At my school, there's a group of guys we refer to as the Hockey Boys. They're popular, "Tough", and they (obviously) play hockey. On their hockey team was a 13 year old named Kalan. His parents shipped him off to a boarding school in Boston and he lived in a dorm by himself. Last Thursday he committed suicide. Someone found him and he was in the hospital, on life support. Then Friday morning he was taken off of life support and pronounced dead at 10:30 am. We were in school but all of the Hockey Boys got a text telling them what happened. The guys in my class were in gym at the time though and so they missed the text. They missed the last few minutes of their friends life while they were laughing and having fun. Then at lunch they found out and they were crying. I sit next to one of them and I couldn't help him and it's been destroying me and I don't know what to do so I'm writing to try to help myself deal with this.
"Lacy, can you fold the sheets for us please?" Piper called across the cabin to her friend. Lacy nodded and folded the sheets as Piper finished picking up the garbage.
"Alright," She smiled triumphantly. "This cabin is, without a doubt, clean!" She laughed and headed outside to where Annabeth was supposed to meet her in the pavillion.
Piper sat down at the Aphrodite table while she waited, and began absent mindedly humming a song. She smiled to herself. Today is a good day she thought happily. She felt her phone buzz, but ignored it, not wanting to ruin this happy feeling quite yet.
"Piper!" a voice called out from across the plaza.
"Nico, is that you?" she questioned, recognizing his voice. Suddenly the boy melted from the shadows in front of her. She flinched back slightly, then relaxed realizing it wasn't a threat.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" She exclaimed, taking in his tear soaked face and bowed shoulders.
"P-Percy…." he sobbed quietly. "He-he he killed hi-himself" Nico spluttered, and Piper's eyes widened.
"He what? Is Annabeth okay? Where is she?"
"She's in her cabin, she won't leave" Nico answered, glad to be supplying facts instead of having to share the news. Piper nodded, tears already forming in her eyes.
"Go tell the others, okay Nico?" He nodded and shadow traveled to Leo and Jason.
Piper knocked loudly on the door to the Athena cabin.
"Annabeth? Are you in there?" she called loudly. Piper opened the door to see Annabeth rocking on the bed, her arms wrapped around herself as tears streamed down her face. Piper rushed over to sit next to her, wrapping her arms around Annabeth's shoulders. She pulled her closer and rocked back and forth with her, just trying to help her anyway she could.
"Listen to me, okay Annie? I won't tell you it's going to be okay, because it's not, but it will get better eventually, I promise you." Annabeth shook her head and pulled herself closer to Piper, needing the warmth and support only a friend could give. They stayed like that for a long time, until Annabeth's tears stopped flowing and she was just hollow, empty. Piper pulled away slightly and looked at her anxiously, not knowing how to help her but desperately needing to.
She shook her head sadly, racking her brain to think of something she could do to help, in any small way. But there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing she could other than be there for Annabeth but even that wasn't helping. Piper knew Annabeth would be better eventually but she also knew that for right now she had to help her and she couldn't. All she could think was that she was somehow failing Annabeth, and herself. And she was mad. She was so mad at percy for having done that to her. Didn't he care that Annabeth would have to deal with the aftermath?
Piper glared angrily at the sky. Mom, how do I help her? She asked desperately, hoping for an answer, advice, anything. You don't came the reply, and that just made everything worse. Even the gods couldn't help Annabeth now.
And yes, I know the grammar and formatting is atrocious and that this probably breaks rules but please let me leave it up because I really needed this.