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Piper wasn’t the one to go to Tartarus, but she did imagine it at times. She turned her head away in the hammock and pictured falling down a gaping hole, clawing at the lip of hell with bloodied nails and desperate screams. She felt someone grab her hand, the way Percy had held Annabeth’s.
Piper used to think that was one of the most romantic gestures ever. She knew many myths, knew about the tales of Odysseus and Penelope, Eros and Psyche, Orpheus and Eurydice. The weeks after she saw Percy and Annabeth drop, Piper couldn’t help but think, I want something like that. That was real love— dropping into the depths of hell with only fumbling fingers to grasp each other, wrapped in the invisible string of fate, but knowing that you were only falling together because it was both or none.
The thing was, Piper knew that Jason could’ve given her that. Jason always gave her a genuine smile and made her heart flutter, but something about that wasn’t drop-with-me-to-Tartarus. And it was crazy too— Piper was sure that if it ever came down to it, Jason would’ve fallen with her. Heck, he would’ve fallen for Leo, and Hazel, and Frank, and even Coach too because Jason was that type of person.
But Piper wasn’t. She couldn’t see herself holding Jason’s hand as he struggles to catch his footing, and Piper would have to look down into that dark abyss and think, I am okay if I’m with you.
So when she pictured herself falling in Tartarus, and she felt that hand, Piper saw Jason when she looked up. But Jason was pale and muddy because he was killed. His form was faded and smudged because he was gone. His features changed around because he was dead. It was like her mind couldn’t remember him quite right, like Jason never existed to her, because she was still in Wilderness with Leo, and Jason Grace never happened to her.
He did happen to her, though.
The hammock swayed, and a hand fell along Piper’s arm. “Mmm, must’ve fell asleep. What are you thinking about?”
Piper turned her head to Shel, where she looked down at her with tired eyes and smudged mascara. “Nothing much.”
“Bull,” Shel said, dropping her cheek on Piper’s shoulder. Her fingers intertangled with Piper’s other hand, and her breath was hot on Piper’s neck. “Something’s bugging you. You can tell me stuff, Piper.”
“You’re tired,” Piper laughed softly. “We should go back inside.” Glancing over Shel’s head, Piper could see the patio lights left on for them and the light upstairs where her dad was getting ready for bed. Shel’s Jeep peeked out from the side of the house, where Shel had almost crashed into Piper’s house. “Your parents are going to kill you if you don’t call home soon.”
“They called earlier,” Shel mumbled into her shirt. “They’re still going to kill me. They don’t like how dark it gets here compared to LA, plus they don’t like the area.”
Piper could definitely agree with that. Oklahoma was no California. But when Piper thought California, she thought monsters, she thought her father being held hostage, she thought Camp Jupiter being bombed, and of course, she thought Jason. Oklahoma was nowhere, and there was little tied to the occurrences from the past year. It offered the quiet and comfort that Piper and her dad desperately wanted. She missed surfing, though, at least.
“You’re going to say what’s up with you?” Shel sounded like she was nodding off again. Piper dropped their linked hands on her chest and blew the hair out of her face. She had cut it short in the heap of a moment and never regretted it. But the fly-aways proved to be a bother.
Looking up at the dark sky, there were more stars than Piper would’ve seen out at the penthouse in LA. She remembered some of the stories that she heard from Camp Half-Blood about girls who died alongside Percy and Annabeth, and their souls were painted in the stars. There are a few stories that Grandpa Tom had told her too, passed down from when she was young, and those demigod and Cherokee tales intermingled to create a dazzling tapestry in the sky. Piper could go on about the heroes and myths thrown up there for the world to gaze at, but she would always stumble when her mind drifted to her mental list of fallen heroes.
“My boyfriend died, and it’s my fault,” Piper said aloud to the buzzing fireflies.
Shel didn’t make a noise, so at first, Piper believed she had uttered the words to the world, and it was now the world’s secret to keep with her, but then Shel let out a sigh.
“Oh,” Shel said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Piper told her.
“It’s not your fault either.” Shel told her.
Piper pictured Jason’s casket and then pictured falling in Tartarus with a corpse holding onto her. I saw him die for me, Piper wanted to say, but Shel wouldn’t understand, so she said, “It’s complicated.”
For as long as Piper knew Shel, since they were babies when Shel’s mom became Piper’s dad’s agent, Piper knew better than to respond with something like that, so when Shel sat up and almost flipped their hammock over, Piper wasn’t surprised. She dropped her leg and grabbed the netting tightly until their hammock swayed in a much more peaceful manner. Piper swung down her other leg, so they sat opposite each other.
“Piper, you can tell me things.” Shel was reckless in a way that Jason never was. “We’re still best friends, right? All those nights stealing scripts and sneaking backstage don’t mean nothing does it?”
Piper’s mind flickered to how Jason and Leo had been her best friend for the past year. It wasn’t the same. Something awful tied the three of them together that Piper wanted to get rid of desperately. She loved Jason and Leo with her heart, but it was too much for a human to handle. But Piper wasn’t exactly a human, was she?
Shel was different. She was human, nothing more complicated than the regular seventeen-year-old nonsense that came with being a mortal. It was a breath of relief for Piper. It’s what she had been searching for, something she never thought she could go back to after Wilderness, Camp Half-Blood, the Argo. And then Jason died, and Piper was able to slip back into normalcy.
Piper felt shame. But her relief buried that feeling most days until it was plucked out for nights like these where Piper thought no one was listening and it was just her.
Shel sidled her legs over Piper’s thighs, sitting on top of her, and grabs Piper’s face, and kisses her. She pulled away and knocked her forehead on Piper’s.
“Your foundation is going to rub on me,” Piper reminded her, lips trembling to a smile. She didn’t wear make-up herself, but Shel wore heavy mascara and eyeliner with gothic lip shades. Her dangling skull earrings glittered across the firefly lights. Piper was reminded continuously that her girlfriend was hot.
Shel bounced her forehead again and then pulls away. “You’ve got to tell me what’s up. It doesn’t have to be about your boyfriend, but if there’s something wrong, you can talk to me about it.”
Piper dropped her head on Shel’s shoulder. “It’s a lot to explain. I don’t think I’m allowed to yet.”
“Do you want me to call someone you can talk to?”
For a second, Piper almost said Gods yes, because it’s been so long since she’s talked to Leo, and he was bound to understand entirely, and it’s been so long since she’s spoken to Annabeth to search for some wise Athena kid advice. But then Piper remembered that Shel didn’t know any of those people personally, and they were mere characters in stories Piper had to carefully cut-and-paste around the truth.
To Shel, Leo wasn’t Piper’s lifeline, but just some kid Piper was friends with when she was sent away to Wilderness for a year. To Shel, Annabeth was just some counselor at a summer camp.
“I’m good,” Piper hugged Shel, balling up the black band shirt. Piper had spent so much time escaping her demigod life— and she wasn’t going back, that she was sure of— that she couldn’t function without it. A single year and some months had opened a part of her that Piper wanted to shove back away. She was inexplicably tied to the gods, and that wasn’t right at all.
During her time in the Argo, Piper spent hours daydreaming living the perfect life away from prophecies and monsters. Now that was in reach, Piper now spent hours imagining being pulled back into that life, and having nightmares about what have already, should’ve, could’ve happened.
When Shel patted her back, Piper realized she was crying. She gripped Shel’s shirt tighter, ignoring the hot tears on her face. “His name was Jason,” Piper sniffled.
“That sounds like a hero name,” Shel said after a moment.
“Yeah,” Piper croaked.
“Much better than Shel,” Shel kept going. “I can’t believe you went from Jason to someone named Shel. I could’ve went by Mitchie or Mel, or hell, just stick with Michelle and make my mom proud. But screw her, right? If she could hear me right now, she’d scream about attitude and grab her shoe.”
Piper almost choked on her laugh. Jason’s comforting wouldn’t have ended with something like that, and it was so distinguishable between Jason and Shel that Piper was about to kiss this girl again because it was different, it was so different, Shel was mortal, so it was different, Jason was dead, but it was different.
Piper did kiss her, all snotty-nosed and thinking about how it was different because it was, and with the fireflies around her, and the porch lights still on, and they were swinging in the hammock, and all Piper could think was that Shel was mortal and Jason was dead, and it was different.
“Would you,” Piper wiped her runny nose and the gross snot left on Shel. She stared at the nose piercing and how it glimmered on Shel’s dark skin, and the gothic plum lipstick, and the short hair. “This sounds dumb, but if we were,” Piper was almost embarrassed to ask. “If I was falling into hell, would you fall with me?”
Shel looked confused. She shrugged. “I guess? I don’t know, it seems like a trick question. Is that what’s been bothering you? Did-” she cut herself, “your boyfriend say something like that?”
“No, no,” Piper kissed Shel again. “I don’t know,” Piper repeated Shel’s words. “That’s what I was thinking too. I don’t know if I would either. Is that crazy?”
“Crazy, as in the question or the answer?”
“Nevermind,” Piper gripped Shel’s waist. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the best, Shels.”
Shel didn’t say anything for a bit. Piper stared past her into the trees, where she imagined monsters hiding and spears being ready to be thrown through her chest. She pictured Annabeth and Percy again, and then the moments after they were gone, where Piper stared at the blankness and thought, That’s love, isn’t it? I want something like that. She pictured Jason’s casket again.
She didn’t know, Piper just didn’t know, but she did know that it was different. Something, maybe not her, maybe not everything, but it was— it was different.