There are many kinds of love stories. There are many types of love. The one you feel for you family, the one you feel for your friends, the one you feel for people you've never met, the one you feel for your pets and so on. And then it's always the big difficult one, the romantic love.
Annabeth Chase talked loudly, had a perfect posture and always talked like she was right. She usually was. Percy Jackson had messy hair, no concentration and was always late for everything. They were pretty much opposites. But these two happened to go to the same high school. They also happened to be neighbours. This happened to equal carpooling.
Percy was waiting outside her door when she walked out with her backpack on her back, a cup of coffee in one hand and her car keys in the other.
"You're on time?" He nodded at her, smirking. It almost annoyed her that he was on time. He never was. She drove him to school almost every morning. Annabeth had always figured that Percy would get his driver license eventually. His mom would lend him her car and she wouldn't have to drive him anymore. But they were turning 18 soon, and she had given up. Every morning Annabeth had to go to his door and knock a couple of times. If Percy was lucky he was ready within five minutes, if he wasn't, she left and he no longer had a ride. Annabeth remembered with horror the times were Percy had opened the door in his underwear, shouted "Wait!" and left her standing on his doorstep. She'd had nightmares about it. If it classified as nightmares.
They always rode together in silence and Percy always jumped out of her car the moment it stopped. This spared Annabeth the embarrassment that walking into school with him would be. She only drove him because his mother was nice and so that she could afford gas-money. Every time someone even hinted that she and Percy was "a thing" she considered stopping. She never had, but she had threatened to do so multiple times. She just needed the money.
"How come you're on time?" She asked as she started the motor.
"Don't get used to it Annabeth." He looked away, smirk long gone. She noticed that his hair looked, if possible, more messy than usual. He had blue circles underneath his eyes. He looked tired. Annabeth wondered what had happened. She didn't ask him however, as they were not friends. Therefor they completed the rest of the drive as they usually did, in silence.
"Do you think there is anything going on with Percy? He looked so exhausted when I drove him to school today." Annabeth asked Piper, one of her best friends, as she sat down at their lunch table.
"Why would I know that?"
"You guys are kind of friends, right? And you're dating one of his best friends!"
"You totally have a thing for him, don't you?" Thalia, another friend, chimed in.
Annabeth blushed, she couldn't help it, "I do not! I just worry about the guy I spend almost 15 minutes of silence with each morning, that's not weird. You would too."
"Hey, Annabeth?" Annabeth closed her locker only to find Percy, yes Percy Jackson the neighbour she barely talked to, standing in front of her. She just raised her eyebrow at him. They had a couple of classes together and she was completely prepared to answer a clear 'No' if he asked for their English homework. Or gods forbid; their math homework. But he didn't do any of that.
"Can you drive me home today? I think we quit at the same time."
"Yeah, sure. Just meet me at the car when we're done." She smiled at him, he returned it and left. She never drove him home. He always went to see some friends or had training or waited to get picked up by his mom. Annabeth never drove him home.
But sure enough, Percy was standing outside her car waiting when she walked out of the school. They rode together in their usual silence, just the radio made any noise. Annabeth noticed that Percy silently mouthed the words to "Shake it off" but she said nothing. Normally she had this time for herself to sing along to the radio, but with Percy present she didn't dare. When they returned home, Percy said a quick "Thanks" and disappeared.
That evening Annabeth had done homework as she babysat her little brothers. This meant she was exhausted when she finally went to bed. This is probably the reason things went as they did. After just a couple of hours with sleep she was woken up. By someone who was mowing their lawn. At 4 am. Annabeth was, needless to say, furious.
She went outside in just her dressing gown, looking around herself. First she had tried to fall back asleep, but as it proved impossible she gave up. The noise came from her next door neighbour, Percy. She would have guessed it was Mrs. Halverson, two houses over, she had been known to do similar things, but no. Hesitant she walked closer to the sound, feeling her feet getting cold. And in his backyard stood Percy, mowing his lawn.
"Percy! What the fuck are you doing?! Everyone is trying to sleep! It's 4 in the morning; this is not the time for lawn-mowing!" Percy turned towards her, looking even more tired than he had when she drove him to school. And he got angry.
"I do that the fuck I want, okay? This is a free country; I can mow the lawn whenever I want!"
Now Annabeth noticed Sally Jackson, Percy's mother, standing inside their house watching. Dressed in a dressing gown much like her own. She used to look cute and nice and put-together, but she looked even worse than Percy.
"You can't just mow your lawn now. I need sleep! We have school tomorrow Percy!" He just looked at her. "Forget it, you're impossible." She said and he muttered something back at her.
"What was that?"
"You're insufferable!" And he turned away from her and started his lawn mower again.
But after she showed him (or rather, his back) her middle finger and went inside her own house again, the sound stopped for good.
The next day was one of the rare days were Annabeth didn't drive Percy to school. She didn't knock on his door to check. She just drove completely alone. They were having a fight, if you could fight with someone you weren't even friends with. But he had called her insufferable, and he had probably cursed her a lot worse than that when she didn't hear him. He could get to school on his own.
Annabeth always spent some time after classes ended trying to pack up all her stuff. Today Percy did too. In the end they were the only two left in the class room.
"Hi Annabeth, I'm sorry about tonight. I was really tired and I know it was all my fault. Can you please drive me to school again? I had some real trouble getting Frank to come pick me up. I mean first I tried to get Jason to pick me up, and then Grover. Frank is just too nice to say no. And could you please drive me home from school today too? Please?" There was just something in his eyes. The eyes with dark half circles painted underneath them. So Annabeth nodded.
"Can I ask you why you were mowing your lawn in the middle of the night?" Percy looked out the car window, and Annabeth eyes were fixed on the road in front of them.
"It's nothing really. It's just," He paused "My mom quite sick right now. She has fever and for some reason she thought it was very important that we mowed the lawn. And I couldn't refuse her. I'm sorry."
"Oh no, Percy, I'm sorry. I hope she gets better soon."
"Yeah, me too. I'm barely sleeping. It feels like I'm making up for all the times were she took care of me when I was sick as a child." It suddenly dawned on Annabeth that Percy was a real person. Not just something she drove places. But someone with emotions, someone with the capability to care for other human beings.
People rarely knocked on Annabeth's door. People who knew them just barged in and those who didn't rarely came. But now, someone was knocking on their door. As she opened the door she saw Percy, with something hopeful in his green eyes.
"Can you drive me to the store? Please?"
It was like their drives were supposed to be silent, or as good as. But in the store they couldn't stop talking.
"When do you think you're mom gets better?" Annabeth asked.
"Soon, at least I hope so." Percy answered.
"Do you know what you're getting?"
"Chocolate, chips and some apples. And I'll make up the rest as we go."
"You're hopeless and you need help."
"I'm not in need of saving; I'm a strong independent prince!"
"Maybe you should just come to our house and eat dinner," Annabeth suggested as Percy picked out frozen pizzas.
"Just face it; you're jealous of my brilliant frozen pizzas." He grinned. "Thank you anyway, but I don't think it's a good idea to bring my mom anywhere right now."
"At least buy something green! You need some healthy food, at least your mom does."
"Personally I think the cure for fever was frozen pizza, chocolate and maybe some spaghetti, but you might be right." As Percy picked up some tomatoes Annabeth realised that they were acting like friends. They were becoming friends. Earth was indeed a weird place to live.
Some days later Annabeth was again standing in front of Percy's front door in the morning ringing her door bell. Two seconds later a messy haired and not fully dressed Percy opened the door, shouted "Wait!" and vanished from sight. It was like the image of Percy's bare chest was playing over and over again in her head. It never had before.
"Is your mom feeling better now then?" Annabeth asked once a fully dressed Percy appeared.
"Yeah, she's going back to work today and everything. Finally I don't have to make dinner for her anymore; I don't think she was very impressed."
"I don't think I would be either, if I were to be honest."
"Don't be honest to me Annabeth, you're hurting my feelings!"
"Okay, from now I will stop telling you the truth."
After a month she realised that she was looking forward to driving him to school. Her heart was beating faster when they two were together. Their rides were no longer silent and they usually sang aloud to the same songs. She drove him back from school a couple of days a week too. And when Piper went to hang out with the boys to talk to her boyfriend, Annabeth sometimes went with her. Just to talk to Percy. What kind of hopeless situation had she gotten herself into?
Mostly this resulted in her friends and his friends hanging out more. This resulted in a party of sorts.
"Honestly, I think we two are the most normal people in our neighbourhood. Or maybe our two families are."
"No way, it's just the two of us. My dad is a crazy historian and my brothers are insane. But I guess they're not as bad as the rest of the neighbourhood." The two of them were sitting together in a sofa talking to each other. Hazel, sitting in-between them, looked a bit tired of them and walked away. That left them sitting there, suddenly silent, with an awkward space between them none of them bothered to close.
"Okay" said Percy after a bit of silence had gone by. "What if I take a drink for every weird thing you remember that has happened in our neighbourhood and you do the same?"
"Okay I'm in; you're going down Percy Jackson!"
"Remember that time when Luke went around pretending he got his scar from a dragon for over two year?" Annabeth took a sip.
"Do you remember when Mrs. Andrews walked around naked for a week?" Percy drank.
"Remember when Mr. Brunner kidnapped all the dogs he could find and tried to get them to drag his wheelchair around?"
"What about when…"
"Or what about that time when…"
Outside it was almost summer and inside they were getting more and more drunk.
The music got louder and louder. They talked to each other and to others. Smiled and laughed and danced. Maybe some of their friends noticed that something was changing, that something big was happening, but no one said anything. As night came closer and the sun travelled to light up someplace else, Percy and Annabeth went outside.
"It's so hot inside. You girls dance so much!" That made Annabeth laugh.
"I really don't know, but I think you and Leo pretty much dominated the dancefloor. I barely went near it."
"That's a shame really."
He looked at her. Her blonde curls hanging loosely down, her grey eyes studying her hands. She looked up at him, his messy hair, his green eyes, and his smile. She stumbled; it had to be all the alcohol. And she was in his arms. They both laughed, loudly, the way you can only laugh if you know that no one else is really listening. Percy got her on her feet again, but didn't really let go of her. If you had seen them you would've seen the contrast of their hair together, his hands lightly on her arms, all which stayed unsaid between them. So their faces came a little closer. Annabeth was closing her eyes, holding her breath…
"You two! You need to come inside! We're playing truth or dare!" Leo almost shouted at them.
They blushed and it was all over.