Yeah...I still suck. This took way, way too long, and I'm not going to try and make excuses...

Don't forget to tell me what you think, and I hope to be back around soon!

I felt like an absolute hypocrite.

There was no way around it. I was running from my problems...I was a coward. Worse than that...I was a complete and total hypocrite.

I'd always maintained that running from your problems got you nowhere. I'd always thought that you had to face things head on, no matter how difficult they were. It's how I'd gotten through two wars...it was why I was still alive...

And I'd told people this too, convinced them that they couldn't run from their problems either. I'd tried to convince Nico of this so many time, back when he was...difficult, when he was just trying to run from me. I told him that he was wrong...

But now I was just running because I was too scared to do anything else.

It's not as though I'd never dealt with problems before, far from it. I'd fought two wars, participated in countless quests. I'd had reason to be scared, reason to run away.

But not once did I ever run, did I take all the chances given to me. I stuck with my fellow soldiers, with my friends, through and through because I was loyal. I could never leave them to fight alone.

The closet I ever came to leaving for good was my time in Ogygia, but I came back...I came back. I never really left them, even though I could have lived out an immortal life on a beautiful island with a beautiful girl.

I didn't do it though. I didn't stay, even though I broke Calypso's heart again. I became just another hero, full of broken, half-hearted promises to her. I practically made an enemy by leaving her alone like that. And it made me feel like an awful person but...I just couldn't leave my friends.

I couldn't leave Annabeth or Grover or my mom. And...I couldn't leave Nico. That was one of my reasons for leaving back then, actually. I'd never told anyone, just let them think that I left Calypso because I was in love with Annabeth. And while that was true...Nico was a big part of it.

I couldn't, in any good conscious, leave an 11 year old kid to fight Kronos. Hell, I made it to 12 before even finding out I was a demigod, and I still had a few years left to train. But I couldn't leave Nico to shoulder the prophecy, nobody deserved that. I couldn't hurt him again...I'd already killed Bianca, destroyed whatever semblance of a life he still had left.

I couldn't stay on Ogygia because I couldn't force the prophecy on anyone else. I didn't want anyone else to be hurt by it.

But now?

I was running because I had no idea what to do. Because I was panicking and scared.

I was running, and hurting people at the same time. I felt awful. I'd left Nico just a few mintues after he woke up, just a few minutes after he actually started becoming aware. I left him in what was probably one of the times he needed me most.

And I left him for entriely selfish reasons, because I couldn't control myself and my stupid emotions.

I'd probably freaked out plenty of other people too. The second I left the infirmary, I ran straight to the beach and walked into the Sound. I didn't even have the decency to run to my cabin, where other people could find me pretty soon. No...I ran straight to the ocean. It's not like they could follow me.

It's not like anyone had even seen me do it.

I realized how...insensitive that was, to just disappear without a word or a trace of where I'd gone. The last time I'd done that...I disappeared for months on end, left Annabeth behind. Freaked her out, made her panic.

And I was doing it again. I couldn't go back though, I just had to hope nobody freaked out too much.

I just needed time alone, that's all. I needed time to think without the possibility of being interrupted. I needed to feel at home, where I could relax. Nobody down there would ask me how I was feeling or what was wrong.

I doubt I would be able to handle that.

Because if I wasn't sitting at the bottom of the ocean, Jason would inevitably come knocking on my cabin door, ready to chew me out for leaving Nico alone. That, or he'd be Good Guy Jason and try to get me to talk about my problems.

I didn't want to talk about my problems. Not to Nico, not to Jason, not to anyone.

I couldn't talk about them...

Gods, I'd been so convinced that I was going to talk to Nico. I'd run through every possible scenario in my head, trying to map out the conversation, trying to figure out what I was going to say.

Some of the fantasies had been, admittedly, self-indulgent and highly unlikely. It's not as though they'd happen in a million years. There was no way he'd ever like me like that, but keeping that in mind didn't stop the sappy fantasies. My favorite one was where, just after I'd blurted out my final word in the hurried confession of attraction and genuine freaking love, he leaned in and kissed me. The kind of kiss that made fireworks explode and your whole body tingle. Simple, beautiful. Afterwards, we would just sit there on his bunk, foreheads touching and smiles on both of our faces.

There were neutral fantasies too. I would tell him, and he would just understand and hug me. Maybe he didn't like me back in that kind of way, but he still cared about me and wanted to be friends. He wouldn't blab my secret to anyone because it wasn't his business. He wouldn't tell...it would be just between the two of us. We would be okay...and I would learn to deal with my feelings. Everything would be fine so long as he was still in my life.

But for every wonderful, or even decent, fantasy, two miserable ones took its place.

There was an awful one where he screamed at me, shouted and raved about how disgusting I was, what an abomination I had become. How what I felt for him was sick and wrong. He would call me awful, awful names. He would tell me that he couldn't even touch me anymore, let alone look at me. And in a flash, he would be gone for good and I would left more alone than I'd ever been.

Other times, he would sit there in silence, watching me pour out the contents of my heart with critical, narrowed eyes. And when I was done...he would just ask me to leave, push me out the door and slam it shut behind me. He would tell the whole camp, make them all hate me for the abomination I was.

There were so many more of those awful fantasies. They outnumbered all the good my mind had managed to invent...and it was because of them that I couldn't go back to camp.

I couldn't bear to face Nico, because I knew there was no way he'd ever have feelings for me. I just knew that this would end badly, with him disgusted and me...broken, hated, and completely, utterly alone.

If Jason knew about me by now, and if he had any chance of finding me, he would try to convince me otherwise. But he didn't know any better. Nico was a product of the 1930s...there was just no way he would just be magically okay with me being...with me being...

Gods, I couldn't even say it, couldn't even think the word. I could barely admit that I...loved...Nico. I couldn't say it, the word...

I couldn't go back to that, to people thinking I was a freak. I'd gotten enough of that when I was a kid, at school, they'd teased me mercilessly, called me names because of things I couldn't control.

The other students called me stupid, and about a million other variations of that insult. I lived in fear of being called on in and forced to read out of book or off the board. I would sit in the back, shrinking down in the hopes that I wouldn't be seen. It didn't always work. Sometimes, a teacher that had it in his or her mind that I could do better would call on me, and I would be forced to humiliate myself with some botched attempt at English. Everyone around me would snicker, and just use it as another reason to make fun of me, beat me up.

And I would spend my nights trying in vain to do math homework I didn't understand because my ADHD made it impossible to pay attention in class. I would spend hours trying to find audiobooks for the stupid English novels that bored me to sleep within a few seconds. I would wish I had a friend to help me study, to read the textbooks out loud or explain things, but of course, I didn't have any. I had nothing. I was trapped in an inescapable loop of not having friends because I was stupid and not being able to get smarter because I didn't have friends.

Teachers weren't much of a help, and even in at certain schools. Yancy was the worst with that, I think. What kind of decent teacher called out a known dyslexic kid for failing a spelling test? They turned a blind eye to the bullying too, pretended they didn't hear the laughing. The only time they broke up fights is when I fought back.

The worst part of it all? There was nothing I could do, nothing I could change. Studying harder didn't help the fact that sometimes reading was impossible, that the letters would just float around the page. Nothing could erase the dyslexia or ADHD or the fact that all the bullies were right.

I was stupid, that fact was inescapable. But it was forgettable too.

At camp, I'd been given a respite for that bullying, because almost everyone was dealing with the same thing. I didn't have to worry about math problems, or people who didn't understand. And after I learned Ancient Greek, reading was no longer an issue. At camp...I could function just fine, and the short amount of bullying I'd experienced when I got to camp didn't last long.

It was the same as...as loving Nico.

If I left the place that held the emotions, I would be able to forget. I would get over it...I would have to or else I don't know what I would do.

I had to leave Camp Half Blood, the place that had become my home. I couldn't face Nico and the inevitable rejection, the following flood of bullying and hatred and shouting.

I had to run...I had to run. It was the only way around it, and even though I hated myself for it, it was all I could do to avoid even more pain.

I knew that I would hurt people, that I would probably hurt Nico most of all. I would hurt him just like he hurt me all those years ago. But I couldn't let him know what I was...I couldn't let anyone know.

I made up my mind. It was time to leave.

I made my way out of the ocean, onto some random beach. The sun was already setting, it looked as though I'd been down there longer than I though. I fished a single loose drachma out of my pocket, and checked behind my shoulder, making sure there was nobody there to see me.

I decided to IM Jason with the last bit of sunlight left, unable to think of anyone else to call. His face relaxed when he finally saw me, obviously glad I was "okay". I told him that I was leaving, just to visit my mom in the city. He asked me when I would be back, looking concerned as he studied my face in more detail.

I took a deep breath and told him.

"I'm not coming back."

I wiped a hand though the message before he could respond, disconnecting my last connection to camp.

I was done. It was time to go home...and forget.