one.
"Hey moron! Where's your dad?" Jack Lacoste yells, laughing. Jack's dad is here. Mr. Lacoste, who is utterly captivated by his phone, hasn't noticed the fact that someone's shoved a trash can on the seat next to him, so it seems safe to say that he doesn't care that his child is antagonizing everyone. Percy doesn't say anything back to Jack. Today is Bring Your Dad to School Day, but Percy doesn't have a dad; Percy didn't ever have a dad. Jack doesn't need to know that. The kid's got enough insults to throw at him already and Percy doesn't need to give him anymore.
Jack throws a banana peel across the table when Ms. Green turns her back. "There's no way you just turned mute." An apple core lands in front of Percy's backpack (where does he get this stuff?). "Say something!"
"Leave him alone!" Annabeth yells from the other end of the table. Percy has no idea how she got there- they're seated alphabetically by first name, and the last time he checked, "a" was nowhere near "p" -but he isn't complaining.
"What are you, his girlfriend?" Jack sneers.
Annabeth snarls back at him. "What if I am?"
Jack blinks, unused to this reaction, and scoots back to his end of the table. Annabeth gives him a grin over her dad's "Best Professor" coffee mug. The mug filled to the brim with black-with-a-double-shot-of-espresso coffee. Percy resolves to be very carefully around Annabeth for the rest of the day.
two.
"Mom, please, please, please, please can we go?" Percy asks. Before his mother can even so much as shake her head, he pulls out the puppy dog pout (deemed Only For Emergencies) that has never ever failed him before. Annabeth wonders how Sally ever wins an argument with Percy.
"No," Sally says, shaking her head in amusement. "But that was a nice try kiddo," she calls as she walks back to the kitchen.
Percy turns his pout on Annabeth, who shrinks away immediately. "Don't look at me Seaweed Brain. There is no way that I'm arguing with your mother."
"You owe me though," Percy whines pitifully.
"For what?" She backs away further.
"For that one time I helped convince your dad to let you go to that concert."
"It was a musical Percy, there is a difference-"
"But you admit that you owe me?" he says, perking up.
"I paid you back with an ice cream."
"Is that really enough for a favor that substantial? You're the one whining about how materialism isn't good right? So pay me back for the favor I did you, with a favor."
"First, I said a lot more than 'materialism is bad' and second…fine. I'll help."
Percy grins at her, and she can see the dimples in his cheek and that thing he does with his hands when he gets excited and she ignores the thing her stomach does when she looks at him. "Really?"
"Shh," she hisses, glaring.
Sally comes back out wearing her apron. "I have to go to work, so I'll see you kids later."
"Wait!" Annabeth cries, shooting Percy a glare.
"What, Annabeth?" Sally asks, half-smiling.
"It's just that Percy's done all his chores and he has relatively good grades in school so it would be good for him I think, to go the aquarium! I could tutor him in science and he could watch the fish. And you're going to have to work late today again, so it would keep him out of your hair!" Annabeth adds, hastily.
Sally looks from Annabeth, who's schooled her expression into one of childish optimism, to Percy who's managed to pull his expression together so he looks impartial. "Alright you can go. You'd make a fine lawyer someday, Annabeth."
"I've been told," Annabeth says with an awkward smile.
Percy lets out a deafening whoop as soon as Sally pulls the door closed and pulls her into a hug. "You're the best Annabeth! I'm gonna pay you back, I promise. You can have all of the blue candies Mom brings back for a whole month and-"
"I'll accept my payment in favors," she says as primly as she can manage, patting the back of Percy's neck. "Also I can't breathe."
Percy pulls away, reluctantly, seeming to remember something. "You're not really gonna try and tutor me though, are you?" he whispers.
"I most definitely am. You need it! You never pay attention in class. Maybe walking around and learning will be good for you."
"Annabeth," Percy whines, drawing her name out until it's almost three syllables.
"Percy," Annabeth mimics, swatting him halfheartedly.
three.
"I can't do it, Annabeth, I'm gonna fail this test," Percy groans, letting his head drop on to the desk with a muted thump.
She laughs and throws a sour gummy worm at him, putting her feet up on his desk. "It's definitely a possibility," she says, grinning at him around a small fortune of blue jellybeans she's managed to steal inconspicuously from the jar he keeps in his closet.
"Annabeth," he says, indignantly. "You're my tutor. You're supposed to assuage my pain, not make it worse."
"Ooh, SAT vocabulary. Look at you using all your words for once."
He glares at the desk. "The whole point of texting is that you don't have to type in complete sentences," he huffs petulantly.
"Hey," she says, her smile dropping as she notices his glare and his clenched fists. She reaches across the table to pry open his fist and link pinkies with him. "I'm not going anywhere if you fail this class, and I need to get away from San Francisco. So I'm gonna help you pass this test."
"Promise?" he says.
She smiles. "Promise." Then she takes the bag of gummy worms out of his hands.
"Annabeth" he whines over her laugh. "Stop stealing my food!" he says, pulling the grocery bag full of candy closer to him protectively. "And get your feet off my desk, you hooligan."
She sticks her tongue out at him, pulling her long legs back onto the floor. "Yes sir," she says, sarcastically, only somewhat ruining the effect by smiling at him.
four.
"Annabeth!" Percy yells, throwing open the door to her room and almost sliding across the floor in his fuzzy sea-themed socks.
"What did you do?" she says, sighing resignedly and stopping him before he cracks his skull on her windowsill.
He stops moving to consider what she's said for a minute before saying, "Why do you always assume I did something? Why couldn't it have been Travis and Connor?"
She gives him a look. "Was it Travis and Connor?" she deadpans.
"...No." She raises an eyebrow. "Okay fine, you win. Anyway, Rachel's dad is making her go to Ohio with him and I need a date to Mom's wedding."
She lets out a slow breath. "And…?"
"And would you go with me? I mean, I know you were gonna ask Luke-"
"I'll go with you," she says, looking out the window at the Castellan manor across the street.
He hesitates. "You sure?"
"I'm your best friend Percy, of course I will. Besides, I'm pretty sure your mom wants us to go together anyway," she says, waggling her eyebrows at him.
He scoffs. "I don't why she'd ever think we'd get together. That would just be weird, wouldn't it?"
Annabeth swallows the lump that begins to form in her throat, ignores the pit opening up in her stomach, ignores the sick feeling she gets whenever he brings this up. "Totally," she says, attempting a smile.
If he notices that her feeble half-smile doesn't reach her eyes, or that she's lying through her teeth, he doesn't say anything
; ;
one.
"We're leaving," Annabeth says, plopping down on the grass next to Percy.
Percy blinks. "What?"
"Dad found an apartment for the two of us in New York, and we're moving," she says, pulling a blade of grass out of the ground. She won't look at him.
"He can't do that without asking you, though," Percy says, blocking the sun with one hand and he turns to look at her.
"He did ask me," Annabeth says slowly.
"And?"
"And I didn't say no," she says, finally meeting his eyes for a fleeting second before looking down and uprooting a dandelion.
"Why would you do that?" Percy says, sitting up.
When she looks up this time she holds his gaze. Her eyes are stone, and the sun behind her head bounces off the burnished gold of her hair, giving her a halo. "Why wouldn't I? Nothing ever happens here, Percy! I'm tired of it all." She seems to deflate by the end of the sentence, and Percy thinks it's remarkable, watching her shift from a woman back into his best friend.
"Tired of it all?" he begins softly, distracted by glimpses of Annabeth, her hurricane eyes and gold halo. "Even me?"
"Percy no-" she says, guiltily, reaching for him.
He catches her hand, laces his finger in between hers. People have stopped to look, stopped to stare at the two teenagers sprawled in the grass, fingers entwined. "Promise you won't do anything before I come back from Montauk on Wednesday."
She sighs. "Percy." He shakes his head and lets go, ignores the broken expression that flits across her face, fights the urge to chase after her because letting her win, letting her leave- that's what this is, really: a promise that she won't leave -would be saying goodbye to her, and he's not ready to do that yet.
She looks down at the ground and sighs again and he thinks he sees her nod. He lets out a sigh of relief.
When he comes back from the beach, there's a SOLD sticker slapped over the realtor's sign in front of her house, and a note taped to the door. He doesn't bother to read it, but he keeps it. He doesn't know why. (He does.)
; ; ; ;
notes: here friends, have some more angst! this is part 1.5 of the series i've been writing with "it's so hard to keep this smile from my face." i wrote the whole thing in one day, which on one hand is cool because i've never done that before, but there is a very good chance i've made some editing errors, so please tell me if you find any!
as always, please please review because it means a lot to me; your reviews make my day!