Charlie,
"I am fine. Look at me, Swift," Aiden laughed, motioning towards his body that was all healed up. It was functional again, letting him breathe and walk and talk. Blood pumped through him just as it once had. The only thing that remained was a scar on his torso, my new reminder of what he had done for me and the guilt I would spend the rest of my life feeling for it.
Aiden was alive. He was back to almost perfect health, and he liked to pretend that nothing had happened. That it was a scratch on his knee and that we were all overreacting. That he hadn't spent those three days in a coma. That it was to be forgotten.
But we couldn't forget it.
It would never just be forgotten. I would always be able to see his lifeless body threatening to leave us all. Or Swift's tears in her brother's name. Or the days where I couldn't eat or think or barely even breathe as I worried that he would never wake up.
"You almost died, Aiden. I'm not letting you," Swift had her arms crossed across her blue bathing suit. She didn't look like the Swift we had all first met, decked out with intimidating leather. She looked more approachable, friendlier. Or at least she had when she and Sam had gone onto the beach this morning, all smiles and laughs. Now that she was fighting with her younger brother, things were different.
Her eyes were so intimidating that they could make the strongest back down just from not wanting to see how bad she could get. Her stance seemed still in a peaceful mode, not about to strike, but it still felt dangerous. Her eyes were on the edge of murderous and sisterly love.
"You don't get to decide."
I wasn't even sure what they were talking about. I hadn't been there when it started, but I had been here a good while and knew that it wasn't good whatever it was.
"You're not going back," Swift's voice was final and harsh, and it made me freeze.
Going back…
That was what they had been fighting about. Aiden going back to New Rome.
I felt sick as I thought about the idea. It hadn't occurred to me. I knew that he was going back one day, that he would go back to work and get back on the track to being the next Praetor of New Rome. I knew that it would kill me that day that he went back, but that day had never really been a specific time to me.
It was just sometime in the near future, any day but today. And the next day it would be the same.
Well, it isn't today, I would tell myself when I thought about it too long, shutting down the process that I probably needed to go through. I needed to realize he was leaving. And, if Aiden had anything to say about it, it looked like it would be soon.
Aiden shook his head, storming out of the house, and suddenly I felt him pull on my arm to bring me with him. I struggled to keep up, shocked that he would be pulling me along after making a stance of wanting to go back to California when I would be in New York.
"Slow down," I called out though he was right beside me. Maybe it helped me to think that he was distant, farther away. That he had already gone back to New Rome.
He finally did, his strong grip on my arm lessening, and his feet slowed as they sank into the sand. His breathing evened out, his eyes returning to their calm state that they always seemed to go back to in the end. Every flush of anger, pain, sadness. Or any sort of emotion at all. It turned into those calm eyes, still stormy beyond the first sight of tranquility.
He was silent, maybe realizing what I had just heard him say when he was fighting with Swift. The idea that he would want to leave had never really gone through my mind, and I still couldn't really process it. The last week had been spent with maybe an hour being the time we had been apart put together, and he wanted to go back across the country?
I was frowning, rubbing my arm as the ocean breeze began to chill me, and my hand brushed against his, making me stop.
I looked away, his hand still on my arm.
"Cold?"
"A little bit," I nodded softly, watching my feet in the sand.
There was an unbearable silence, the first that I hadn't wanted to fill with "I love you."
I hadn't told him. I wouldn't tell him yet. I wouldn't tell him off the dream or the love I felt for him or any of it. We weren't ready. The reminder that he was going back to New Rome soon just furthered my thought to not tell him. A long distance relationship was risky, and I refused to take any risks with us.
If I wanted to really have that dream, my children calling him Dad, then I needed to think it through no matter how much it killed me.
As I watched his internal turmoil through those ocean blue eyes, it was the first time that I had not wanted to try to comfort him by reminding him of how much I loved him. I almost liked that it was killing him to bring it up. It was getting even for not fighting to leave me and go back across the country.
"Charlie, I have work. And training. And… I have to go back. She has to let me," he finally said, his voice soft and timid. He was losing steam in his cause fast, "I-I've been training for this since I was six years old."
"No, no, I get it," I tried, my eyes avoiding his as I attempted to make myself seem less pathetic. I felt suddenly ridiculous, and my mind began to question how long he had been begging his sister to let him go back to California,, "I just… Well," I bit my cheek, " I guess I forgot you had to leave sometime."
Aiden kept looking at the ground.
"You'll be staying in New York?" he asked finally, ending what felt like an eternity of silence. Until now, we had always been able to have silence and for it not to be loud and begging for new words. We could just not talk. Right now though, it was very clear this was not one of those times.
"Back to Camp Half-Blood," I nodded, thinking back to the night before when my mom was trying to talk me into spending the summer at home instead. My dad just took her hand, squeezed it, and told her that it was time to let me find my way.
I wasn't one hundred percent sure what he meant, but my mom seemed to. She just kissed my forehead, her beach lips without a trace of her usual red, business ready lipstick. Soon, she would get home and put on the business suit the world knew her for. My dad would change out of his swim trunks and old college tee shirt, and he would be back to being that hot teacher that everyone at the middle school he taught at, wearing the school uniform as he walked through the halls with a coffee to stimulate his senses after having not slept enough since before Noah was born. Soon, I would be back at Camp Half-Blood, trying to earn my place.
My answered seemed to be unsettling to Aiden, and he looked over at me closely.
"What do you do there?"
"Camp Half Blood?" I had to think about it. Camp Half-Blood was my home. I just knew it so well that I couldn't describe it, "Well… Live. Train. Laugh. Fight over getting top bunk."
"Train?" Aiden's eyebrows raised, silently badgering me for more information.
"Every day. That is the purpose of it really. To train people," I forced myself to pull on a smile though I was beginning to think of the time I would spend without him. When would I ever be able to see him? He would always be working, I knew him well enough to know that. I had known I would run into that in the first place, but, with him across the country, I couldn't sneak in small moments with him.
Would we fade away from each other, time making the other just a memory? Would the scar on Aiden's torso stay as the only thing of our relationship still standing.
The thought made me sick, and I looked him dead in the eyes, not sure if I wanted him to see the playful front I was pulling on or if I wanted him to see the fear beyond it.
"We're not as silly as you Romans all think," I nudged him, and I became more and more aware of the fact his hand hadn't left my arm.
"I'll be the judge of that. You'll all be marching in orderly fashion by the time I am done with you," Aiden nudged me, a smirk written across his lips, and I couldn't hide my surprise.
"What?"
"Would you be okay with me staying the summer? It'll probably be my last bit of fun time before next year, when I am running for Praetor," Aiden's smile got softer, more real.
"Yeah, I'm okay with it. You know, as the son of Apollo, you'll join the ranks of all the hot guys that every girl in camp wants to get with," I nudged him, laughing, and I began to imagine all of the girls that would throw themselves at him. I could see it now.
A beautiful daughter of Aphrodite with her perfection radiating all around her, a flirty smile painted across her lips. She would try to snag the newest eligible bachelor to Camp Half-Blood, and I began to wonder if she would succeed.
"Why didn't I do this a long time ago then?" Aiden laughed, his arm hooking through mine in a more comfortable position.
Sam,
Swift stood at the end of the bed, looking at herself in the mirror.
For the last few days, she hadn't looked like she always did. Her skin had earned a slight tan, her salty hair had been kept in braids and ponytails, her outfits had lacked her trademark black and leather, and I had been able to see those tattoos I adored so very much.
But it was the night before we were leaving, and Swift was going back to normal. Her hair had been washed clean of the traces of beach air and salty water, and her exposed tattoos were tucked away again. The small bikinis that had caught my attention and kept me staring for the entire trip were packed away and traded in for black leather.
She had made the transformation after getting out of the water for dinner, and my little intimidating Swift was back.
"Are you ever coming to bed?" I let out a small moan, a smile painted on my lips as I sat on the bed. Her eyes came back to me, her tank top sitting on her torso because she was only half-way through with pulling it off.
She laughed at me, the kind of laugh that I hadn't thought Swift would have when I first met her. I thought she was too cold for something like that, and I certainly didn't think I would ever be the reason she was laughing.
I remembered something my father used to say when Kate wanted to hear the story of how our parents got together. Kate would always want to know how he could just keep living his life, not sweeping Mom off and proclaiming his love-or even noticing- his love all those years ago when they used to go to camp together. He would just shrug, laughing as Kate would remind him that the prince knew to sweep Cinderella up immediately.
"You don't consider that the person you meet one day will one day be a part of the rest of your days after that," I could hear his voice now, tired but happy. I could see the smile on his face as he told as us, silently vowing that we would one day know.
I didn't think about it at the time. Love didn't matter to me. Marriage never entered my mind.
I was just a little kid, maybe six or so. I was more concerned with the new cleats I wanted to buy.
Now I knew.
I had never considered this happening with the two of us. I thought that, at the end of the summer, she would just get in the car and leave. I didn't even think I'd miss her. Now I needed her in my life.
"I knew you liked the leather," she teased, climbing on the bed and kissing my lips softly as she plopped on the bed beside me.
I ran my fingertips over her exposed torso, still showing the muscles and the scars that she typically tried to hide.
"I think you should get another tattoo. Maybe a Samuel," I grinned, and she laughed, shaking her head as she touched my torso, bare after I had taken my shirt off to go to bed.
"How about you get a Theodora?" she teased, and I turned over to where I was looking at her.
"Don't act so cocky. I just might get it, you know. My girlfriend has so many tattoos, I might as well get one," my hand was still resting on her torso, feeling her steady breathing.
"Well, I like your body. You don't have to do a thing to it for me," her hand had moved to rest on my hip.
"Oh, so you like my body?" I raised my eyebrows, teasing, and she laughed, blushing a little bit.
"You're hot, and you know it," she kissed me, and I could feel her smile into my lips.
I absolutely adored her, which is why I was so afraid for tomorrow morning. We were all leaving the beach tomorrow, and we hadn't talked about what we were doing yet. I knew that Swift would have to go back to California some time for her job, but I didn't know about her. I didn't know if I would follow her for the summer, returning for the season and trying to figure it out from there. I didn't know if she was going to be like Aiden, taking a summer off. I didn't know if I would drive home and she would catch a flight across the country.
"You better enjoy this body while you can, you know," I ran my fingers through her hair, using other hand to pull her closer to me, "You may be going to California soon."
And the subject had been brought up.
What had been waiting to be said was finally out there. It couldn't be taken back, and it had opened a new can of worms, a serious talk opposed to the cute little moments those Romantic Comedies my sister always watched as a teenager were full of.
Swift was looking down, her hand moving to me on my shoulder blade, and she seemed to be thinking.
"I was young when I took this job. I don't even think I really understood what it would mean, what I had gotten myself into. I remember my first trainer, Calvin, telling me about it. I didn't understand everything he was saying, not really, but I thought I did," Swift told me, though I wasn't sure where this was going, "One thing stuck out to me…"
She closed her eyes, as if picturing the moment to herself. She seemed to emerge herself in the powerful memory.
"The second you even consider quitting, do it. Once you even have to question if you're in, you're out. Time to move on."
Swift's eyes stayed closed a little while longer, slowly blinking open and looking up at me. I suddenly noticed that they were watering, filling and ready to spill tears. I put my hand to her cheek, my eyes immediately turning sympathetic as I tried to think of a way to keep her from crying.
"I've been doing this for years. This is pretty much all I know. I am the best. I know my job. I work hard. My job is my life. Until now, Aiden was the only thing I really cared about other than it…" a tear slid down her cheek, quickly wiped away by me, "I almost watched him die, Sam. I almost watched my little brother die."
I held her close, so tight that I wasn't even sure if she could breathe, but she hugged me back, showing me she was okay with it. Her tears wet my shoulder, and she held onto me tight, as if trying to prove to herself that I was really here.
"For the last two weeks, I have been thinking about not going back. About just disappearing, turning in my resignation and disappearing. Taking the money, walking away from the job, and just being here. With you," she cried into my shoulder, "All I have ever known is my job, and you come in for just a few weeks. And I suddenly need you. I love you more than anything. I want to leave everything for you…. I'm not supposed to do that. I am not supposed to be that girl."
One hand laced through her hair, I used the other to rub her back as I softly kissed the side of her head and whispered, "Shhhhh…."
"I'm… I'm out, Sam. I want to be with you. I know how ridiculous that sounds. We haven't even been together for a month, and I am throwing my job away for you. Please don't be scared off-" Swift was babbling, afraid.
"Shh," I whispered, kissing her softly to stop the talking.
It worked, her eyes blinking open as I pulled away, and she looked up expectantly, waiting for my reply.
"Do it. I want to be with you, and I don't care about anything else. I'll go with you to California, help you get everything settled away, and, if you want to be in New York with me, you can live with me while we get everything worked out."
A perfect smile spread across her lips, kissing me passionately and happily before hugging me tight.
"You sure about this?" Swift asked, her fingers lacing through mine, and she still had a happy grin on her face.
Even if I hadn't happy about this, which I most certainly was, I wouldn't have told her if it meant losing that smile. I never wanted to lose that smile. If I could have, I just would have admired it for years. Now I guess I had the chance.
She was mine, living with me for the time being if not longer.
"One hundred percent," I said, definite.
Noah,
The morning came for us to leave the beach and go back to New York City, and I had anticipated much more out of the moment. But it just came and left.
That morning, my dad didn't make a large breakfast. We all ate fast, agreeing on the travel plans for the day. My mom had a meeting at three in the city, and they were leaving early because of that. My dad didn't have a summer school class to teach until the next day, and he agreed that he would drive Aiden and Charlie to camp, getting them all settled in before he would go home. Sam and Swift were going to JFK today, and they were taking a flight to San Francisco. At breakfast, they gave the announcement that Swift was quitting and moving to New York. She would live Sam and me until things were figured out, and she asked permission from me to do so, which I gave of course. We all congratulated them, and that was the excitement for the rest of the morning.
By eleven, the beach house had no trace of us left. We all were getting into our cars, the bags put away, and getting ready to drive away. Sam and Swift were together, both prepared to go straight to the airport for their four O'clock flight. My mom was pulling out for her meeting, and my dad was in his old Camp Half-Blood tee shirt, about to take Charlie and Aiden to Camp. Kate was in the car beside me, and we all just left.
After so much had happened, it felt like there should have been something big.
But there wasn't.
We just all drove away, going to different destinations. So much time on the road together had abruptly come to an end. So much worry and fear that had built up for the last six years and threatened us all was just gone, leaving an empty spot inside of us that we weren't quite sure what to do with. It was just… over.
I used the drive back to New York to accept it while Kate napped, and I still couldn't wrap my head around it as I pulled into the parking lot for my apartment building.
For the next week, Sam and Swift would be together in California as she finished everything up there, and Kate and I decided to use that time together before returning back to camp.
That night, we ordered pizza, watched a movie, and fell asleep on the couch.
When we both woke up, Kate went off to take a shower, and I started getting food together for breakfast, taking in the feeling of my apartment.
It was a pretty spacious two bedroom apartment, a bachelor pad that I had lived in with a year with Sam as my roommate. Somehow, it didn't feel the same. It didn't feel right.
I began to wonder what it would be like with Swift living with us. I even began to wonder what it would be like living with the new Sam, mature and in love now. He had a serious girlfriend, a serious girlfriend who was living with him now. With us now.
"So, our first and last few days alone, what shall we do?" Kate laughed as she came back in, her wet hair wrapped up in a towel on top of her head. She was wearing her own clothes, which felt strange after so many mornings with her wearing my clothes instead.
"How about you move in with me?" I teased, leaning myself on the counter, and she sat on the barstools, laughing.
"You live with my brother."
"But everyone else is doing it!" I pouted, and she kissed my cheek, knocking the towel off of her head and onto the counter.
"If everyone else was jumping of a bridge, would you?"
"For you," I kissed her forehead, my fingers running through her wet hair.
She rolled her eyes, and she sat up on the barstool, stretching her body as she watched me make bacon.
"I'm proud of you, you know," Kate told me, leaning on her elbows and watching me with a faint smile.
"Proud of me for what?" I laughed, transferring the hot bacon to a plate.
"For not following your sister. For letting her be at Camp Half-Blood on her own. For not calling her the first night and calling around to double check that she really was alright. That is the first time you have done that, you know," Kate told me, stealing a piece of bacon from the plate.
"It is, isn't it? I'm getting better, huh?" I laughed, and I felt a bit of pride swarm through me.
I would always be overprotective of her in some way. I would always worry. But I was getting better.
That was all I could ask for. I wouldn't ever leave Charlie on her own. I would let her find her way, wherever that might be. Any time she needed help, I would be there. But the two of us were reaching that stage where she didn't really need my help all that much.
If she needed help, the honor would probably go to Aiden before me now. I hadn't been thrown away. I was still her brother, but I would never be the godlike figure that little Charlie had seen me as when she was just a child. I wouldn't be her hero, banishing away spiders and big bullies. I was her brother. She loved me. I loved her. But it was time to give her the space she needed to grow up.
Kate laughed at me, shaking her head at my proud grin.
"You're getting much better," Kate planted a kiss on my cheek, ruffling my hair.
"And I know you love me," I teased, moving away from the counter to where I could scoop her up in my arms, covering her face in small kisses.
"Noah!" Kate laughed, throwing her head back, "You're insane. Absolutely insane!"
"But you love me," I sang, and she rolled her eyes like we were thirteen and I was teasing her for having a crush on one of my friends. Back then, I would have tried to set them up.
I wondered how people ever got over the amazement of how someone who you had never even thought of in a romantic way for years suddenly became the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. It was just too amazing. This was Kate, the little girl that I tried to teach how to play soccer in my backyard. Now, she was the woman that I wanted to have children with!
Maybe Austin changed all of that.
We had been best friends, the three of us. Aside from Sam, Austin was my best friend. On a quest, he choose me and Kate to go with him. During that time, I could tell. Kate liked him, and he liked her. I had been teasing them about this. I had wanted it actually. My two best friends together would have been great, especially them. They deserved to be with someone who would treat them right, and I knew they would be great for each other.
But then it was actually happening, and I couldn't handle it. When they officially got together, I felt like a part of me had been ripped out. I couldn't look at Austin, and I barely ever spoke to Kate. A combination of things broke Austin and Kate up after only five months of dating, and I knew I was a big part of it. Dating had ruined the friendship we all had, and they knew it. After the break-up, I guess Kate got us, and Austin just decided to go and make a new life for himself that school year.
He did. He is in college now. I haven't seen him since graduation.
Things change so much, but I accepted the way it went. Bad things happened over the years, but I was happy in the end. That was enough for me.
"I do love you," she kissed me softly, and I felt intoxicated by the way she tasted. Kate's arms stretched out, wrapping around my neck and pulling me closer to her. My hands rested on her hips, pulling her even closer to me as I ached for more of her.
"I have an idea for the weekend," I began to rub her lower back, a wicked grin on my face, and she laughed.
"You're injured. I might hurt you," Kate pulled on her best impression of me, her eyebrows raised as she delighted in paying me back.
"It has been a while. I changed my mind!" I pouted, kissing her neck.
"I should really make you pay for this, you know," she grinned, still smirking, "But you look so cute when you beg."
I laughed, smiling happily as I kissed her, and I reached out my hand.
"Come on, Kate," I winked, and she laughed, taking my hand as I pulled her along to my room.
