#baileyelias

Bailey opened her suitcase. After a long talk with Logan about whether or not she should take a chance and go to Michigan, along with a talk with Hannah about going there, she decided it was time. Bailey had spent most of the week with this on her mind. Though there was a part of her that felt like it was going to backfire, there was always that part of her that wanted this - no - needed this. Bailey had spent years being left by people, that it made it hard for her to actually open up to others. 

Bailey’s mind was plagued with the bad memories that came with thinking about all the places she was passed around as a child. All the places that couldn’t accept her for who she was. All the places that tore down her spirit as a child. 

&&&.

Bailey sat on the floor outside her foster parent’s room, listening to them screaming in the background. Bailey was five. “She’s psychotic, Mark!” Ellen screamed to the other. Bailey jumped slightly at the noise.

“Ellen, the girl is five,” Mark replied.

“She threw a plate at Anna!” Ellen replied. At that point Bailey had tears in her eyes. She didn’t mean to do that. Anna had screamed at her, teased her for not having a family. Anna was their biological child, Bailey would never be her. 

Anna was teasing her and Bailey lost control, her powers had just started to show. The plate flew off the shelf, nearly hitting the other girl. Because they were mortal, it looked like Bailey had thrown it. That was the house where Bailey was then labeled as “violent”.

“She’s leaving tomorrow,” Ellen said. “I will not have a child in my house bully my daughter, Mark.”

“I understand,” he said back.

“Sharon will be picking her up, tomorrow morning.”

And she did.

&&&.

There were many homes that treated Bailey that way. She wasn’t important. Something always happened that ended in them sending Bailey back to the group home. Bailey wondered how someone could just do that. Trade her like she was some kind of toy being labeled as ‘defective’. Bailey never had a true home, not until Camp Halfblood. 

Though Bailey felt at home when it came to Camp Halfblood, there was always a part of her that longed for her to be somebody to someone. Bailey looked at her friends and her siblings, and saw some of them were with their parents, their mothers. Bailey wanted that. Bailey wanted that feeling of being loved.

&&&.

Bailey was six. She stood in the living room of her foster home. She had just broken the lamp in the living room. This wasn’t the first time that this had happened in this home, but this was the last. She could hear her foster Dad screaming at her, scolding her for what she had done. He obviously didn’t see what really happened. It was like Bailey was on a different plane of existence. She was getting yelled at, but it was like someone else was getting yelled at. If it didn’t feel like her, it would be like this wasn’t happening again. It hurt less that way. She was six, but Bailey knew what exactly was happening. 

She was snapped back into reality when Bailey’s wrist was grabbed by her foster dad, dragging her toward the room she was given. When he gripped too tight, she yelped, Bailey didn’t mean to zap him, but it happened and he pulled away quickly. “Go to your room, now!” he screamed. Bailey jumped, but she obeyed.

The next morning she was picked up from that home, with just the words ‘she just wasn’t a good fit’ and ‘danger to others’.

&&&.

Even at Camp Halfblood, a part of Bailey never felt safe. There was always a part of her that wouldn’t fully trust someone, would be scared they’d leave. Bailey had spent so many years losing people, that she never felt like she could put herself out there. She was scared to be alone, scared to feel alone again. There was always a part of Bailey that felt like she would be alone again. 

When the war came around, Bailey felt cursed. She had lost friends, and family, and most of all, she lost her home. Seeing Camp Halfblood in ruins, it hurt. This was her home, the only home that she knew. After that though, it felt tainted. Then, when it felt like she was at her worst, it got worse. When Bailey heard that Abel had died, it was like a piece of her cracked. Home wasn’t home anymore, it was just filled with broken memories from the Gods treating them like pawns. The war and Abel, made it feel like her father too had left her. Unlike many others, she didn’t leave her home, but it felt like her home had left her.

&&&.

Bailey was thirteen when she saw her sister crack. Rory didn’t leave, Rory didn’t die, but when Abel died they took a piece of her with them, and Bailey could tell. She knew that Rory was trying to be strong for her, but Bailey could tell it broke Rory. It wasn’t too long after the death of Abel, that Bailey really saw - or in her case - heard Rory actually break. Bailey had planned to go to bed that night, but every time she shut her eyes, she could see the events of what happened in the previous months unfold. She spent many nights awake because of this.

It was quiet at first, but it was there. Bailey wasn’t sure what it was at first, but soon she recognized it. It was Rory crying. Bailey just sat there in the silence, listening to Rory’s sobs. Bailey thought about going in there, holding her sister tight, but there was a part of Bailey that knew she couldn’t fix this or make it better. She knew that if Rory knew that Bailey heard, she’d feel bad because she knew Rory was trying to be strong for her. That’s when Bailey decided she had to be strong for Rory. 

Bailey shut everything off then. Bailey couldn’t break, she had to be the strong one then. Bailey told herself that it was better if she locked it all away, much like she had told herself plenty of times before that. If she locked it away, it didn’t hurt as much. 

And instead of someone else leaving Bailey, she was leaving herself.

&&&.

Bailey heard a knock on her door, and she put the stuff she was holding into the small suitcase. She turned, opening it up to reveal her cousin, Elias. “Hey,” she greeted him, a smile upon her face. 

Elias held up the two bracelets that he always carried with him, ones that transformed into his sheath of arrows and recurve bow. “Just please don’t lose them okay? I know I’m a pacifist, but that’s literally the only weapon I’m good at.”

“Noted,” Bailey said. “I promise I won’t lose them, E.”

Elias clipped them onto Bailey’s wrist. “Are you sure about this Bailey?” Bailey could tell that the other was shaking. “I mean, Michigan is so far and you don’t know her, and--”

“Elias,” Bailey cut him off, grabbing hold of his hands to comfort him and reassure him. Elias was always the voice of reason, the one to think of what could really go wrong, maybe sometimes too much. “I’ll be fine I promise. This place is my home, nothing is going to keep me from this place.”

Elias let out a soft sigh. “What about the monsters? We have a pretty bad history of it this year, with your sister and my brother.”

Bailey nodded. “That’s why I will have my ax and your arrows, Elias it’s going to be okay, sometimes we have to travel outside of Camp Halfblood. Our blood shouldn’t stop us from doing that. Besides I think if I didn’t go, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, more than I’ll regret any monster attack that happens as a result.”

“I already almost lost Rory and Sefa, I can’t lose you,” Elias said. 

Bailey wrapped her arms around Elias in a hug. “You won’t E, I promise. I’ve been here since I was seven years old, I’ve been through a damn war, I think I can handle a monster or two if need be, okay?”

Elias squeezed her back in a hug. He took another breath, trying not to cry. “Just be careful, alright?”

“I will, I promise,” Bailey replied. “I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone.”

When they broke, Elias left back to his own cabin, and she was alone again.

&&&.

Bailey was alone again.

A balloon was filling up inside her, ready to pop. Her emotions that buried themselves for years, the thing she taught herself coming back to haunt her. After her fight with Abel, she found herself outside the border so no one could hear her cry, scream, anything that made her feel like she mattered to someone, to even the universe. 

Bailey knew deep down she had so many people in her corner, but at times like these when someone leaves her, it felt like she was alone again. She was angry, she was upset. All that Abel needed to say was that they wouldn’t leave her. 

Every time she felt like this, she felt like that little girl who needed love and didn’t get it again.

Bailey let the balloon pop.