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When Drew is seven she gives a dollar to a homeless man, and her father yanks her away by the arm. He chastises her fiercely, his dark eyes glinting furiously. The expensive watch on his wrist is gold, and it glints in the street lights. Later, she learns about Annabeth Chase and how she’s the youngest kid to ever attend Camp. She thinks about other momentous moments when she was seven. Her first lipstick. Her first cat. The first time a girl ever said she looked pretty.
Life is not good when she is seven, and somehow it is. It’s very confusing.
***
Drew grows up and they move into a residential area. She’s the only asian kid on the block, and nobody else wants to be friends with her. She teaches herself games like soccer and basketball, imitating what she’s seen on television. She’s eight years old, and her only friend is her nanny Alyson. Aly has long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and nice shoes. Drew loves her. Drew lives to be her.
Imitation is the key.
Drew begins to wear skirts and dresses and nice shirts. She does her makeup and her hair, and ignores the giggles from the other girls in her class. Aly tells her that maybe she’s too young to be wearing makeup. She broaches the subject with hesitancy in her voice, and Drew makes up her mind. She had seen the way Tiffany was ousted from the popular group by Sarah. Sarah had shown no remorse, and Drew can’t either.
Aly is fired, and a new nanny comes. She’s older and her shoes aren’t cute and her eyes aren’t blue. But she minds her own business and Drew supposes that’s better.
***
Drew tells Anna to invite her to sit with them at lunch, and she does. Anna looks dazed while she does it, eyes glazed and distant. Drew sits with a smile, and the manners of a debutant. She wows them with her makeup prowess and dazzles them with her knowledge on fashion. She is one of them, and they will see it.
***
They love her. Of course they do. Everybody does. Life is good. It’s never been better.
(and so what if they never come to her house and sometimes they make comments about her skin color. it doesn’t matter. not one bit.)
***
One day a boy with blonde hair arrives on their doorstep. He has blue eyes, and his shirt is black. “You would look good in pink.” She tells him, smirking when his eyes flash. Her smile falls when he raises his sword, and she stumbles backwards with a scream.
He tells her she’s a demigod, and that the greek gods are real. She laughs, albeit nervously. After all, he’s got a sword . He explains that a war is brewing, and Kronos could use someone like her on his side. She can charmspeak, he says and Drew flinches back. It sounds magical, and magic is dangerous. It’ll make her weird, and different. She’ll finally be the freak that Amy calls her.
She says no, and slams the door in his face. She locks it, and runs around the house locking all the windows and the backdoor. She threatens to call the police, and he leaves.
Three hours later, the monster shows up.
Life is not good, and it will never be good again.
***
Drew has a sister, and her name is Silena. She’s the prettiest, wittiest, and nicest girl Drew has ever met. Drew loves her, and pink runs through her veins.
Maybe life can be good again. And it finally is.
***
Drew had a sister, and her name was Silena. She’s dead, and her pretty face was disfigured by poison. Drew hates this camp and she hates this life. She hates the pretty pink wallpaper and the pretty pink sheets and the pretty pink trunks and this pretty pink life that she’s supposed to be living. It’s awful, and it hurts to breathe. It hurts to breathe because Silena is gone and she is never coming back. Drew sobs and sobs until she passes out.
Life is awful, and Drew’s finally figured it out.
***
Aphrodite tells her in a dream that a new sister will arrive with two boys and Butch and Annabeth. Drew tells her to fuck off, but her voice is distorted and slow so she’s not sure if it actually came out of her mouth.
***
Her name is Piper, and Drew hates her. It’s not because she’s petty or because Piper looks like an ugly drowned rat. It’s because her mother is sending Piper to be a replacement sister, and Drew doesn’t need one. She doesn’t want one.
Piper will never replace Silena because Silena was good and kind and she taught Drew to be more than just the pretty face she strived to be. It’s not fair.
Life isn’t fair, and Drew hates this life. She hates the danger and death and the lack of a reward for living this life. It isn’t right that she spends her afternoons doing Silena’s job because she’s dead. It isn’t right that she has so many sisters and none of them are Silena. It’s not right, and nothing will ever make it right.
Life is not good when she is sixteen, and it doesn’t ever change.