Annabeth

How many times has she screamed without opening her mouth.

Sobbed without making a sound.

She has envied those people who can joke about illness and go out with others,

others who do not lower their voices as they approach her, or stop talking as they enter the room,

like a silence that needs to be broken and is filled with fake promises and get well soons,

smiles that don't quite reach eyes and a friend request as long as her arm with no one who would care if the circumstances weren't as dire.

It's called association, because how 'cool' is it to be the one who was there while tubes were stuck down her throat,

To be there while she retreated into a shell that can't ever be cracked open, not until she's better. It's not cool at all.

And I don't mean a stage of better, I am implying the actual greatness of being able to do something she wants without having to take 7 different pills and be accompanied by a parent who has become her second shadow.

How is she supposed to tell the one friend who visits her that there is no point, she is so completely isolated, her island can't be reached by anyone because they just

don't know what she's going through.

She was a girl, so beautiful and innocent with a whole life ahead of her, a human that shouted humanity with every movement.

that soul is reduced to a figure in a bed with one-worded answers and the optimism of a person who has abandoned the notion of believing in a good world.

The optimism of someone who just wants. to. Escape. To escape the white walls that are her prison cell, to actually taste air that isn't artificial, to smell the feeling of freedom.

How can she heal when her heart is bruised with the depression of defending herself for a year and all she wants is an easy way of giving up,

laying down the sword and surrendering to a battle she never asked to fight in,

what happens when she loses that hope of remission in the dark of a hospital room,

once that's gone what's left?