THE WEIGHT OF LIVING ― p. jackson¹

oo. of echoes and undoing

prologue
oo. of echoes and undoing

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   Far in the future, on her twenty-second birthday, Thalia will be eighteen years old, standing in the mouth of a shallow cave at the base of a large mountain, howling ghosts and shrieking winds pounding at her back. Shattering lights will be thundering overhead, crackling in tandem with a too-small campfire flickering soft hues against jagged rock walls and the face of someone she had long since given up looking for. There will be tears in her eyes, gasping sobs catching in her throat, and tremors in her hands as she inches forward to touch his face—searching instead for the only other person in the entire world she never ever seemed to be enough for and thinking: Debería haberlo sabido...

   In the near past, on what should have been his third birthday, Thalia Grace was eight years old, hunched over and curled in on herself, choking back unshed tears that bubbled forth until thick enough to suffocate on. Sweltering light blared down in a dense haze of stifling air, pulsing like an ache as her fingers rake across sweat drenched hair, nails digging into her scalp hard enough to make her gasp—to forget the bile creeping up her throat, twisting her insides with a gnawing ache. She closed her eyes tightly, burrowed into her knees, chest heaving much too fast in the knowledge that her brother was two and a half and will never ever be any older and thinking: Ya no tengo hermano...

   It had started as a pit in her stomach. A deep pressure on her chest. An absence—his absence, coiling around her, weighing her down until she collapsed. It had started as an echoing thought, ya no tengo hermano, no tengo hermano, no—

   Thalia hated herself.

   She hated herself. She hated herself so fucking much. She—made a small noise from the back of her throat, whole body trembling. She never should've listened to her mom. She should've just gone with them. Stayed with them. Looked harder. Died instead of him.

   What Thalia wanted, more than anything, was to be dead. That way, she might stand a chance of finding him, because there was no fucking chance that he was still—she had already looked everywhere else! (Never mind that her brother went missing hours up north, that she didn't know where—) She combed every street, looking through dumpsters, under bridges, scouring parks. No matter how many times she searched and found nothing.

   Six months later, there was still nothing.

   Thalia gagged on still unshed tears, tugging at her hair. She refused to cry, didn't remember the last time she had. She thought she'd long since exchanged her tears for numbness, her sadness for anger—crying wouldn't bring him back. (Being numb helped her get through the worst days, anger helped her keep going. All sadness ever did was make her want to weep until her lungs gave out.)

   Crying wouldn't change anything. Not now, not when Thalia was small. Too small—not too young, she had always been a little older than her bones, a little more aware of the world than she should've been—and defending Mamá from the putrid smelling, bad men that she'd bring home all the time. Crying didn't soften Mamá's heart when too small Thalia clung to her neck, begging for explanations.

   "Solo eres una niña... una niña estúpida... no lo entenderías..."

   Thalia could laugh—and laugh and laugh until she screamed because she was so fucking naïve. And it was—so fucking stupid. And Thalia was so fucking stupid, waiting by the door in the night for Mamá to come back from wherever she chose to spend it instead of with her kids, willing her back home safe with the same prayer each time. Por favor... it always started then.