After dinner, I'm not sure where to go. I'm surprised I haven't been called anywhere, to discuss. Most people throw a party after their first mission, but I think throwing up would be more appropriate right now. I walk towards the lake with my hair still down, and the amount of chatting, walking people slowly wanes as I somehow navigate my way to the lake, although I have gotten lost many, many times in all these streets. The lake is clear, calm, and reflects the stars from above, along with the night sky. There are cliffs up by one end of the lake, that slope down on both sides to rocky areas, which then eventually recede to sand.
I take off my black boots and leave them alone on the sand, and then find a place right next to the water on top of a large rock where I hug my knees and stare at the water. I like being by the rocks, they make me feel small, something I rarely experience with my 5 foot 8 height. My hair drifts a bit in the breeze, and it feels like before there were clouds and mists inside my body, but now everything has cleared. Maybe now it won't hurt to think about what I have just done. Or maybe it will.
I almost fall off the rock when I hear my name.
"Andra?"
I look over and Anders is clambering over the rocks, finally climbing up next to me on mine and sighing.
"How are you?" He crosses himself silently. "No, don't answer that."
I sit in silence - or maybe now we sit in silence. It isn't awkward, it's nothing, nothing at all. It's broken quickly, though.
"I understand if you don't want to talk, but it helps." He looks over at me. I don't see how it will help, but Anders is one of the best, smartest, friendliest, most trustworthy, understanding people I know.

I open my mouth and what comes out is a half-strangled, choking sound, intermixed with a kind of sob and scream. Anders shakes his head. "You can't keep it in like that. It doesn't work, it drives you insane. I know."

I take a breath. Normally, I would hate myself for appearing so weak, but I am still numb. I hesitate.
"Who?" Anders' voice is quiet.
"Nicholas…Cadmus Nicholas Adair, but he hated his first name. He was a childhood friend, before I had ever joined the Silviens, and I was his best friend, and he was mine." My mind washes up a surprising amount of dregs of memories.
"Back then he was strong, and friendly, and fun to be around, and whenever I was with him, I would feel safe, and powerful. I could tell him all my secrets, even how I could do strange things with water and..and never felt safe by the ocean, right? And he would take it in, and tell me secrets of his own - he liked purple, and he could run faster than a car. When we were teens..."
I stop, my voice scratchy and hoarse, and breathe again. I will not, I cannot think now. I cannot hesitate.
"Our friendship was... battered. We went to rival schools, and our friends teased us, calling me his girlfriend, whispering about us behind my back. I discovered Camp Silviens a few months after he found Camp...Camp Half-Blood, found out he was a son of Hermes, and I obviously couldn't tell him why I was always so busy, but during those months while he was visiting camp – he told me he was visiting his 'Uncle', and over the weekends, and when he was never home, I was mad at him, and I-I ended up screaming at him in rage. I told him to leave forever or explain himself, and he told me he-" I stumble, trying to remember the most painful detail, what has made this so much worse-"-he said, he said he loved me."
My words are coming out faster now, as if Anders won't stay to hear the whole thing. "I liked him, he was like a sibling, a brother, more than a friend to me, but I didn't love him, though, and I hated that with telling me the truth he had made our friendship unbearable. So I left, I met people, I explored, and I discovered Camp Silviens. Now I feel like...like it was my fault he joined them. It probably is." I am eternally grateful to Anders for not saying it is not my fault, because I know the truth, I know that it is my fault, now that I have said it out loud. It's just as bad as when I thought it, but somehow seems simpler.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Anders says quietly "but you are strong enough. You will need others, Andra. You can't deal with it all alone."
"I'll be alone until I am no longer weak."
"I don't know if this will make you stronger but it will not weaken you unless you let it. It'll just take time."
I laugh derisively, unhumorously. I sound like a mad person. Probably look like it too.
"So, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger-unless you're me." I conclude. He half-smiles for some unfathomable reason.
He nods. "My story is remarkably like yours... I have someone too, a girl who I did not love, but who loved me, and we were also best friends...she was too brave, too reckless, and she got herself killed...after we fought. I will blame myself forever."
I want to tell him its not his fault too, but I don't know, and I won't lie. I stretch down a long leg and dip my toe into the cool water. I see part of what he is telling me. Yes, it will take time. I will not heal right away. But when I do, I will be stronger than before.
Anders slips off of the rock, and I follow him, and we stand, facing each other in the darkness, everything illuminated by the moon and a faint yellow glow from the building on the other side of the lake, and behind us. All at once, we meet eachother in a hug, so tight that I know for sure we are bonding our friendship just as strongly, where it will never break apart. When I pull away, a half-smile forms on my lips. It's not much, and I'm not sure why, but it's the first smile of the day. We have to leap over rocks to get to the steep slope heading up from the lake, and exhaustion rolls over me, the hill looking menacing and tiring. There is only one thing to do.

"Race you." I sprint off and up the hill, and Anders' laughing and the rustle of the grass from his footsteps follow me to the top, where I stop, hands on my knees, panting. Some of the clouds come back, and my smile fades, but I know I will be alright.