For Annabeth, love had always been like the sea:

Constantly battering at you, wearing you away to an empty shell. Never letting you have even footing, yanking the very ground from beneath you. Tugging the grains of sand out from beneath your feet one by one until you didn't realize it and you were

F

A

L

L

I

N

G.

She found it unsettling. The Aphrodite cabin, even though they were the children of the love goddess herself, had no clue what love was. Love wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It was a powerful force, yes, but not in the way that most people considered it to be. It was irrational and unpredictable, always taking her by surprise. She'd loved Luke, hadn't she? And there he went betraying her and left her blindsided wondering how she'd missed it.

Then the son of the sea himself, Percy Jackson had washed up on the shores of Camp Half-Blood (proverbially, of course). She'd vowed at once to hate him. If she couldn't stand the sea, how could she stand its child?

Then her heart had warmed, gradually, ice melting off bit by bit. Annabeth had tried to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there. You still love Luke, she'd told herself, you love Luke even though he's a traitor because he promised you and him and Thalia would be a family. He can change back, right? Love is powerful, even though it hurts. Because Percy didn't promise you anything. He's just a stupid Seaweed Brain who can't even see that Rachel likes him or why you hate her.

But he'd saved her, held up the sky for her, went and saved her from the Sirens, told her where his Achilles heel was. But that was love, wasn't it? Letting yourself be vulnerable and broken open, taking the risk anyways because you trusted someone enough that they wouldn't turn on you, loved them enough to believe they weren't two-faced.

The day she realized that was the day of yet another epiphany:

He hadn't washed up on the shores of Camp Half-Blood. She'd washed up on his, allowing him to break her open gradually, piece by piece.