why can't i breathe||open

My name is Iris Eileen West.
I am seventeen years old.
I am alive.
But I feel like I am on fire.
I can't think. I can't speak. I can't move. I don't remember how I got to the forest. I'm just here now. I'm still in my pajamas. My hair is a bird's nest. I don't care though. How is one supposed to care about what you're dressed in? Better question, how does someone function normally? I've kind of forgotten.
Everyday is like this. I get up, I wander off to some lonely place on camp without realizing it, and somehow I make it back to the Hermes cabin before curfew. I don't go to dinner all that much anymore. When I do, Anna and Kat usually give me glares and mouth EAT. I don't want to eat though. I don't want to be in a loud, crowded mess hall with all of those happy people. They all hide behind a smile, trying to forget how many people died during the battle last month. I haven't forgotten though. I went to every funeral. Forty-two kids in total. They were burned and mourned. Chiron wrote letters to their families giving his sincerest apologies. Why the hell are we sending letters to parents telling them that their most precious things in the world have gone?
I stumble up to a tree and slide down. There's a small branch protruding out of it, pressing into my back. I don't mind it. I've had worse pain over the last month.
Colin Bane had died during the New Years Battle. Just another casualty, just another name on the endless list of children who were no longer breathing. He was about to kill himself. I hadn't seen that part, only heard it from Anna. What came next initiated a war of emotions inside of me. Hatred and empathy. Loathing and understanding. Kat, in attempts to save Colin's life from a hell-hound, threw her daggers at the beast. Only, she missed, striking Colin instead. I'd leaned over him, holding his hand while he slowly died. I told him a story while I watched the light drain from his eyes.
Much like Colin drew marks on his arms counting the number of days he'd not seen his family members, I'd drawn marks of my own. It had been 38 days since Colin had passed away. The black lines were small on her wrist.
She thought of the stiff expression on Colin's face.
Just a goodbye wasn't enough. How could it ever be enough? Despite their attempts to talk to me, I have avoided Kat and Anna lately. Just being around them makes me start shaking. I've been shaking a lot lately. I have these bursts of panic where my entire body refuses to stay still and I trembling so much that I can't function. Then I start crying. The crying is never nice. I've tried hiding it, but pain demands to be felt.
My reclusive behavior is a result of my attacks. I don't want people to worry about me. I don't want them to come up and ask if I'm okay. I don't want them to try to sympathize with me when they will never be able to understand.
I'm shaking now. I look down at my fingers. They're trembling like I'm enraged. I'm enraged, yes, but not like I normally am. I'm enraged that Hades decided then and there that he would snatch one of the only people I care about from me. When I was younger, before I knew about the gods, and I was being scrutinized for being an Atheist, I came up with a thought. If God is real, why does he do all this messed up shit to his followers?

I was never one to vent. My entire life I had concealed my emotions underneath a very convincing smile. I didn't want someone know my feelings. I didn't want my anxiety to become a conversation piece between people who would pity me. So, much like the campers in the mess hall every night, I laughed and smiled and pretended like nothing was wrong. It had worked pretty well, up until now of course.
The boy looks familiar. Everyone at camp is that to me, just familiar. My anti-social behavior is probably the cause of my lack of friends. I thought Kat and Anna had been enough, and I'm confident that they are.
I shrink even more. I'm nearly in a ball now. I just stare a Theo, not knowing what to say to him. I'm scared to speak for the first time. I doubt I can trust him. Tons of people have seemed trustworthy to me over the years, but when I tell them how I really am, they inch away and pat me on the head, like I'm covered in slime.
"I saw one of the only people I care about die."

"The thing is though," I begin to say. I shuffle my hands, not knowing how to phrase my thoughts without sounding offense. Or without a sob. I start to think about Kat and Anna. They tried making me feel better, they tried telling me it would be okay. It wouldn't though. I know that I'm going to be stuck feeling like shit forever.  I won't be able to be cute and flirty at dances like I used. I won't be able to simply eat dinner with the smiling campers. I feel like I can't do anything.
"Nobody really gets it. Like, they feel bad, I know they do. They just don't have a good way of phrasing sympathy. I sometimes feel like people look at me like I'm some ancient vase that they think is interesting and nice but they don't want to come near me because they're worried that I'll break and shatter. It may be true, I do kind of have a problem with not crying, but I just wish they wouldn't try to make me feel better by telling me to 'Stay strong.'"
I sigh and look up at the sky. It's overcast and gray. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I was okay. I usually didn't care about to the weather because I was "too busy" with being the idiot that I was. I was "too busy" to think about a lot of things.