After 10 more hours of both of us driving, we decide we need to go to sleep. We stop next to a forest, take out our sleeping bags since I won't let her sleep sitting up (IT'S SO UNHEALTHY WHO DOES THAT) and just as we get ready to go to sleep I get an IM. In the magical window I see Percy, Jason, and Lauren.

"What do you want? I've been driving for 5 hours straight" I say, completely exhausted. "What the hell were you thinking?" Jason blurts out. "What, you mean Nico?" I ask. "The one that helped save the world not once, but twice, once when he was a child, and after a week everyone started ignoring him?"

"Will, you know that's not what I mean-?" he says but I cut him off. I'm in the zone. "The one that spent years of his life alone and afraid? Scared of what people might think of him and convinced that nobody likes him? The one who's crush barely talked to him? The one that finally found friends, still had a problem with trust, then got his heart broken by his crush? Who never got the chance to tell him he loves him back? That Nico?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. Percy and Jason look ashamed, Lauren just looks completely shocked. "That's what I thought. And if any of you try to pull this shit again, I'll tell him exactly what happened here, do you understand me?" I ask and Percy and Jason nod, looking down in somewhat shame.

"This is ridiculous" Lauren quickly mutters. "Will, listen, I barely know Nico, I have no idea why I'm here, and just… it's the damn tree. He didn't even do much, he was just really nice and he was the only one who got me off the tree, and I want you to bring him back because I want to say thank you to him. I owe him a lot. I got a girlfriend thanks to him. I have pride thanks to him. And I got Jessica humiliated thanks to him.Bitch." She mutters. "So just add my name to the list of people who want Nico to come back home."

"Of course I will" I say and run my hand through the IM, making the message disappear. "Will…?" Lou Ellen asks me. "The tree?" she asks and I explain to her what I understood from the Nico, the Jessica, and the other tree. She nods. "Okay, I understand." She says after I finish talking. "So… as if we weren't going to get him now" she says with a short laugh. We say goodnight and go to sleep.

In my dream, I finally find Nico. I see him walking in a street. I run to him and hug him, feeling the need to hold him, feel him here, with me. After a few seconds, I feel him hug me back lightly, as if he's being cautious. "Nico, I finally found you, I missed you so much…" I say and pull away, placing my hand on Nico's cheek. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you on that day, I don't hate you, Nico. I love you… more than anyone." I say.

He looks down. "Will, it's been a year." He says and I feel my heart drop. No. this isn't happening. No. I look at him as he continues talking. "In this year I've grown to realize that I don't need you. This. I don't want it either. So I'm sorry" he says, pulling away from me and pealing my hand off his cheek. "Nico, I-" I begin but get cut off. "Will, just… no" he says in a cold, emotionless voice and looks at me in disgust.

"Can we at least stay friends?" I ask. "I… don't think so, no. here's the thing-I don't want to… see… you… again." He says. "Goodbye Will." He adds and walks away. I walk back to the woods where Lou Ellen and I parked, and collapse on the forest floor, bursting into tears. "What a pathetic loser" a voice rings in my head. "The love of your life hates you" it adds and I curl up into a ball; I can't take this anymore.

I wake up. It was all a dream. It was all a dream. Relax Will, relax. It didn't happen. But that doesn't stop me from crying my eyes out for 15 straight minutes. After a while, I don't even know when, Lou Ellen wraps her arms round me in a hug and I have, for whatever reason, rested my head on her shoulder.

"Was it about losing Nico again?" she asks. I nod and she tightened her grip. "Tell me everything." And I do. In the end, she looks me in eye. "Listen. I really don't think that'll happen, but if it does… people got over heartbreak all over the time. And I'm sure you will. You have me and Cecil; we can offer you a shoulder to cry on, and a new hot boyfriend." She says with a side grin and my eyes shoot wide open. "I forgot to talk to Cecil!!" I yell and immediately feel worse, as if that's even possible. "You don't have to, I already did, right after…" she says and blushes.

"Right after what?" I ask, wiggling my eyebrow. "He told me he liked me and I kissed him?" she said and my eyes go wide. ”What?" I ask and she starts laughing. "I was joking" she says after she catches her breathe. "It was a joke. Cecil's idea. He's just my friend." She says, and I recognize the slightest amount of disappointment in her eyes.

I'm not an idiot, I know she has a crush on him; she told me. And I get it… if the whimsical, into joking around and pulling pranks… if that was my type I might have liked him to. "So he knows." I say and she nods. "Okay, let's just… try to go to sleep, okay?" I ask.

She gives me a quick goodnight hug and crawls into her sleeping bag. I do as she does with my own, and go to sleep thinking about Nico.

Don't give up on me death boy.

Please don't.

I love you