Andrew (")>

He seemed happy for a change.

We were talking, catching up. And my phone starts going off. My dad.

So I answer.

"Hello." I said, walking to the other part of my room.

"Hey, Andrew." My dad said. "Did you make it to campus safe?"

"Oh, yeah." I tell him. "I forgot to call, sorry. But yeah, I made it. I was just talking with my dorm mate."

And I recognized Nico. But you never know. It may not be him. And I haven't asked.

"Oh, who did you get paired with?" He asks.

"I never got your name." I politely told my dorm mate.

"Nico." He told me. "Nico Di Angelo."

So it is him.

I walk into the bathroom.

"You remember Nico, Dad?" I asked.

"How do you forget?" My fathers questions. "Why do you bring him up? I thought he died or something."

"So did I." I tell my father. "But I share a dorm room with the guy, apparently. He's changed. A lot. But in a good way, I guess. He seems pretty happy."

"Well that's good." My fathers says. "But um... Something happened, Andrew."

"What happened?" I asked, now scared. My mom has cancer. Bad cancer. There's a tumor sitting behind her heart for like 8 years.

"Your mom..." My father broke the news. "She's dead, Andrew. She just passed during the MRI."

I dropped my phone and I froze. I knew it would happen one day. I thought I was ready for when it would happen.

And I wasn't.

I picked up a razor.

●︿●
Nico ●︿●

I heard something drop in the bathroom and I rush over and then I heard something falls. Like metal.

Like a razor.

And I just remembered.

His mom has a cancer and a tumor behind her heart. She was ready to croak when I was around.

Andrew would never take it well. If she died or even went into a deep sleep, into a coma.

I've caught Percy cut before. Its been forever ago, but I've caught him do it. And it's a scary thing. Especially for you to see happen to a friend.

I knocked at the door.

"Andrew." I said calmly. "Open the door."

I heard not a scream but a sound come out of him created from pain.

"Andrew." I said. "Open the door. Please. I can't help."

"How, Nico?" He questioned. "How would you ever know what it's like to lose somebody! How!?"

Memories of Bianca appeared in my mind along with images of my mother that I barely even got to know.

This day was going so well.

"There's things you don't know about me, Andrew." I told somebody I considered a brother. "I don't remember my mom. I have a single memory of her, and that was the day she died. Why do you think I was on the streets? My sister and my mom are gone and fairly my dad doesn't care about me. There's so much I never said. You don't have to go down this road."

"And why is that?" He asked. "She was my mom, Nico."

"Its not worth it." I promised. "I went down it and I have seen many people I care about go down it. And most of them didn't come out of it alive."

"People you care about!?" That pissed him off. "Like us!? The people you left!"

"I didn't..." I fell silent. "I tried to stay. I really did. I didn't want to go back."

He opens the door.

"Then why did you!?" He interrogated. "You could've stayed! You could've had a family that cared about you! But you left!"

I looked him dead in the eye.

"I didn't have a choice." I calmly told him. "I never had a choice. And you're going to bitch to me because I left, saved your ass, found some happiness, moved on with my life, and found my own small family? Are you seriously going to be mad because I'm happy? I hated leaving. I did. But it had to be done. You guys were all too ignorant to the feelings of absence. I knew if I came back, when your mom died it would ruin you. And I was right, wasn't I? I feel horrible. She was like a mother to me. But I'm ruining my life over it. I'm not ridding of the one thing I somehow got back over one death. It sucks, yeah. But at least she went with the knowledge there were people out there thinking about her that could help her make peace with her death."

It calmed him down. But he asked me.

"How are you so calm about this?" Andrew asked me. "I've always wondered about that. You're always calm when there's bad news."

"The person who gives you bad news wants you to freak out." I answer. "They want you to ruin yourself over the smallest things. I made that mistake once. I  nearly killed somebody because I thought they had something to do with my sisters death. And thank god I didn't."

"Who are they?" He asked. "Like did it turn out to be another sibling or something?"

"Not exactly." I answer. "My fiancé."

Saying fiancé was just the weirdest thing. I never imagined I'd ever get to say that about somebody and me. Never. It was a dream.

And now its reality.

"You're engaged!?" This came at him out of nowhere and I smiled. "What's her name? Where is she from? When did you guys start dating? Like..."

"Yeah." I answered. "His name is Percy. Born and raised in Manhattan. And two years ago today."

"You didn't tell me you were gay." Andrew simply states. Forgetting.

"Yes I did." I tell him. "I went to formal with a guy. You asked if I was gay and I told you I was."

He ponders that.

"I'm just going to say okay and pretend I remember that." My old friend tells me. "When did he propose? I need to know this stuff."

"Earlier tonight." I answered. "We went out for a nice dinner, why I got here later, and he proposed there."

"That's sweet." Andrew commented. "How did you guys meet?"

"The place I went to in Manhattan." I nicely answered. "He brought me there with a few others with him. He brought me and my sister the winter of 2006. My sister died a few weeks later in an attack and for some reason I blamed him. I didn't have a place to stay so I left, went to my Dad's. He sent me away, I went back there the next summer, left once again, lived with you guys for a while, got called in, went through hell, met my younger sister, went through hell again, and that summer, two years ago. We got back and a few weeks later I found him at his place and he was mute at the time. Nobody knew why, they thought he chose not to talk and I found out it wasn't a choice, a friend of his said she'd go in and schedule his whatever surgery for him and instead of doing what he requested, she did that, and said to remove his vocal chords. I told him later that day and he told me a few reasons why at first he chose to be mute and then he told me he liked me and from there it went on for two years and now holy hell were engaged."