Jason pressed the back of his head against the cool metal wall of his cabin, it's coldness instantly easing his frazzled nerves.
Reyna, Nico and Coach Hedge had left a little over a week ago, so why was he still so worked up about it? He wasn't foolish enough to believe Reyna couldn't hold her own, if anything, she was the last person Jason would expect to fail at her own quest.
Still... Reyna was his friend. Well, that seemed like too much of a stretch, complicated was better word to describe what was going on between the both of them. He simply did not know where they stood right now.
He had never loved her, so why were things the way they were now? Sure, they both knew what each other was feeling, what the other needed or desired. But love was never supposed to be that easy, why waste it on someone who already understood you? Love was about constant growth and tribulations, but with Reyna, once he had considered it, would be like the same thing over again.
He knew he shouldn't be comparing the two, after all, both Piper and Reyna were women he hurt, but initially-after regaining all of his memories of course- he had thought one of his reasons for being so taken in by Piper was the fact that she was the complete antithesis to Reyna.
Piper was warm, nurturing, not afraid to express her emotions... she was readable. He never had to second guess what he was doing around her. To him, Piper was the perfect personification of love itself.
But Reyna...she was everything that his loving girlfriend-(everything that he had grown to love)-was not.
At one point Reyna came to represent everything he had ever resented about Camp Jupiter.
Cold, distant and unapproachable, those were the words that fit Reyna best. Like a boulder, she was constant, steadfast... Immovable. But reliable nonetheless. Jason trusted her with his life, and everything in between.
His time at Camp Half-Blood made him realize his openness and crave for change. Something that a life with Piper could easily provide him.
Complete opposites... So he had thought.
Day by day, he couldn't help but notice the uncanny similarities between his girlfriend and old comrade.
While he was becoming more Greek by nature, Piper seemed to be doing the exact opposite. Growing more self sufficient, more resilient, more Roman, like...Reyna, in spite that Piper's methods were slightly different.
Both were extremely tenacious, to the point where they'd be hostile to anything that they thought was threatening their sphere of influence, better yet, their worlds, although they both happened to direct it to different things.
Over bearing, and a bit head-strong at times. Assertive, investing too much time in the well-being of others and things that mattered to them until it became absolutely absurd.
The glossiness of their hair, the twist of their lips once they'd smiled, even the saunter in their walks.
In a way, it was incredible and increasingly terrifying to watch.
He was in big trouble now. Everything he so desperately sought to run away from, everything he had once thought he loathed was exactly what he kept running back to.
Jason felt as if the air itself was being sucked from the room, with each breath he took becoming more shorter, more rapid. His glance trickled down to his hands only to notice sparks rocketing out of the tips of his fingers.
The ends of his lips curled into a wry smile, The irony of it all, suffocating in his own father's domain.
Only then had he noticed, in his quest to free himself from life's obligations he had only entrapped himself further and this time, he had brought two people- two people who he deeply cared about-with him.
He had become a pawn in his own trap.
But, the question that kept on nagging him-the question that refused to be left unanswered- was... why he sought out someone who reminded him so much of Reyna.
And finally, in the mess that was his brain, it all began to make sense. It was because she was the closest thing he had to an romantic interest back at Camp Jupiter, and as much he thought he hated everything Reyna had stood for, traditions, moral obligations, restrictions, secretly-although he'd never admit it to himself-deep in the farthest crevices of his mind, she was what he yearned for.
To simply put it, she was all he had ever known.
And that thought terrified him.