The Manuscript—T.S. She was seventeen when Luke Castellan left Camp Half-Blood. Still writing in library margins, pretending not to care when he missed curfew or flinched at praise. He was nineteen—reckless, golden in a dying-sun way. You didn’t look at him and think safety. You saw a dare. It wasn’t supposed to be serious. It never is, until it is. Until she’s curled on the edge of his bunk, knees tucked in, pretending she’s not waiting for him to say stay. Until she’s whispering please into the hollow between sentences. Until he’s brushing hair from her forehead with a smile that says when you’re older. One night in the grass by the lake, his arm around her, he said, “I’m not a donor, but I’d give you my heart if you needed it.” She rolled her eyes like always, like she wasn’t seconds from crumbling. “You’re a professional,” she drawled. He looked down at her. “No, just a Good Samaritan.” And she believed him. He always said the right thing with the wrong kind of smile—the one already holding goodbye. It ended before it began. She never got the strollers, just silence. He left Camp with no warning, no letter—only half a hoodie and a shattered timeline. Just rumors and a prophecy unraveling too fast to stop. She became a ghost dragging herself through growing up. She drank bitter coffee and missed him more when the sun broke through storms. She hated wings and messenger bags. She dated boys her own age—ones who left darts in their doors and smelled like cologne. Boys who couldn’t tell Achilles from Apollo. Boys who made her laugh, but never ache—not the way Luke had. She thought about how he once said, since she was “wise beyond her years,” it had all been above board. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything, except the way his absence haunted every prophecy, every campfire story. Some nights she’d sleep in the shirts he didn’t pack, press them to her face like grief had a scent. Like love could be bottled and reopened. She was angry—at him, the gods, herself. For believing she could ever be enough to make him stay. So, she wrote. The manuscript. Full of half-truths and haunted lines. Not revenge—remembrance. His name inked between heartbreak and myth. Her Olympus was ash and echo, and Luke lived in both. She was twenty-one the next time she saw him. It was during a mission—a skirmish on the city’s edge, just before the world collapsed inward. Her armor was too new to feel like hers. Crimson smeared her cheekbone. Her knees ached. She turned a corner—and there he was. Exactly as she remembered. Not a day older. Except for the eyes. They weren’t his anymore. “Luke,” she breathed. He tilted his head like a question. Like she was a sport he hadn’t practiced in years. He looked at her like she was a stranger. And Kronos smiled. Her hands trembled. Knees threatened to fold. For one awful second, she hoped. Maybe he’d fought his way back. Maybe the boy with golden skin and a crooked grin was still in there, somewhere. But he didn’t say her name. He didn’t say anything. He walked past her like air. Like she hadn’t stayed awake with him, whispering about the future. Like she hadn’t begged him to stay. She didn’t cry. Not then. Not until the sky cracked open and her knees finally gave. It was like seeing a memory wear the wrong face. He looked younger. Or maybe she just felt older. Wiser. Wrecked. She’d worn red lipstick that day—not for him, not really—but the way he didn’t recognize her hurt worse than all the rest. He was a villain now, she supposed. A ghost in a war too big for either of them. But somewhere in her bones, he was still nineteen. Still brushing her hair back. Still promising her a heart he didn’t have to give. She should’ve burned the manuscript. Instead, she keeps it by her bed. Reads it when the world’s too quiet. Wonders if he ever thinks about that night on Half-Blood Hill—when he promised he’d never leave. He was smiling when he said it. He always was. And even if it’ll be the end of me, she thinks. Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward. So, she followed him.