#25 |
"I'm not going to visiting for a while, mom." Tony said, quietly to his mom, not looking at her, feeling ashamed that he was leaving her. He took her hand into both of his. "I'm sorry. But there's just something I have to do. I promise I'll be back. I'll write letters and send them when I can." He paused and looked at his mother's black face, with those blank eyes, staring at nothing.
Tony wasn't even sure if his mother heard him anymore.
She'd arrived a year ago, on this date, like that. Non-responsive. Not speaking. Not looking at you. Always staring blankly at a spot on the floor. The only time any one at this private institution knows when she needs something is when she starts making pitiful little mewing noises. Sometimes, though, she'll have an episode and start screaming and shrieking about a monster.
Tony was there when his mother snapped. Contrary to what normally happened during a traumatic event, Tony doesn't remember much of what happened that day. He does, however, remember all the things that his mother screamed. All the things that she said she saw. All the monsters.
And then there was that boy. Tony remembers the boy quite clearly too, probably one of the only things he remembers clearly from that day.
He could see it, too. Tony saw that in his eyes. The way he looked at what his mother was seeing and just knew that what she was seeing wasn't an illusion. A sort of recognition.
That boy is the one who had the answers.
That boy was going to tell Tony who was to blame for his mother's state of mind.
That boy, Tony had found out, was Percy Jackson.
Thank you for everything,
TheBrightestNight