Define abuse.
Define obliviousness.
Define negligence.
These are the words associated with my loving home. You may wonder who I am. You might be asking yourself, "Why is this random 18 year old kid is complaining about his home life to me?" Well don't you want to know how I became "famous?" How I almost died? How I saved the only people who matter? Then shut up and listen.
One Year Prior
Ouch.
My shoulder was killing me, though I suppose that was the intention when I was given the bruise. See, my step father isn't too keen of me. Trust me when I say the feeling is mutual. Gabe Ugliano is certainly a sight for sore eyes. At least I wouldn't have to deal with him when I got home from school, he works a late shift.
I sighed as I continued down the street I was walking. The cold, crisp air leaving my breath sharp as I made my way toward my new high school. Gabe's "job" had my mother and I uprooted from our cozy little shack in Arizona, to this piece of shit apartment in downtown New York City. Being a man of heat, I was freezing my ass off out here.
We'd been in the city for close to two weeks now, so I had a fairly decent idea of the layout of the city. I could at least make my way to important places like school or "home" without getting too lost. It was a good thing Gabe is useless. He fucked up my paperwork so I didn't start school at the same time as everyone else. Naturally I spent as much time away from my house as I could. Both a beneficial activity and a fun one.
I finally arrived at my school, Goode High School. And jesus fucking christ this place was huge. There were easily several thousand students arriving here at the same time as I was. This place looked like a fucking nightmare. You could feel the dread oozing off of every other kid here. It really did look like a stereotypical high school, one with shining lockers, motivational posters on every wall, and every clique imaginable. You could see the poindexters, the jocks, the goths, the weebs, the freaks, the drama fags(AN: Not a sexuality bash), the skanks. All your high school needs and and many more!
I contemplated how much it'd be worth it to try and make friends. I'm sure that I'd rather pull a Sandy Hook here than associate myself with the majority of the people at this school, though I would probably be wrong to say that there wasn't at least one person I would like here. I continued down the path that led to the front office, ignoring the curious glances from my peers that clearly stemmed from my dark attire and the blaring music from my headphones.
I felt the intensity of some of the stares. I could feel what their eyes were saying. The promise that I could hold to them, the friendship we could build, the lust they longed for, and even the hatred. Some of them caught my eye. The most lustful look was that of a pretty redhead, who looked like a Mean Girls knockoff. The one that desired friendship the most was that of some crippled kid. The one that thought I held the most promise was another cripple, though this was an older man, probably a teacher or some kind of counselor. The one that held the most hatred, was that of some blond dude, easily the biggest jock of the school.
However, the look that had me most intrigued, was a simple stare of curiosity. I stopped to observe the girl looking at me. She was easily one of the better looking girls attending Goode. She had the curls of a princess on her shining blonde hair. Her eyes held so much intensity in them, her stare was far more foreboding than any of the other students. She held my stare for as long as I looked. I could read no discernable emotion on her face, as if she were simply thinking "Who are you?" Nothing more, nothing less. Just pure curiosity.
Eventually her surrounding friends stole her attention away and I resumed my way to the office. As I entered, I could feel the wave of expectancy. It was known who I was, and why I was here.
"Good morning ma'am. My name is Percy Jackson, would you be so kind as to give me my schedule?" I said to the receptionist.
"Why certainly you well mannered young man!" It was too easy. People, especially school staff, were so easy to manipulate.
She returned with everything I'd need to start at Goode. I perused over my course schedule. First Gym, then AP English 12, then Latin IV, then lunch, then Gov/Econ, then AP Physics, and finally AP Calc. I sighed. Looks like I'm in for a lot of homework this year. The subjects themselves are not hard for me to understand, I'm rather intelligent. The issue is I am extremely lazy. I had about twenty minutes until first period began, so I spent my time familiarizing myself with navigating the halls.
After I felt I could make it to all of my classes with relative ease, I made my way to gym five minutes early. There wasn't a teacher or student in sight so I sat and patiently waited. That's when the door opened and in arrived the first wave of my classmates. As my luck would have it, it was all the jocks. Including the oh so very friendly blond one who is currently looking at me with disgust.
I could see his lips moving and his attempts to gain my attention, but I just kept listening to my music and ignored him. That is, until he put his hands on me. I pushed him away and calmly took out my earbuds.
"Yeeesss?" I asked irritated.
"Who the fuck are you?" The ringleader spat venomously. Wow. He must be great at making new friends.
"New student obviously. Now I'd really rather not speak with you again, so if it would please you." I replied, beginning to return to my seat and putting my earbuds in. The class slowly started piling in but Ringleader pulled me away from my activity of people watching.
"You listen here. I run this shithole. You WILL listen and stay out of my way, or else." God was this guy moronic. He was drawing the attention of every nearby student, even a few onlookers who didn't look as if they belonged in this class.
"As if I would even think about getting close to you. Do they have showers here? You should really do a better job at washing your head. I could smell the shit for brains a mile away." Was it really the best idea to antagonize Ringleader? Absolutely not. Did I care? Absolutely not.
"Watch yourself punk." His eyes narrowed at me. He also eyed the students laughing at him from my statement. It shut them up. Clearly this kid was a bully. Boy oh boy, if he thinks he hates me now, he's really gonna hate me later, because I don't tolerate that shit.
The gym teacher entered. His combination of short stature and mean expressions was laughable. He began with attendance. Turns out Ringleader's name is Luke.
"Alright cupcakes. Today we have a game of dodgeball." Coach Hedge, the teacher, said. I could hear the collective groans and cheers.
"Luke you're first captain. Aaaaannnndddd… you! New kid. Name?" He said to me.
"Percy Jackson, sir." I told him.
"You're second captain." Jesus. What was this? Some kind of fucking high school drama? I was captain against the school bully, playing dodgeball, on my first day of school. It sounds like some poorly written high school romance story.
Luke began by picking the biggest jocks. Meanwhile I just pick people from left to right not caring who was on my team. I wasn't going to make this a big deal and try to win or anything like Luke was.
The game began and players were dropping like flies. My team whittled down to me and another jock, whereas Luke's team still had about seven or eight jocks left. Sigh. This is such a fucking cliche. This is the part where my team makes a comeback and serioulsly pisses off Luke. And that was exactly what happened.
The bell rang, and I ignored my peers once more to go to my AP English class. English was my least favorite subject. Don't get me wrong, I love reading and writing, just on my own terms. Not to mention dyslexia can be a bitch when you're trying to read classics.
I sat in the back waiting for some guidance, when in walked pretty blonde with the intense eyes. I cocked my head to the side like a curious dog as I watched her take her seat in the front. This girl intrigues me. After the bell rang, Mr. Blofis took roll.
I learned that the blonde's name is Annabeth. Strange name. She looked at me with that same curious stare from this morning when I was introduced.
After that, English was fairly boring. Nothing special happened, nothing exciting. Class ended and I made my way to Latin. This class looked fucking awesome. The teacher was that cripple I saw this morning. The dude at swords and shit on his wall, and armor and other cool Roman artifacts. It also held the widest variety of students I have seen. There's a little bit of every clique in this class, including whatever clique the mysterious blonde Annabeth belongs to.
Class was very interesting. Seeing as it was Latin IV, most students could speak and write it fairly fluently, so the curriculum was expanded to a lot of Roman history, mythology, and other such aspects their lives. Latin was a second language to me, so I was not far behind any other student.
When Latin ended, it was time for lunch. The food looked rather appetizing, at least more so than my previous school. I grabbed my meal and sat at an empty table, I would make friends tomorrow, today is the day to observe. After a couple minutes, the lustful redhead approached my table. I pulled my earbuds out.
"May I help you?" I asked boringly.
"Hi, I noticed that you were new here, and saw that you were sitting alone, and just wanted to know if you'd like to come sit with me." She bubbled. I look around the room. There were smirks from some of the guys, looks of disgust from some of the girls, and many looks of exasperation. This clearly wasn't the first time she had done something like this.
"Listen here red. I'm not some stupid freshman looking to get his dick wet. I can see it in your eyes. I'm not interested in fucking you. And you might as well let every other skank know, I'm not some cheap lay, so don't even try. Now let me eat in peace." The look of pure shock on her face was the funniest expression I had ever seen.
I noticed many people laughing, or stunned as well. I saw some money exchanges too. What really caught my attention, was a certain blonde's smirk.
The second half of the school day was rather boring. Government wasn't fun, just idiots with stupid political opinions in that class. Physics didn't get into anything I was eager to learn, such as special relativity, or thermodynamics, or quantum mechanics. Calculus was also really boring. I had taught myself a very large portion of differential calculus last year, and my class was still discussing limits.
After the final bell rang, I wondered whether or not I should join a sport. I'm rather fit, and it was something to keep me away from home longer. Not today I suppose as I returned home sullenly. I only hope Gabe had already left, otherwise I'm fucked.
AN: New story. Dunno what's going on with the old, don't really care right now. Also, since my AP English teacher is fucking useless, I'd like to use this as a platform to better my writing style, I'd much appreciate feedback if that's at all possible.