my notebook away. No matter how I miss it, I don't want that life back. It wouldn't be the same without him.

I'm just a shadow of myself. I'm not that person I used to be, not without him. Atlanta Hunter's dead. She died along with Luke. I'm just her ghost; a ghost that doesn't even deserve to speak her name, let alone use it.

I sighed again before closing my eyes to stop the tears. I haven't cried since he died and I'm not going to start now...

I never got to say goodbye to Luke. I wasn't there.

Say goodbye is brief misery; not saying it is eternal suffering.