Annabeth

For people life may be just a free way, were you enjoy your selves, make friends, find your true self and all those things. But let me tell you that everyone's life is not that easy. If you ask a girl at any normal high school how her life is, she would say she has issues like guys, friends, studies, activities, college etc. I wish I had the same problems. I wished I could have been the same nerdy girl I had been last year. I wish time could turn around. I wish above all that I could have stopped my mom from committing suicide.

I woke up as my car stopped right in front of my school. My driver turned back and gave me a sympathetic look. I glared back at him. The last thing that I needed was a stranger's condolence. I stepped out of the car and banged the door behind me before running inside the school building. I was wearing grey jean shorts and a white T-shirt on. I pulled at the hem of my T-shirt as I made my way towards my locker.

Most days I would have a full shirt on because I needed to hide all the slash marks on my wrists.

Suicidal tendencies. That's what the doctor had said about my behaviour.

"It is too hard for little Annabeth to accept the reality."

I greeted my teeth as I remembered what Doctor Miles had said the last time I had cut almost three layers of my skin with a kitchen knife. I disliked Dr Miles with a passion because he is the reason for my messed up life. Well my post-mom's-death one. Because of his advises my dad sent me away all the way from California to New York for schooling in Tamper's Special Academy or TSA. A school for peoplelike me according to Dr. Miles.

I just wanted to stay with my dad. I wanted him to be with me while mom couldn't. But he refused to even see my face. That was the reason why I had started cutting my self in the first place.

I bumped into a tall and strong mean looking girl with brown hair and brown eyes as I was trying to find my locker. It had been a week since I had joined there but I just seemed to be forgetting more and more with every passing minute.

"Watch it Anniebetty!" She yelled at me. Last year, if anyone had dared to growl at me, I would have replied with a square punch on their face but now I just rolled my eyes and nodded. I didn't speak much, probably one of the reasons for my absence of friends. I checked my time table and turned left from where I had been and within a few minutes I was seated at the back of my history class. All the students poured in one by one and Grover underwood walked up to me with a nervous smile.

To be honest I liked Grover. We could have been good friends if I were a bit more responsive. The old me would have chattered away with a book in the popular crowd while still being a nerd but this me just didn't want to see anyone everyday. Which was quite difficult when you have to go to school everyday.

"Hey Annabeth. Can you show me some of your notes please? No one else has them." I knew he was lying because he was one of the few who were in Annabeth pity party, he just wanted me to feel at home, but Grover has never said how sorry he was for my misfortune and I respected that above all sympathies.

"Sure." I said in a low voice.

Grover took my copy and stood a bit straighter. His dark skin was sweaty and his curly brown hair were hidden beneath his Rasta cap. His bad leg was in a crouch as usual and he was the only sixteen-year old guy in class who had acne. He took a deep breath as if to calm his nerves and said, "Will you sit with us during lunch?"

I weighed the idea of sitting with Grover's friends during lunch but I quickly saw what a disaster a semi mute and completely hard to reach girl could create when forced to socialize.

"May be some other time." I tried to smile but I knew that it only came out as a grimace. Grover looked a bit disappointed but left me alone to sit with his girlfriend Juniper.

I sighed as quietly as I could when Mr. Turner entered the class room.

This week I was going to have my therapy. I had managed to dodge it last week but this week it seemed inevitable. Dad had even ordered my care taker to drive me to the specialist's clinic. The fact that he hadn't talked to me about it stabbed my heart a little. It made me wince. I sneaked a table knife up to my room after dinner and smoothed the skin of my for arm after getting into my pajamas.

Then with that knife I etched the words 'miss you mom' on my skin. It hurt a lot as I cut pretty deep to draw blood. My eyes teared up but I kept on cutting until I was done with all the three words. It was the truth after all. I missed my mom terribly and my dad had abandoned me in an alien city. What else could I possibly do to get over that misery? I tried to take drugs, really I tried. But my mom was a social activist when she was alive and I didn't want to do anything that would upset her up in the heaven. So inflicting physical pain on my self was the next best option and I took it.

Trust me when I say it helps.

Next morning after school Mrs Dahlia Margo, my care taker, was waiting for me to arrive on the door steps. I was once again shrouded under an over sized sweatshirt on my jean shorts and top to cover my cuts. Dahlia practically pushed me inside the back seat of the Mercedes and sat beside me and motioned for my driver to hit the road. She was a lean, short, middle-aged women with skin as tanned as mine. But my hair is long, wavy and blonde unlike hers which is bobbed, brown and curled near the ends. I hated Dahlia. Just after my mom had died she had got close to my dad. My dad had welcomed her with open arms without any moment's hesitation even when he had mostly forgotten about his younger daughter.

"How was school?" Dahlia asked politely but I wasn't the least bit polite to her when I said,

"It was okay. I was not hooking up with someone's else's husband at least."

Her cheeks had gone pink with embarrassment and anger but then we reached the doctor's clinic and I got off immediately. Before she had a chance to say anything else I jerked open the glass doors of the clinic and stepped inside. I closed my eyes and waited until I head the Mercedes pull away. My dad owned a multinational research company after all. He had tons of those cars.

The reception was empty. The specialist I was going to see was just three years older than me. I had asked Dr. Miles if he were out of his minds but he had just shrugged and said, "That kid only takes patients once in a long while. You might be his second actually. The first patient he had seen also had suicidal tendencies but he cured her quite well."

I didn't want to tell 'a kid' about my self. But I sighed and decided to just go inside his office or check up room or what ever. I was the only one there anyway. Before I opened the door I heard voices.

"NO! You can't do that to me! I love you!"

A girl was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I told you that I was only your therapist and nothing more. I think I have an appointment today so Rachel if you could please leave."

The voice was a guy's. It felt strange. It gave me a warm and cold feeling at the same time. It calmed me down a bit but also sent a huge shiver down my spine.

"I thought I was the only patient for you! I'll tell your new miss important what a monster you are!" The girl or Rachel was crying shrilly. I wondered what she felt like and why she called him a monster but then I decided that I didn't want to know. I had enough freakish tendencies on my plate anyway.

"Quiet! Leave through the back door." The guy's voice was horribly calm.

I expected Rachel to shout and throw another fit. But then I heard a soft 'clank' and knew that she had closed the back door behind her. I took a deep breath and knocked.

"Come in."

I stepped inside the large cabin. The walls were decorated with certificates which I was amazed to see considering the fact that the guy , to whom those certificates belonged, in front of me was only nineteen.

Then my eyes wandered around the closed large windows, the blue aquarium, the piles of books and magazines, the set of soft snowy sofas, the messed up working desk with two small rolling chairs for patients and a big rolling one for the doctor. My eyes lingered on the plaque kept on the table for more than a moment. It read- 'Perseus Jackson'. This place was more like a comfy study than a therapist's room. I looked up at Perseus who was wearing a loose, buttoned down, blue, full sleeved shirt which was hastily tucked in a black denim jeans. His long lashed and perfect eye brows went handsomely with his pale skin and toned figure.

His skin was beautifully pale. Not even an inch of tan could be seen. His hair was disheveled black mess with small strands brushing his fore head as his shiny sea-green eyes took me down with great curiosity. I suddenly felt too small in my extra-large sweatshirt. I stuffed my hands in my sweatshirt pockets and stared down at the tilled floor. I could still feel his eyes on me.

"Sit down", His voice was gentle but I could have cared less or could I have? I just didn't know. I sat on one of the small rolling chairs and pushed a stray strand of golden hair behind my ears. I hadn't even tied them up or combed them after school.

"So how's life Annabeth." He laced his fingers together on the table and leaned down to put his chin on them. The way he looked at me reminded me of a predator and a victim at the same time. I slapped myself mentally. This good and bad mixed feeling that I was experiencing from the moment I had heard his voice unsettled me.

"My mom committed suicide last year and now my dad has sent me away from him and has an affair with my care taker." I spoke in a single long breath and looked down to stare at my fingers this time. I heard him chuckle and looked up to see his perfect white teeth. His canines were a bit pointer than the other teeth but that only added to his good looks.

He stood without saying anything and sauntered towards me. He stood behind my chair and pushed all of my hair to the left side without touching my skin... It still sent a shiver through me. He bent down and whispered just above my right ear,

"You are lonely."

I shivered again. Somehow I was feeling scared and excited at the same time. I ignored that thought and put my full attention to answering him. So I just shrugged. I was a loner after all. He leaned back and turned my chair so that I was facing him this time. I had no where else to look as his churning ocean green eyes kept me captive somehow.

I had no idea what he was going to do but the hair on the back of my neck were standing straight. My body was not used to so many shivers at the same time. I didn't shiver even when I cried.

He placed his hands on the hand-rests, caging me in, and leaned down to my right again and stopped just inches from touching the skin on the crook of my neck. I took a sharp breath in as I had not expected that. No wonder Rachel had called him a monster. He was impulsive like one.

"Do you want me to help you with it?" His breath hit my skin and this time I shivered because I felt cold. Deadly cold. Even though his body was so near mine there was no heat, but a nasty kind of cold which I could not explain. A part of me wanted to push him away and a part of me anticipated and contemplated his offer. That dilemma irritated me. So the next thing I said was probably because of that,

"Gee! I wonder what tricks you use to rid sixteen years old girls of their loneliness."

The moment that comment had left my lips my eyes had opened wider.

Percy pulled back completely and took a step away from my chair with a lopsided grin stretched across his smoothly, sculpted face... making it brighter.

"That's all for today." He said and leaned against the wall near the main door to his cabin. I stood up and walked out in a daze. When I went past him I couldn't help but steal a glance at him. He wasn't looking at me but I knew that he would when I would turn away from him.

I walked out of the clinic with a new-found lightness in my soul. I hated temper counselling but I really wanted to meet Perseus again (even though his presence was cold and mysterious and he made me feel strange) as he was the first person in 365 days who had successfully made me react.

I hated the world a little less at that moment as he had brought out a small part of witty Annabeth back in just ten minutes.

How is this story? Percy is not what he seems! And poor Annabeth! Why did her mom suicide? Please tell me if you want me to continue!

ciao!