Chapter 1: Sunday Mornings
Sunday mornings were never good ones for Piper McLean.
Her father would no doubt be at some interview or meet-and-greet (why did he have to take up the role of Wolverine again? She was sure Tristan McLean couldn't be that high in demand) and his assistant Jane would be knocking at her door, nagging for her to wake up.
"How are you going to ever be successful in life if you can't do something as simple as waking up before ten on Sundays? Need I remind you that you start school tomorrow?"
Piper muffled a groan into her pillows as she lay facedown on her bed. As if she needed another reminder that she would be starting school in a new place for the eighth time. Jupiter High was just the next in a long series of prestigious schools her father sent her to, and to make matters worse, she would be staying in this school for much longer time, since her father had been signed on to play yet another superhero in yet another generic Hollywood action movie, and had to film there. Piper had brought up the idea of staying at her Grandpa Tom's in Milwaukee, but he'd ruffled her hair and laughed.
"I couldn't possibly bear to not have you around, Pipes."
Piper gave him a halfhearted smile as he walked out the door, and privately thought it wouldn't make a difference anyway, since she never saw him much in the first place. On weekdays he would leave the house early in the morning for press conferences, photo shoots and other shenanigans and return late at night, and passed out immediately after dinner. Piper hadn't had a conversation with him that was longer than five minutes since she was fourteen, and he hadn't picked up a phone call from her while he was at work since she was twelve. Throw in the fact that her own dear mother had up-and-dusted as soon as she turned one, and you had Piper McLean's tragic life.
Of course, she'd tried on more than one occasion to get her father's attention. There was the time she broke all the crayons in the class art box when she was ten, the time she switched the sugar in the school kitchens for salt when she was twelve, and of course, who could forget that period in time where she stole that BMW? She winced at the memory. Not only had she not gotten her father's attention, she'd been sent into rehab for a month. Needless to say, it had been the worst month of her life.
"Piper, if you don't get out of bed soon, I'm coming in there."
"Fine, I'm getting up, I'm getting up!" Having Jane in her room was an absolute no-no. From the clothes strewn all over her floor to the posters hanging haphazardly off the walls, Jane would have a fit. She would probably hire one of those awful cleaning helps, and they would basically get rid of every single thing in the room, spray copious amounts of air freshener, and charge a ridiculously high price.
She plodded downstairs, still in her sleepwear. She hopped onto a stool at the breakfast bar, and took some satisfaction when Jane visibly winced at her attire. "Your father gave me instructions to send you to the nearest mall today to get you to buy some new clothes. You know, for the new school year."
"Huh." Piper poured herself a glass of orange juice. She was mildly surprised her father even remembered that she was starting school the next day. "Your new school books arrived this morning, by the way," Jane pointed to the huge paper package on the other end of the breakfast bar. That would explain her father's knowledge in her school term. No surprise after all.
"So," Jane brought out her little planning book, and Piper had to exert a considerable amount of effort into not rolling her eyes. She had everything planned down to the minute- and was efficient in carrying them out too. "I figured if we're leaving in half an hour, we might be back by three. You can have lunch at the mall. I'll pick you up at two."
Half an hour later, Piper got out of the black Mercedes Jane drove and strolled into the mall, her snowboarding jacket and ripped jeans on, completely out of place in the mall full of tall teenage boys and girls, the girls sporting waist long bleached hair and crop tops, and the boys in basketball shorts and snapbacks. With her tan skin and choppy brown hair, which she always cut by herself with safety scissors out of rebellion, Piper stuck out like a sore thumb. She looked in the envelope Jane had passed her, and found the five hundred-dollar bills her dad gave her. Might as well spend it.
She promptly ignored the Forever 21 and the American Outfitters store next to the entrance, and was pleased to find a relatively dark and shabby looking store on the second level, and walked out with three bags of an assortment of monochrome sweaters, jeans and a few graphic shirts. She found black sneakers on sale and promptly bought them along with a pair of white headphones. As she walked into the coffee shop, she was beginning to think that it wasn't a complete waste of time coming to the mall when someone elbowed her straight in the face and spilt hot coffee over the sleeve of her snowboarding jacket.
"Watch it!" Piper snapped. The holder of the coffee cup, who was in the midst of apologizing profusely, stopped halfway in his apologies. "Are you blind?" "It was an accident!" At a grand height of just over five feet, Piper did not appreciate it when people elbowed her in the face. She craned her neck to look at the offending figure and gave him a once over. A navy button down, jeans without a single crease in it, spotless white Converse, neatly combed blond hair in a quiff and sky blue eyes; he was the epitome of a clean cut, all American kind of boy. "You elbowed me in the face, and then spilled coffee on my favourite jacket. What a nice welcome to California!" She threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
"Well, I'm certainly not responsible for any other mishaps that happened to you! Don't you think that's quite judgmental of you?" They were beginning to draw the attention of the occupants in the café. "Jason, what's going on?" A tall girl with tumbling dark hair and sharp eyes walked over to the boy and placed a hand on his arm. With her neatly pressed collared shirt and white A-line skirt, Piper wondered if the word 'fun' was even in this girl's vocabulary. The common Californian stereotype of being cheerful and easygoing seemed overrated as the two of them faced her.
"I'll tell you what's going on, Rey. This girl just blew her top at me for accidentally elbowing her in the face and accidentally spilling coffee on her!" The guy- Jason- glared at her. Piper returned the glare in equal measure. "Are you not taking responsibility, then?"
"Okay, calm down, you two." The girl said soothingly, as if she was used to mediating fights. "Look, miss, I'm sorry Jason can be clumsy at times. I'm sure he can offer to pay for the cleaning services if you require them." She spoke in such a calm, rational tone that Piper felt childish for kicking up a fuss.
"Reyna! I never said I'd offer cleaning services-" Jason spluttered. She gave him a look and he subsided, his face settling into a scowl. Piper, now thoroughly exhausted, gave one last huff and turned her heel and stalked out. It was her second day here, and she hated California already. Heck, New York or even Boston had been better than this.
When Jane picked her up at two, Piper jumped right in and slammed the car door shut. "Have you eaten?" Piper plucked moodily at the lapel of her stained snowboarding jacket and lied without batting an eye. "Yeah."
"Good."
The car ride passed in silence, and as they pulled into the driveway of the mansion, Piper gathered all her bags and jumped out of the car before it stopped moving and ran upstairs two steps at a time, hearing Jane's audible sigh behind her.
…
"Okay, so we have a total of seven things to get today." Reyna announced as soon as they stepped into the mall. She consulted her list with her careful handwriting, pen in hand. "We need folders, stationery, track shoes…" She rattled on, and Jason let his gaze wander to the shops advertising their "Back-to-School" series. The mall was full of teenagers doing last minute shopping for the school term starting the next day. Normally, Jason and Reyna wouldn't have been amongst them, both probably having already prepared weeks before. Nothing less was expected of the two 4.0 GPA students.
This year, however, they had just received news that they'd been elected by the previous student council to head the next student council, and Reyna hadn't even allowed herself much time to celebrate before going into a frenzy and starting to aggressively plan out every single detail of the process.
"Bro!" A lean boy with messy black hair and green eyes skateboarded to them and nodded at Reyna, who smiled in return.
"How's it going man?" The two boys gave each other 'manly hugs', or so Reyna termed them. "I haven't seen you the entire summer!" "Sorry man, family trip to Greece," Jason said apologetically. Percy Jackson, his best guy friend, shrugged and smiled a lopsided smile. "It's okay, man. Hey, I heard you two got named Presidents of the student council! Congrats."
"Thanks, dude. I-" "Oi, no skateboarding in the mall!" the balding security guard yelled at Percy, who promptly hopped off the skateboard and yelled back. "I'm not riding it anymore!" That was Percy, rebellious to a fault. And then there was his polar opposite of a girlfriend, Annabeth. They used to argue and hurl insults back and forth, until one day they suddenly started dating. It was most bizarre, but yet Jason couldn't picture anyone else they could be more perfect with.
"Anyway, I gotta run, I was supposed to meet Annie in front of the mall ten minutes ago-" "Percy!" The latter cursed fluently as a tall blonde girl with stormy grey eyes walked over. "I thought we were supposed to- Reyna! Jason!" She gave each of them warm hugs, and immediately began talking to Reyna rapidly. The two girls were completely at ease with each other, laughing and recounting things they had experienced over the summer, and Jason happened to know for a fact that apart from Annabeth and Jason and a few other close friends, if anyone so much as touched her, they were dead. Reyna wasn't exactly a very welcoming person when it came to meeting new people.
They parted from Percy and Annabeth a few minutes later, and Reyna checked the time on her phone. "Okay, so if we make it quick, we might be able to stop for coffee at the café later." She didn't need to add in the 'if', Jason reflected in hindsight, because it was Reyna Ramirez-Arellano they were talking about, and she always made things quick and efficient. Especially someone's death if they ever mentioned her last name out loud.
"One espresso, and one hazelnut latte please," Jason repeated their usual order to the barista half an hour later. Reyna had gone to get a seat in the crowded café, and it was left to Jason to order their drinks. The barista winked at him as she nodded towards Reyna. Jason blushed a deep red. He'd known Reyna ever since he could remember, but even though he'd maybe considered it at one point or another before, the feeling of platonic friendship was too strong for him to act on any previous attraction.
He retrieved his two mugs of coffee with a nod of thanks before making his way over to where Reyna sat, until his elbow smacked face first into a girl whose head barely reached the middle of his chest. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry-" "Watch it!" she snapped. Jason frowned, and then he caught sight of her face, upturned to him. Her eyes were bright and kaleidoscopic, and seemed to be unable to settle on one colour. Her face was clear of makeup, and she was wearing tattered jeans and an old snowboarding jacket, as if she couldn't care less about how she looked. He was momentarily unable to form a coherent sentence. "Are you blind?"
"It was an accident!" he protested. Her pretty face scrunched up in a scowl as she jabbed her finger at him. "You elbowed me in the face, and then spilled coffee on my favourite jacket. What a nice welcome to California!" Any previous reservations he might have had vanished as annoyance began to seep in. "Well, I'm certainly not responsible for any other mishaps that happened to you! Don't you think that's quite judgmental of you?"
Thankfully, Reyna intervened then, because the girl looked just about ready to punch him in the neck, which was probably as high as she could reach. As she stalked out of the shop, Reyna threw him a questioning look. "What?" he said defensively. "Never mind. Anyway, I was thinking we should call a meeting for the new student council tomorrow, you know, just to establish policies and such. There's also a bunch of events that need handling…" "Cool," Jason replied distractedly, his thoughts far away.
*peeks in your screen* Hey :) so this is my first fanfiction on this account, and I'll try to update regularly *cough* procrastination *cough* so yeah hope you enjoy it and do tell me any constructive feedback you have