Will's Messed Up Life

by Random Person with No Name

So you all remember Will Solace, from The Lost Hero? Taking place after the Giant War, Will's life becomes thoroughly messed up between a crazy, trouble making little sister, and a best friend who he can't seem to admit to like. The twists and turns of any demigod's life are going to be crazy, but to Will, it's like the fates are out to get him.

14. Chapter 14

Random Person with No Name took a short hiatus. Sorry. But seriously, I am so glad I am done that summer health course. Life is pretty good right now, got my schedule fixed up, got to go outside, did some painting, and just pretty much chilling. If you guys got ideas for songs that I could use for chapters, feel free to let me know, and I'll check them out.

Mood: Happy.

Song That's Stuck in My Head: You're Not Sorry by Taylor Swift

Diss: Summer Health Courses. Don't ever take one. I am telling you now.

And you say sorry like the angel/ Heaven let me think was you/ But I'm afraid/ It's too late to apologize- Apologize by One Republic

Classes were different, but normal. That's definitely what I needed.

What I didn't need, was to find out exactly how my mother thought of me.

But that's skipping ahead a little bit.

The teachers were odd. Mr. Benjamin especially. He was like some hippy guy that's not from Woodstock era.

The day went by quickly. It was strange how everyone knew me. I mean, I was here before I left for camp, but then they were in the grade below mine. They all bought the whole 'year off school to go see the world' excuse instead of making myself look like an idiot by saying I got held back. And the excuse was partial truth, if you count fighting Gaea's minions and a bunch of giants in Greece and Rome seeing the world.

Apparently, Chiron pulled some strings during the two days it took me to get here by motorcycle- I am telling you now, that was the best birthday gift I had ever gotten. Thanks, Dad. Because of a certain Mr. Brunner, I was taking Latin instead of the Spanish they would have automatically put me in, and I had several music classes as electives.

Math was boring, English gave me a headache, and in Social Studies we were studying Ancient Greece. That's not ironic at all.

Basically, school was boring.

I was sitting in my last period class, Latin, which was ridiculously easy, I just had to act like I was struggling a bit to fit in. Finally, the bell rang, and I rushed to my locker.

"Hey, Will." One of Elle's friends, Cassie, came up to me and leaned against the locker next to mine.

"Hey Cassie." I nodded. She smiled and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder.

"So I was wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow night." She smiled.

"Probably moving my stuff from the hotel to my mom's. If she lets me." I added that last part under my breath. "Why?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if you wanted to go see a movie with me?" Cassie leaned forward a bit.

"Ah, no, I'm not really one for movie theaters." I said. "They're overpriced. I mean, ten dollars for one ticket? And that's not including the snacks."

"Oh. Alright." Cassie looked embarrassed. "Another time?"

"If I'm not busy with homework, I'm sure we can get a group of friends together."

"Oh, no, that's okay." She sighed. "I'll see you later, Will."

I watched her walk over to a group of friends, and they all started whispering and glancing at me. I felt kinda bad, but I guess no one was beautiful once you've seen Nyssa.

"Will!" Elle yelled at me from the doors of the school. "Are you going to stare at a group of blondes or catch the bus?"

"Uh, neither." I called back. "I drove. I'm gonna go see my mom, maybe talk to her a bit. Wish me luck!"

"Dude," Beth reached up and patted my shoulder. "You're gonna need it."

I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas please. Fold 'em let 'em hit me raise it baby stay with me. Luck and intuition play the cards with Spades to start, and after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart- Poker Face by Lady GaGa

I pulled into the driveway of my old house. I smiled slightly, remembering the memories attached to this place. I saw the old tire swing, me and Nyssa would take turns laying on the tire- it was laying parallel to the ground- and pushing the other. One time she shoved it into the tree and I had a concussion.

I walk up the front path, looking at the stones, where me and some other school friends spent days on our little kid bikes. I sighed. I'm not one much for sentimental crap, probably cause I'm a guy, but this place had some fond memories.

I reached the front door, and raised my hand to knock, before putting it back down. Did I really want to do this? What if this ends badly? She could totally just slam the door in my face. Very rarely did she write me a letter back, but I made sure to send her one every week. Only once or twice did she send them back unopened.

I took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. I heard a faint "I'm coming!" from inside, a man's voice. Elle had said something about a new husband.

A man, about my height with thinning red hair, opened the door and looked at me. "Well, I don't recognize you, but you're not dressed as a salesman. Can I help you?"

I grinned slightly at what the man said, before shaking my head and looking back up at the man. "Uh, yeah, is there a Miss Solace around?"

"No." The man said. "My wife's maiden name was Solace, though, do you want to talk to her?"

"Yes, please sir." I turned on my best manners. After all, this guy was probably my stepdad.

"Becca!" The man called over his shoulder. "Door for you!" He turned back to me. "I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Henry Baker."

"Will Solace." I shook his hand as he paled.

"You wouldn't be. . ." he trailed off as a average height, thin woman came up behind him, fixing her shoulder length blonde hair into a bun. She looked up as her husband trailed off, gasping, and pulling her hands away from her hair to cover her mouth, letting it fall back down.

"Will?" The woman breathed. "Is that you?"

"Uh, yeah. Why didn't you return my letters?" I was shaking now. My mother just stood there, staring at me. I wasn't mad, just hurt. I wanted to talk to her, to see her handwriting, and the only response was sending my letters back. "I mean, write me back."

"I didn't know what to say to you." She breathed. "Oh, Will," She broke down crying. I made a move to comfort her, but Henry beat me to it. He looked at me with big, serious eyes.

"I guess you'd better come in." He said, and lead my mom into a room further back.

"Amelia, James, Mary, in the kitchen, please!" He yelled up a staircase.

Next thing I know, we're all sitting around the kitchen table. My mom is still bawling, and the three kids are glaring at me. The boy in the middle, I'm guessing he was James- he looked like he was going to kill me. One girl stopped glaring at me, and turned to Mom.

"Mommy, why are you crying?" She asked the woman. I would have guessed she was about eight, with red hair pulled into a braid, and purple glasses on her nose. I'm guessing she and the other girl might be twins, they look exactly the same.

"I did a horrible thing." Mom sobbed. "Oh, I'm terrible."

"No, you're not." I said firmly. "We all make mistakes, Mom."

Mary, Amelia, James and Henry all snapped their heads around to look at me.

"Mom?" James looked at me incredulously. "Why are you calling her mom?"

"He's my son." Mom had calmed down enough that she wasn't sobbing, but she was still crying. "That's William. The one I told you about. The one who went to camp."

I grimaced as they all turned to look at me.

"Why didn't you write any letters in the past, what, three years?" Henry was more harsh with me now.

"I did." I said. "Every week. To this address. Some of them returned, unopened. I never once got a response."

James' eyes widened. Everyone at the table could see it.

"I'm sorry." He said. "It's my fault. It had the label Delphi on it, and figured it was junk. I had heard some girls talking about a clothing company, called Delphi or something."

"Yeah, some of the girls in the Aphrodite cabin started that." I said, then sucked in a breath.

My mom noticed. "It's ok, Will, I told them. I told them everything. They didn't believe me until you sent me that picture a while back, of you and your friend, Nyssa, fighting this huge dog."

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Wow, Lindsey was taking pictures, even during the war."

"Lindsey? Who is she?" One of the girls asked me.

"A half sister of mine. She died in the Second Titan War, got hit with some poison throwing knife."

"Cool!" James burst out.

"No. Not cool." I looked at him in the eye. "Especially when you're fighting an army the size of Rhode Island with only forty people for the fate of the world."

"Forty people?" The other girl asked me. "That's all you had?"

"Forty demigods, a flying chariot, an oversized puppy, several legions of zombies, and three Olympians." I ticked off on my fingers. "Oh, and Rachel Dare."

"Who's Rachel Dare?" James asked me.

"At that point in time, she was just a mortal who could see through the mist. After the battle, she became our new Oracle. She was pretty happy with the job, until she met Octavian."

"Who's Octavian?" Henry asked.

I smirked. "Firing squad, much? Don't worry, it's okay. Octavian is the Roman Twelfth Legion's augur. He cuts open stuff animals and reads the fluff and interprets the will of the gods. He's completely fascinated with Rachel, and is determined to date her because of her prophecy gift, even though she has turned him down, many, many times."

"He sounds horrible." One of the girls said.

"Yeah, he's a creepy guy."

"What made you come back?" Mom asked me.

I shifted in my seat, before answering. "I needed a break. All we do is train and train, and the online high school was not working for me. I needed some time away, and I figured I would come here. If you guys don't want me to stay here, that's completely fine, this was actually going better than I expected it to. There's a hotel I'm staying at."

"A hotel?" Henry looked at me. "Will, the closest hotel is in Sacramento. That's an hour and a half South of here."

"I have to be in school at seven forty five. I leave at six. I get up at four thirty. No biggie."

"Four thirty?" One of the girls asked- ok, seriously, which is which- "Why would you get up that early? That's about thirty minutes of sleep more you could get."

"That's the time we normally get up at camp." I said. "Well, if you're hard core. I normally get up at that time, do three laps around camp which is about thirty miles, and then do some shooting until breakfast at six. I eat, then run another four laps, which is another forty miles, go through the schedule, eat dinner, and then I have special permission from Chiron to do another seven laps around camp, which takes me only a couple hours before we perform at the campfire."

"That's 140 miles a day." Henry looked at me.

"Yeah, we get lots of exercise. Other than all that running that I do, there's two hours of archery with Hermes, an hour of ability training with Demeter, another hour of swordplay I do with Poseidon, Athena, and Hephaestus- everyone else in my cabin is going to sprinting- I don't have to do that because of all the endurance running I do with the Ares, Athena, and Poseidon cabins- then there's an hour of wrestling with Ares, then we head to lunch. At the end of lunch, there's another hour of archery, two hours of infirmary duty, healing people- unless an emergency happens, then we get called in anytime- an hour of monster fighting, an hour of free time- that's when I do my last seven laps- an hour of rotations, which is either javelin, pegasi, letters home, dog training with Mrs. O'Leary, Ancient Greek, Strategy/Tactics, or Greek Mythology, one each day, then dinner, then War Games, which are a rotation of Capture the Flag, Shoot Off, Wrestling Tournament, Stealth, Fight Out- that's where we use swords, Monster Fight, and then free time on Sundays. Most of those are tournaments, obviously. Then we have a half hour of free time, until the campfire at nine, which runs for an hour, then we head back to the cabins, and the cabin leader calls lights out at the time they feel appropriate, unless it's the Hermes cabin, their lights go out at a specific time because otherwise they'd be up all night."

"That's six and a half hours you guys get sleeping, Will." Henry said. James, Mary and Amelia had pretty stopped thinking and were staring at me in awe.

"Well, only me and the Ares cabin get up at four thirty, everyone else is normally up at five thirty to get ready and go to breakfast, except for Hermes, Katie Gardner usually has to go over there and start screaming at the Stolls for doing something to the Demeter Cabin before they even dream of waking up. Plus, when free time comes around, most kids wipe out and take a nap. So an average camper gets nine hours of sleep, which is what is recommended for someone our age."

"You all must be really in shape." Mom hiccuped.

"Yeah, some of the new campers don't even last a day before falling asleep like a rock in the middle of a class that doesn't require anything physical, or if they insist on pushing themselves, we normally see them in the infirmary for exhaustion. They pass out for a day or two, then know to limit themselves and sometimes stay out of some activities to get used to the level of physical activity."

"What about school?" James asked. "It sounds like all you guys do is run around smashing each other's faces."

"Nah, that's just the Ares cabin." I grinned. "Most of the time, the schedules are laid out by the cabin leader at the beginning of the summer. On weekends though, the schedule is picked by the individual camper, and the only restraint is that they do at least six hours a day of academics. I know that sounds like a lot, but that's the average school day, and most of us are up for about sixteen to eighteen hours a day, so it's not too much."

"Wow." My mom said.

"No wonder you look like a body builder or something." James stared at me.

I had to laugh. "Well, we have to be strong. If we aren't, the consequences can be fatal."

The three kids laughed, thinking it was a joke. But when I looked at Henry and Mom, I knew they were at least trying to understand what was happening.

"Will, stay here." Mom said. "Henry can go with you to get all your stuff out of the hotel and you'll be back in time for dinner. We eat at seven, and it's three thirty now, you be back just in time."

I nodded and got up. I was surprised it was only thirty minutes that we were talking. Henry and I headed out.

It was nice here. My mom didn't freak out like everyone thought she would, but things were still awkward.

As I drove on my motorcycle, I thought about what I left behind. I was used to camp, and I would be spending most my time in a classroom instead of outside training and fighting. There was one time, after the Giant War, Percy and Annabeth were both out of War games for the Fight Out, and somehow the finalists got to be Nyssa and I.

Nyssa- her name is beautiful, no matter what she thinks about it. We had literally been friends for as long as I could remember. Most of my early memories were of playing pranks on her and Katie Gardner with the Stolls. I hardly remember a time when I was in an actual classroom before today- and trust me, I had to think up something quick when I got confused with the bells and jumped when they sounded. Fortunately, I was able to think up the excuse that the private school I used to go to didn't use bells, and you stayed with one teacher all day. Nyssa would probably snicker and say I'm an idiot- if we were still even friends.

I don't know where we were at. I can't date her- I'll hurt her. Her dad agrees. Yet, I couldn't stop thinking about the kiss. It was so, so, perfect. . . If only- no. I can't think if only. The fates made it happen the way it did for a reason, everything happens for a reason. I wish I could just kiss her whenever I want, but that only comes with dating, and I can't date her. Did I hurt her more though, by trying to protect her? Nyssa's strong, even though she gets dizzy at the sight of blood. I don't want anything to happen to her, I couldn't bear that.

One trick Josh taught me when I asked him why he rarely ever got mad is to see the situation through the other's person's eyes, and you can see how you would react if someone did something to you, then act as you would want to be treated. I've told Nyssa sorry so many times in the past- tried to make her think I was an angel from heaven. It never worked. She always accepted the apology though. But I'm afraid. . .

I'm afraid I went too far this time. Even though I was trying to do something good, I ended up hurting her. It was a mistake. I know that if Nyssa becomes my girlfriend, I would treat her better than anything else of mine, just because she was mine. I would protect her at any cost. Which is what I tried to do.

I'm afraid it's too late to apologize.

I'm afraid she'll never forgive me.

I'm afraid I lost my best friend, my brothers and sisters, everything.

I'm afraid.