I was not the strongest of the demigods. Nor the fastest. Nor the smartest. Not the best-looking.

Truth be told, I wasn't much of a demigod at all. I had no primal domain; I was not Zeus' child, who walked the sky; I was not Poseidon's child, as much at home on water as on land. I had no special bearing on the hunt, warfare, medicine, war, craft, or love. I was not adept at skulduggery or fast talk.

I wondered why they gathered around me. I wondered why I was allowed at all. They told me I belonged, but I insisted I'd never done anything supernatural. I was adopted, sure; I'd never met my birth mother and been raised like anybody else though. I'd been bullied in school, right up until David's parents split up and his dad took him to military school. The next time someone tried to bully me, Brett stood up for me. He was everything I wasn't--tall, strong, good-looking.

If I believed this Greek society's ravings about my being the son of Hestia, goddess of hearth and home, family and nation...well, I suppose I could add "Entirely human" to that list.

Well, as it turned out, Brett struggled in social studies class and he'd been referred to my study group. The class came naturally to me and it would be the difference between him being academically eligible for football season and getting kicked off the team.

We became friends that day, and Brett wasn't the last person to show up for me when I needed a friend throughout high school.

According to this Alpha Alpha Alpha Alpha group, that was me passively leaning into the divine aspects my mother had given me. How many stories are out there of people showing up for 'found family' and 'this is my home'? A lot. So much identity and safety and security and comfort is tied up in my birth mother's domain, apparently.

That's probably why they all gathered in my off-campus apartment, telling me that we were all distant family.

The moment I truly embraced my identity was why they stayed.