sherman yang who is born screaming and fighting, who wails at the world, and nearly kills his mother, because is it not true that your own body can war against you. sherman yang who becomes a toddler who is mean to children because he doesn't know how to act, but who goes home and cries because he just wants to be nice.
sherman yang who is the strong ares boy, the second in command, the one people turn to when clarisse is gone, the one who came to camp when he was five, he and his mother fighting their way from alaska to new york only for his mother to die, he shows up at camp wrapped in her winter jacket and covered in blood, he is strong, he is fearless, he is ready for war.
but
sherman yang who is the weak ares boy at night, the one who is still scrubbing his hands months after battle because he swears he can still feel blood underneath his fingers, the one who punched the mirror in the cabin bathroom because he couldn't stand to look at himself, who wakes up and throws up every night from nightmares, who thinks of himself as a weapon and not a person, but a broken weapon now.
sherman yang who hears percy jackson disappeared and has to go into the bathroom to shake in peace because he is so scared of another war, so scared of getting more blood on his hands, of becoming even more of a monster that he can't breathe.
but
sherman yang who is followed into the bathroom by miranda gardiner, who starts keeping plants by his bed, one for each person he killed, one who finds that flower crowns don't erase the past, but sometimes they make the nightmares better, the one who finds that not everyone needs him to fight.
