a/n [This is technically set in Manhattan, but I know almost nothing about Manhattan, so the details aren't that perfect. For Emily in March.]
:::
In Central Park, a couple was sitting under a cherry tree. Annabeth took a picture.
Click!
With smart fingers that knew what to do, she flicked the switch to see the photo. She captured the whole tree, down to the last flower blossom. She captured the two lovebirds leaning in. She captured a child doing a cartwheel in the background. Her eyes darted up to the little field area. The child was now playing tag with his friends. Without thinking, her fingers flicked back the switch and flitted over the controls. Her index finger landed on the shutter button and pressed down.
Click!
It pressed down again, just in case.
Click!
Her thumb hit the switch and she focused on the square screen displaying her photo. Blurry, she noted with distaste. She clicked to the next one. There were four kids captured in the shot, and you could see the smiling face of three of them. Perfect, Annabeth thought.
She jumped back to the photo of the couple, loving how the light hit the woman's hair so beautifully. She jumped to the picture before that, one of the underside of a daisy with the sky as a background. She jumped to the one before that of a pair of shoes. She wasn't sure whom they belonged to.
Her finger hovered over the arrow button, waiting for the command to click to the next picture, but a tap on Annabeth's head startled her from doing so. She whirled around to meet the wide blue eyes of a young girl.
"Are you going down?" she asked, her mouth opening wide and round, spewing a warm, moist air into Annabeth's face.
"You can go down," she added. The wind blew the girl's hair into her face, but she didn't push it away.
"Why won't you go down?"
Annabeth blinked at the small girl. She had been so caught up in looking at the world that she forgot it could interact with her.
"Are you deaf?" the girl asked, mispronouncing her f as th.
Annabeth muttered her apology, and slid down from her perch and the top of the tallest slide, clutching tightly to her camera. Once her feet were on the ground, she turned her camera off of viewing mode, clicked it off, and slid the lens cap onto the lens. She gently set it onto her chest where the neck strap held in place, and walked away.
In the distance, she heard the girl laugh as she slid down the slide. Annabeth wished she got a picture.
:::
At home, during dinner, her parents asked her what she did that day. She told them she just went to the park and read a book, which is almost the truth. She didn't tell them that she sat on top of the playground slide and took pictures of strangers around her. She loved her family, of course, but they sometimes didn't understand her love of photography.
That's why, when she got to her room after she finished, she found her printed photos and camera collection in the cabinet by the door instead of on the table where she left them. Her stepmother did that, like she always did, when Annabeth was away. Calmly, like she always did, Annabeth took the photo folders and her cameras out of the cabinet and back onto the table.
Her stepmother could pretend it didn't exist, but Annabeth would always remind her. She was a usually peaceful girl, but this was her silent war.
Annabeth carefully picked up her vintage camera and took a photo, like she always did, of the table with everything on top of it.
Click!
She didn't even check to see if it turned out well before she turned off the light and buried herself under her covers.
:::
In the morning before school, she selected her favorite photos taken over the weekend and printed them out. It was her usual Monday morning routine, right in between brushing her hair and eating breakfast. They were for Ms. Swanson, her World History teacher, who discovered her passion for photography earlier on in the school year. Together, they developed a schedule for every Monday where they would eat lunch together and discuss the events in her pictures.
The time spent with her teacher made Monday, which used to be her most hated day of the week, into her favorite.
And today, Annabeth had picked that bright photo of the couple under the tree, along with several others, to show Ms. Swanson. She knew that her teacher would love it just as much as she did.
She was just taking the camera card out of the computer attachment when her stepmother called her down for breakfast. Annabeth quickly double checked that she'd got everything packed into her schoolbag, slid her photo folder in as well, and then slipped the strap over her head and onto her shoulder to bring it downstairs.
Her stepmother made breakfast every single day, and Annabeth wasn't quite sure why. She'd be fine with grabbing an apple or granola bar and running out the door, late as always. But her stepmother was determined to make the family as normal as she could, and to try and ease away the strangeness of combining two families, even after four years. So that was why, when her stepmother handed her a plate of eggs, Annabeth replied with "Thanks, Mom." Even if the words still felt wrong on her tongue.
And as she quickly ate, she pretended her stepbrothers weren't flying around the house throwing eggs at each other. It almost felt like the home she'd rather have.
:::
Ms. Swanson was munching on her potato chips, flipping through a pile of photos, and commenting on each one. It was the same comments as always:
"Oh, the angle of this one is lovely!"
"Is this [location where photo was taken]?"
"You should submit this one to the newspaper."
"This reminds of when I was younger. I would [long story on something Ms. Swanson once did]."
"Did you ever wonder about [something relevant to the photo]?"
But today, as Annabeth was stirring her carrot flavored salad dressing over a random mix of lettuces, she heard a new one, and it almost caused her to drop her fork.
"What?" she asked her teacher, making sure she heard correctly.
"I said, is this you and your boyfriend?"
Annabeth looked up at her teacher with a blank face, trying desperately to stop the heat that was making its way to her cheeks. Ms. Swanson was pointing to a picture, and when Annabeth leaned in to see which one it is, she held it farther out. It was the couple sitting under the tree, a picture that Annabeth loved but wasn't so sure now. She struggled to find a way to tell her teacher that no, it was not her boyfriend, that it couldn't be her boyfriend because she didn't have one. She hadn't had one since the sixth grade, and that didn't really count.
"I just take photos, Ms. Swanson. I don't pose for them," Annabeth said with a light smile.
Thankfully, her teacher laughed and changed the topic. She mentioned the cherry blossoms and how she used to love playing in them when they fell to they ground like artificial snow. Annabeth smiled at her teacher's retelling and tried to pretend she wasn't still thinking of the couple under the tree.
:::
The next day, Annabeth sat in the corner farthest away from human interaction. The wire fence was twisted up and mangled, and left a hole wide enough that she could easily leave the school campus if she really wanted to. Instead, she sat a little bit farther forward than she'd like to, on the edge of the old football field, to avoid the sharp edges of the wires.
At that moment, she was playing with the adjustments on her camera, trying to see which ones work best when zoomed in so far. She's furiously clicking the shutter button, trying to test as much settings as she can in during the rest of the lunch period.
Click! Click! Click!
Next to her, her forgotten sack lunch was lying lazily under the shade of the tall weeds by the fence's edge.
Her fingers were working so quickly—they had memorized the pattern of buttons on each one of her six cameras by now—that she didn't even care to look much at what she was doing. Of course, she briefly checked each photo when it appeared, making sure it wasn't blurry or fuzzy or out of focus (and yes, there was a difference), but even still, she didn't notice the pair of shoes until she had taken half a dozen photos of them.
Her fingers gradually slowed over the different buttons as Annabeth looked up to see who was disturbing her camera practice. Absently, she noted what the person was wearing as her head lifted. Tattered, once-white converse, dark skinny jeans, hundreds of friendship bracelets, and a loose fitting tie-dyed T-shirt. She didn't have to finish looking up to know the name of the girl that stood in front of her.
"Hey, Rachel," Annabeth greeted. Her eyes traveled farther up, recognizing immediately the familiar ginger curls and wide, braces-filled smile.
"Hey, Beth." Rachel saluted her, calling her by one of the many nicknames she had given to Annabeth over the years. "Can I sit?"
She was sitting on the ground, legs crossed, before Annabeth could even answer.
"What brings you to this lonely corner of the world?" Annabeth asked. She dejectedly turned off her camera and let it bounce back to her chest.
"Yeah, about that, we really need to fix up this area you've got here. It's way too depressing."
"I like it," Annabeth protested, but she wasn't really mad. It was one of the reasons she liked her friend; Rachel never told her the things she did were lame, she just tried to make them better for Annabeth, unlike almost everybody else.
"Of course you do, Annie. But that's not why I'm here."
"I figured."
"Shush. I'm talking," Rachel scolded lightly. "I wanted to tell you I found this guy that—"
"Not another guy," she groaned.
"Shush. This one's for you. He's a friend of Nico, and he's super cute, or so I've heard. But I'd trust Nico's opinion since he's usually right. He actually picked out the colors for me to use on this shirt, and it's super cute, don't you think?"
Annabeth vaguely remembered Nico. He was one of Rachel's more serious boyfriends last year until he broke it off with the excuse that he just wasn't interested in her anymore. Rachel knew right away that what he meant was he wasn't interested in girls anymore, and ever since they've been best friends.
"I'm not interested in a guy," Annabeth argued, trying to get Rachel back on track. She was a rambler, and could easily go from bunnies to zombies in three seconds if she wanted to.
"But you haven't met this guy."
"Have you?"
"Well, not really, but—"
"Do you even know his name?"
"Yeah. Percy. See?"
"I see nothing of interest."
"I could find you a girl instead if that's what you—"
"Rachel!"
Rachel blinked at her innocently.
"There's just so much schoolwork, and Finals are in a month, and between everything going on—"
"You're the smartest person I know, so you could totally cover all of your work. And between taking five thousand photos a day and your track and field practice, that still leaves plenty of time for a guy."
Rachel gave her a look that begged for Annabeth to try and argue with her.
Annabeth looked down shyly at her lap. "Do you think he would like me, though?"
"Does that mean you'll go out with him?"
"What? No, just meet up, I think."
"That's how it will start." Rachel sighed dreamily. "Can I be your maid of honor?"
"What? No. Or, I mean, maybe? I don't know. What are we even talking about?"
"Your wedding, obviously. What flavor cake will you have? Can it be chocolate?"
"Ugh. I don't care. Can I go back to taking pictures now?"
"If you promise that you'll meet up with Percy."
"Didn't I already say I was going to? But yeah, fine."
"Awesome. I'll text you later, 'kay?"
"Okay."
"Bye, Ann! Make sure to capture my good side!" Rachel called over her shoulder as she strutted away.
Annabeth never did take a picture of her friend walking away that day, even if Rachel did make plenty of great poses that would've fit in perfectly with their friendship scrapbook. Instead, her camera hung abandoned on its strap around her neck as she tried to remember how to breathe correctly. As much as Annabeth tried to pretend she was just a background piece meant to narrate everyone else's stories in a series of photographs, she couldn't deny her wish for her story to be filled with the wonder she always saw.
She wanted to sit under a fully bloomed cherry tree and laugh in bliss with someone special. Or just let go and run around in the park like the children do.
She wanted to go on a blind date with the friend of a friend. It sounded like the adventure of adventures, and even if it ended horribly, which she tried not to think about, she could say she went out and did something for once.
:::
The finches were fighting for the best spot on the feeder. It was the back corner, the one that was still a bit sticky from the peeled off barcode sticker. Last month it cracked—though the cause of the attack is still unknown—and now just a little bit more seed slipped out there than from the other edges. It was a spot usually dominated by the larger birds, but they weren't there, so the finches took the opportunity to use it for themselves. They were shuffling back and forth, nudging each other in and out of the way. Every once in a while they would flap their wings in an exasperated motion.
Annabeth captured one just as its wings were raising and she internally applauded herself. The photo wasn't blurry or fuzzy or out of focus, even though she was zoomed in far more than she would've liked. She was so engrossed in the outcome of her photo that she almost missed the soft two beeps emitted from her phone.
Keeping one hand on her camera, she searched blindly for her phone on the table behind her. (The table that she was also sitting on because it was the only way to get up close to the window.) At last her fingers grasped it, and she held it high up in front of her. Because her mind was focused on turning on the phone with one hand, she forgot all about the camera she's holding in the other. So her right hand, tired of holding the camera by itself, shifted accidentally and hit the shutter button.
Click!
Annabeth startled and dropped her phone, which hit the ground with a soft thud.
It was like her own series of unfortunate events, she thought glumly, sliding off the table to pick up her phone.
Once she had finally got it her hands, the camera placed safely out of the way, she'd curled up on the beanbag chair in the corner of her room. There were smudges on the screen that Annabeth quickly wiped away with her sleeve before anxiously reading her newest text.
R: Do you know that candy shop on the corner of 9th and 57th?
A: By Central Park?
R: No, the other 9th and 57th.
A: Was that sarcasm?
R: Go to the shop after school tomorrow.
A: Why?
R: To meet Percy, of course.
A: Alone?
R: Yes.
Annabeth hesitated for the slightest second. On one hand, she was just meeting the friend of a friend at some shop, probably his after school hangout. On the other hand, this was New York and almost anything could happen. She scolded herself. It's an adventure, remember?
A: All right.
R: Awesome! I'll tell Nico.
Her fingers hovered over the keypad, but Annabeth couldn't think of a reply. So she turned off her phone, plugged it into the charger, checked over her cameras, and sat back down again with a book until her stepbrothers ran down the hall claiming that it was time for dinner.
:::
Annabeth usually liked school, but today it just couldn't go by quickly enough. There was so much swirling around in her head that when Ms. Swanson called on her, she couldn't even remember the question. She thought she must be sick or something.
:::
Click!
When she first took a picture of the small candy shop, it was so blurry she had to take another one. Annabeth couldn't tell if she was nervous or excited or both. She could tell that she was already blushing, and she knew that that was not a good thing. To calm her nerves, she took a picture of the pigeon wobbling on the edge of the curve.
Click!
And another one as it was running away from a car that came a bit too close.
Click!
She turned her head slowly back to the shop and read the name on the wooden board above the door. Sweet on America. It was a cute name, Annabeth decided, and the candy in the window did look rather inviting. She lowered her camera down, keeping her left hand on top of it, and walked in. An old bell sounded her arrival, but Annabeth could hardly hear it because her heart was beating too loud in her ears.
She really didn't think this through. What was she supposed to do? Go up to every teenage boy in the shop and ask if his name was Percy? She didn't even know what he looked like.
So Annabeth walked along the perimeter of the store, starting at the windows facing north. Her hand trailed along the edges of the candy buckets as she wished she knew what to do. To her surprise, someone softly whispered her name, taking her out of her reverie.
"Annabeth Chase," it said again, louder this time.
She spun around on her toes—not her heels because she thought that was harder to do. A boy stood by the closet candy basket to the door. He was leaning against its edge like he expected the feeble structure to hold his weight. He was smiling at her slightly, but from the nervous way he played with a candy wrapper, she could tell he thought this situation was as awkward as she thought is was.
"Percy," she responded, wishing that she'd asked Rachel for his last name.
Luckily, he gave it to her easily, his smile growing just a bit more. "Jackson."
He held out his left hand. "Nice to meet you."
She stared at his outstretched hand awkwardly, trying to figure out the kindest way to tell him that it was the wrong hand. She tapped her right hand patiently against her thigh and hoped that he got the point before this situation turned even more awkward.
He did switch his hands, shaking Annabeth's briefly, but she wasn't really there because she was too busy regretting everything. Her hand fidgeted over the dead buttons on her camera, dejectedly flicking the switch from picture mode to viewing mode. Her regrets piled up higher and higher with each flick until she was almost gasping for air. This wasn't how it went in the movies, and Annabeth wasn't sure if this was how it normally went in real life. For a girl who was passing all of her advanced classes with flying colors, she didn't know a thing. Her eyes glanced to the door for a split second, and she was seriously considering making a break for it and never looking back.
But then Percy was shuffling a bit and holding out his hand again. "Want one?"
He was holding two candy sticks, and Annabeth wasn't sure if he just stole them off a shelf or not, but she reached forward and took the pink and yellow one. Percy grinned at her—it was admittedly one of the best smiles she had ever seen—and started unwrapping the second one.
"I was hoping you'd take that one," he said. "Blue's kind of my thing."
"But the flavor is terrible," she said, jokingly turning up her nose.
He broke the end of his periwinkle candy stick and tossed it, quite literally, into his mouth. "Better than pink, at least."
Annabeth smiled. Maybe this wouldn't be that bad after all.
:::
Her phone was vibrating so much it actually spun on the table next to Annabeth. Rachel's name flashed on the screen every minute or two, which meant she was either asking a dozen questions about yesterday or yelling at Annabeth to pick up her phone.
She couldn't look at her phone, though, because she was so upset. In all the fuss at the candy shop, she had forgotten to take a picture of Percy. How would she know how is picture looked piled on the table with all of the other ones? How would she ever find out if his story fit in with everyone else's?
:::
Annabeth walked empty handed into Ms. Swanson's room on the Monday after. There wasn't even a camera around her neck.
Her teacher was standing up in an instant, rushing over to her star student. It seemed to Annabeth that it was always the stars that seem to fail. It would be so much easier if she tried harder not to shine so brightly. Then she might still have some light left to burn.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't feel so well."
:::
She got her first camera for her seventh birthday. It was for the camping trip she was going on next week, her dad told her. He wanted to see everything that happened, he had said. Everything she saw with her eyes, he wanted to see with his.
When Thalia came to pick her up, they fussed over the shiny new object together while Thalia's mom discussed the details of the trip with Annabeth's father. Then it was time to jump into the car and start the two-hour road trip to the campsite, and Annabeth was suddenly very nervous to be leaving her father all alone. She waved and waved from the car window until her hand grew tired, and he waved and waved back.
Have fun, he had said. Stay safe.
The next day, Annabeth got sick. Thalia's mom worried a little bit, but said that Annabeth would be fine in an hour or so. Two days later, the camping trip had to be cut short so she could be taken to the hospital.
That was the first time Annabeth was diagnosed with cancer.
She took pictures of everything she could when she wasn't throwing up from the chemo. There were healthy, bored kids sitting in waiting rooms. Old woman crying. Happy nurses with overly bright smiles on their faces. The window that only had a view of a brick wall.
There were never any pictures of her. Her young, sick mind never saw any reason to take pictures of herself. She could understand her situation very well from the worried expressions that fell over smiling faces when they thought no one was looking.
But, outside the room, that was a good person who could still do something. So Annabeth took a picture.
Click!
It was only a snapshot of their story, but at least they had a story to live.
:::
Annabeth was sitting on the comfiest bed ever in nothing but a flimsy gown. She was bent over her phone, texting like mad.
The small screen was blurry under her gaze, and it was giving her the worst headache, but she couldn't make herself end the conversation. Percy had somehow gotten her number sometime during her ride to the hospital, and she had texted back three hours after the doctors confirmed that her leukemia relapsed.
It had been a long day of different tests and painkillers and people around her looking at her like she was dead. So when she read Percy's text—Hey, it's Percy—she responded with Hey and a smiley face.
He had, apparently, not been informed of her state yet, and three days later, he still didn't know. Annabeth almost felt bad that she was keeping it a secret from him. They'd become good friends after the meet up in the candy shop and three days of texting. The best parts of her day were her conversations with him, and she knew it should be the time she spent with her family, but people always changed their demeanor around sick people whether they tried or not. It was a relief not to talk someone who was so sickly sweet and optimistic.
Of course, Percy eventually found out about her condition—it was all Rachel's fault—and didn't text her for an hour after that. Annabeth sat in her room curled up in a ball, ignoring how uncomfortable the position was, knowing that she probably just ruined everything. It wasn't until later that she learned Percy had set down his phone to drive to the hospital she was staying at.
He came into the room while she was lying on her back, devoid of all emotion, and staring blankly at the ceiling. He immediately ran to her side and grabbed her hand. She held on tight to him and didn't let go.
:::
In Central Park, a couple sat under a cherry tree. Percy took a picture.
Click!
Annabeth startled at the sound of the shutter and swiveled her head to Percy who was grinning behind the sleek back camera. She furrowed her eyebrows and pursed her lips at him, but he just took another picture.
Click!
She quickly snatched the camera out of his hands—carefully, of course—to see what hideous pictures he'd taken. The latest one was blurry, capturing only a smeared image of her face, but the first one he took was good. Great, even. She was leaning against the tree, her head turned away, not caring to the photographer capturing the moment.
It was the kind of picture Annabeth would take of someone who looked like they had a good story to tell.
"Not half bad," she told Percy.
He looked offended for a slight moment. "What? It's fantastic!"
"Not even close."
Annabeth set the camera down beside her and smiled. When she looked back at Percy, he laughed and nudged her shoulder with his.
"So, are you going to teach me how to get better then?"
"Maybe."
'When?"
"Later."
Annabeth was tired now, though. In this late month of summer, she was officially cancer free, but sometimes the effects of chemo still got a bit to her head. Before Percy could ask her any more questions, she leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes. His arm wrapped loosely around her shoulder.
And the cherry blossoms were long gone now, but it would still make a beautiful picture.