PERCY'S POV

I'm half asleep when the most beautiful girl I've ever seen walks into our dorm with her hands full of luggage and a look like someone's holding something smelly under her nose. She's wearing a black sundress and her hair- which is this perfect blonde color- falls in waves down to her waist. Her jawline is set and her head is held high as she steps forward and looks around, taking in our already messy room.

"Um, who are you?" my new roommate, Frank, asks in his thick canadian accent. He sets down his sports magazine and gets up from a lounging position on his bed.

The girl swallows. She looks uncomfortable, but when she speaks, she speaks clearly. "I'm your new roommate."

My mouth drops open, but I'm too stunned to say what I'm thinking- which is somewhere along the lines of uh, what the hell?

Nico, my other roommate, who's by his dresser unpacking his suitcase, turns to get a better look at her. "Andrew Chase?" he asks, voice coated in disbelief.

I sit up so quickly that I hit my head on the bunk above mine.

I know that name.

And she seems to know me, too; her eyes widen at the sight of me. It's not until I see their stormy grey color that I recognize him.

Well, her.

She tears her eyes away and looks back to Nico who's staring at her, holding a halfway folded shirt. "Annabeth," she spits out as though it pains her to do so. "It's Annabeth Chase."

Nico seems to understand immediately; he nods and returns to folding his clothes. Frank, on the other hand, looks just as bewildered as I feel. On someone as big and burly as him, it's almost comical.

"I don't understand," he says. "Are you her sister or something?"

She shakes her head and opens her mouth to speak, but no words come. Nico looks at her with sympathy, but doesn't seem to know if he should say anything. It dawns on me, what's going on. My childhood best friend is standing before me, but this isn't Andrew. Not anymore.

To be fair, she's a lot prettier than he ever was.

Finally, she speaks. "That's me. Or, that's my legal name."

"Wait, what? You mean you're…?"

Thankfully, Nico crumples up a t-shirt and throws it at Frank. That effectively shuts him up.

Annabeth takes a deep breath and forces her head up higher. It makes her look a little bit intimidating, and I find myself trying to look smaller. "I'm trans, but the school refuses to consider me as female, so I guess you're all stuck with me. Which bunk's mine?"

Nico points to the only empty bunk in the room- the one above mine- and gives her a small smile. I think that's the nicest I've ever seen him. I know him well enough, though, to see that he's furious. Why, I couldn't tell you. I don't know him that well.

I stand up clumsily as she walks towards me. She throws one of her bags on the bed and sets the others down on the floor. She crosses her arms and the glare she gives me makes me want to shrink and hide. "Do you need something?"

"An- Annabeth," I say, trying out the name on my tongue. "Do you remember me?"

The question doesn't surprise her, but she still seems reluctant to answer it.

She nods. "But I'm a different person now."

Yeah, I see that.

I met Andrew in kindergarten when our teacher sat us next to each other. She always used to sit a smarter kid next to a "slower" one, so that the smarter one could help the other. Andrew was the smart one, in this case. Actually, he was at the top of the class, even with ADHD and Dyslexia. I don't actually remember much from that time period given that I was like, 5, but I do have this one specific memory from a day I fell asleep in class.

I awoke with a start as I felt a poke in my side. I looked up to see Andrew pulling back his finger and staring at me. The rest of the class had their eyes trained on me, too, and they were laughing. My teacher sure wasn't; she had hated me ever since she laid eyes on me. I mean, I guess I was a little hyperactive and hard to deal with.

She cleared her throat. "Eyes up here, please, children. Nancy, can you tell me what this says?" she asked, pointing at something on the board.

I didn't hear her response because I was distracted by the fact that Andrew's stormy grey eyes were still boring into me.

"You drool in your sleep," he said finally, and haughtily.

We hated each other all of that year, and the next. I thought he was a know-it-all, and he thought I was annoying. Maybe we were both right. We didn't actually become friends until the third grade when our teacher hated the both of us. We're both Dyslexic, the only difference between us being that he was a genius and I'm not. Unfortunately, our teacher, Ms. Dobbs, thought we were both stupid, though, and constantly humiliated us. One day, though, we decided that we'd had enough, and came up with a plan to get back at her. I suggested putting a whoopee cushion under her chair; it's a good thing he was much more strategic than I was.

First, I asked my mom to pick up some candy from the shop she worked at. That's what we used to bribe the other kids in out class. Given they were necessary to the success of the plan, Andrew wouldn't even let me have one piece. It did work, though; when the other kids came in the next day, they all sat in the wrong seats. Except for Nancy Bobfit and her friends, of course. We ended up locking them in the closet. But don't feel bad; they were all bullies, just like Ms. Dobbs. So anyways, that morning, when she walked in and saw all of us in the wrong spots, she started calling on kids looking for an explanation. None of us said anything. She called on us one by one, but we all just stared at her blankly. That is, until she called on Andrew, who had the brilliant idea to respond in complete gibberish. Soon, all 30 kids in the classroom were talking complete nonsense. Ms. Dobbs was left with no choice but to call the school principal for help. Fortunately for us, before class started Andrew and I had unplugged the phone and hid it in the closet with Nancy. As soon as Ms. Dobbs ran out of the classroom like a woman possessed, this kid Grover locked the door behind her. Then we made a break for it out of the back door. We ended up with like, at least 20 minutes of time on the playground before they found us. When they did, they ended up sending us home for the day anyways.

Part of the deal with the other kids was that no one could tell anyone who was behind it. We even made sure that Nancy and her friends had no idea, so that Andrew and I couldn't be blamed for it. Yeah, the class didn't get recess for the rest of the week, but it was well worth it to see the look on Ms. Dobbs' face.

Besides, she retired after the next day anyways, after I put a whoopee cushion on her chair, just for good measure.

After that little bit of mischief, Andrew and I became inseparable.

Well, until the 7th grade, that is.

I'm jolted back to reality when Frank tells me that he's going to meet his new mentor for lunch. He's an exchange student from Canada, so he got paired up with someone from the leadership class who's supposed to show him around the school. I nod at him distractedly, but Annabeth still holds my attention. She's now standing by the only empty dresser in the room and folding her clothes before gently placing them in the open drawer. I note that she has sets of the male uniform. Anger bubbles up inside of me. She still stands tall, but I can see from here that her hands are trembling. Then it occurs to me that maybe we should give her some space.

"Hey, Nico," I say. "I'm going to meet Jason for lunch. Wanna come?"

"Uh, no?" he begins, bewildered. "What are-"

I give him a pointed look and see the realization dawn on him.

"Just come on," I urge him.

I look over at Annabeth one more time as Nico and I head out the door, and to my surprises, see that she's already looking at me. She seems confused, but grateful. I'm even more shocked when she mouths thank you before turning away.

Once outside, Nico is actually the first one to speak. "This is fucked up."

As he says it, I realize just how furious he actually is. His face is a deep scarlet, and his fists are clenched. I place my hand on his back, but he pulls away.

"I know," I say. "I know."

"How do you know her?" he asks me as we walk along the path that leads to the school's cafeteria.

"Oh. Uh- we were best friends. In elementary school."

"Before she… transitioned?"

"Transitioned?"

"Yeah," he says, struggling with his words. "Back when everyone thought that she was a he."

"Oh. Yeah," I respond. "I think even she thought that she was a he."

"What happened?" he asks as he kicks a rock along the path. A squirrel darts across the sidewalk and up a tree when it sees us coming.

I don't know that I actually want to answer that question. I had kind of forced myself to forget about it until now, if I'm being honest. I end up telling him half of the truth: "She switched schools in seventh grade, and I never saw him again. Her!" I correct myself. "I never saw her again."

We come to a stop in front of the huge cafeteria building. It still looks like a gym on the outside, because that's what it was before the school got the funds to build a new gym. The old cafeteria got torn down and turned into a new set of dorms, and the old gym became the new cafeteria.

"We have to do something to help her," he says. "This isn't right."

And I agree. Of course I agree. But what can we do? The school is strict; it was only a few years ago that the girls got the right to wear pants to class. They still can't wear makeup, either. The school did have to pass some rules last year to help out gay kids, after this one girl attempted suicide. Apparently, though, transgender kids are a completely different story.

"We will," I promise Nico. "But for now we just have to make sure that she's as comfortable as she can be, rooming with three guys."

He nods at me, but breaks his eye contact quickly. "I should go."

"Are you sure you don't want to eat with us?" I ask, though I know there's no point.

"Nah," he says, feigning nonchalance. "I promised that I'd meet up with some friends."

We both know that he's lying; he doesn't have any friends.

But I let him walk away anyways.