Lost in Translation

by Everybody's Starry Eyed

It was times like these that Jason really wished that he could speak French, at least at some degree. His head always hurt when he tried to decipher what she was saying. Of course, it sounded beautiful anytime the words rolled off her tongue, but he didn't need to share that with anyone.

Title: Lost in Translation

Rating: T

Characters: Jason Grace, Piper McLean, Jasper, Reyna, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare

Word Count: 6,500+

Summary: It was times like these that Jason really wished that he could speak French, at least at some degree. His head always hurt when he tried to decipher what she was saying. Of course, it sounded beautiful anytime the words rolled off her tongue, but he didn't need to share that with anyone.

Author's Note: I have quite a few notes for this particular fic. First off, this is definitely not one of the best pieces I've ever written. Frankly, the character development is a little shabby and sentence structure is kind of terrible, but I don't think it's going to affect the message of the story. Hopefully.

Another note – I do not think that Rachel is a straight-up bitch (at least not without good reason). I needed someone to be unfriendly to Piper and she just happened to fill the slot. I'm actually planning on including her in some upcoming fics of mine and hopefully I'll be able to do her some good because even though I dislike her, I don't think she's a terrible character.

Last note – I am not translating any of the French in this one-shot because I wanted to show the language barrier between Piper and Jason. Translating would only take away the idea of the whole story, so I ask that you read the story completely through before going to Google to translate the French passages. Or you can ignore my input and go ahead and read the story the way you want. It's your life.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

. . .

"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment." – Sarah Dessen

. . .

"Jason, are you even listening to me right now?"

Jason Grace blinked several times, snapping back into reality. Looking over to his girlfriend, he was met with a fiery glare that could have burnt a hole through his forehead. Lately he had been exhausted from all the rugby practices and all-nighters for homework and his sister, Thalia, constantly nagging him all the time –

"Jason, are you listening to me?" Reyna repeated, snapping her fingers in front of his face. He looked at her, her dark hair cascading down in front of her dark eyes and shaping her angular face perfectly.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, shaking his head of his lethargic thoughts. He seemed to be really out of it today, he couldn't even remember how he made it to eighth period or what had happened earlier in the day. It was beyond weird that he was acting this way since he was supposed to be the energetic athlete.

"Ugh, it's like you never listen!" she groaned, flipping her hair away from her face. "What has been up with you lately?"

"I guess I'm just tired or something." He said, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

"Whatever." She dismissed, turning back to the paper in front of them, "As I was saying, we have to take the log of both sides…"

Jason couldn't help but zone again; mathematics was more of Reyna's thing and for that, he was grateful. He couldn't wait to get home and finally get some rest for the first time in the past few days. Maybe Thalia would be nice and give him the heater tonight; he couldn't stand sleeping in the cold that his room provided. What day was it anyway? If it was Thursday then his mom was going to force him to take out the trash, which sucked because he had to climb down thirteen flights of stairs to get to the huge garbage can outside of his apartment building. All he wanted to do when he got home was sleep.

Before he knew it, the final bell rang and Reyna was all but dragging him out of the classroom and down the hall to her locker. She blabbed on and on about her day and what they were going to do this weekend, even though he couldn't recall when he told her that he was free. He slugged along behind her, listening only half-heartedly as she talked about how much she hated her partner for her English project.

"I'm not asking a lot of her to finish the twenty notecards for the project, you know?" she said, opening her locker and stuffing her pre-calculus book into the metal confinement.

"Yeah." He said absentmindedly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"So, what do you want to do this weekend?" she asked, slamming her locker door shut and leaning against it.

"Uh, Percy said that there is this new rollerblading place opening downtown. He and Annabeth were gonna go and I thought it'd be cool to go?" he ended with uncertainty after seeing the scowl on her face.

"I don't know, rollerblading isn't really my thing." She admitted, wringing her hands. "Why don't we see a movie? There's a superhero movie coming out and it looks pretty cool."

"Okay," Jason conceded, a little disappointed. They were always doing whatever Reyna wanted to do, and although superheroes were undoubtedly awesome, he was looking forward to bro-ing down with Percy.

"Look, I got to go to softball practice, I'll see you tomorrow." She said, kissing him softly before jogging down the hall towards the baseball field.

He sighed loudly, heading in the opposite direction to his locker. Another exhausting part of his life was his girlfriend. Don't get him wrong, he liked Reyna a lot but sometimes she was overbearing and way too intimidating. He was pretty sure that in a relationship he wasn't supposed to feel afraid every time she became angry. He was also sure that he was supposed to talk in the relationship.

Arriving at his locker, he swapped all his books and checked his phone for messages. He had a message from Percy, asking if Jason was going rollerblading or not. It pained him to reply with a resounding no, but Reyna didn't want to go and he wasn't about to willingly third-wheel it.

"Are you ready to go or what, dipshit?" he switched his gaze from his phone screen to his scornful sister who had fixed him with a glare. Her short hair was spiked up today and she was proudly showing off her cartilage piercing that she acquired over the weekend. Her black t-shirt screamed out against her pale skin and her jeans fit snugly against her skinny calves. She was not an image to be reckoned with.

"Yeah," Jason replied tiredly, slamming his locker door and following her out to the parking lot where her green Sedan sat. They hopped in and with Thalia (illegally) speeding, they entered their household in under twenty minutes. Jason fell into the armchair in the living room, exhausted from the long day he had just endured. Everything on his plate was beginning to wear him out lately and he couldn't wait until the weekend where he could sleep it off.

"Jason! Thalia! Come to the kitchen for a minute!" Jason groaned inwardly, forcing himself to leap out of the warmth the chair provided and pad into the kitchen. His mom stood over the stove, stirring something in the pot with her signature apron on. She beamed at him, gesturing for him to sit down at the table. Thalia stomped into the room moments later, obviously as displeased as he was that their mother was interrupting their downtime.

"Oh good, you two are here." She said condescendingly, turning down the heat on the stove to turn and look at us.

"Spit it out, mom." Thalia rudely commented, making their mother roll her eyes.

"At the beginning of the year, I signed up for an international students' program." Jason remembered hearing Annabeth talk about that a few weeks ago at lunch. Apparently some foreigner comes to your home and spends a few weeks with you before returning back to their homeland. To Jason, it sounded like a waste of time.

"I just received an email today that a French student, Piper McLean, will be staying at our house for a month, tops." Ugh, Jason thought – another person in their small apartment was definitely not what he needed right now. "So, we are going to have to make a few changes around here."

This is when Thalia and he made their verbal protests, complaining about how there was no room and how much would they have to share and that no one in this house even knew how to speak French. Their mom silenced them with a sharp whistle, "Enough! End of discussion! Piper will feel welcome here and if either of you two screws this up, I'll have your head on a silver platter and serve it to her!"

Jason groaned, crossing his arms over his chest and throwing his head back. It's not that he didn't like meeting new people – he was sure that Piper was a cool girl. It was the idea of cramping one other person into their tiny household that bugged him. He was sure that he was going to end up sleeping on the couch and he would practically have no bathroom time because there would be three girls in the apartment.

After his mom had clearly ended the exchange, he walked down the narrow hallway and entered his room, flopping onto his unmade bed. He buried his face in his pillow, willing for the weekend to roll around quicker.

. . .

Jason had been stuck in traffic on the highway for at least a half an hour. Not to pick up his girlfriend and take her to a movie, but to collect some foreign exchange student who would be taking up a majority of his house for the month. His head rolled back, hitting the head rest as the cars inched forward slowly. This was literally the worst.

When his mom asked him this morning to pick up Piper, the first thing that came to mind was Reyna. She would be furious with him for ditching the movies to go to the airport, no matter how important it was. She would be mad even if he was meeting with the president if it meant skipping out on a date with her. Thankfully, she didn't hold it against him like she usually did but he knew that he would receive an earful of it on Monday.

After twenty minutes of head banging and exasperated sighs, the cars ahead of him started moving at a normal pace. He glanced at the clock and saw that he was already five minutes late; on top of that, he was still fifteen minutes away from the airport. He hoped that this Piper chick had enough sense in her to stay put and not get lost.

He whipped into the parking lot of the airport and started to jog to where Piper's flight was let in. Airports were too complex for him sometimes, so it took him around ten minutes to finally arrive in the vicinity where Piper could be. He scanned around, looking for a girl in a striped shirt with a beret or something.

"Jason?" a feminine voice asked, making him turn around.

A few feet away from him stood a tall girl with deep, tan skin that practically glowed under the fluorescent lights of the terminal. Her eyes were a dark, milky brown that captivated his quickly, leaving him slightly breathless (although he was sure running had something to do with it, too). Her chocolate hair was tied into a braid that lay neatly over her sweater-clad shoulder. Jason could only describe her in one word: perfection.

"Jason?" the girl repeated, her French accent heavily influencing the way his name rolled off her tongue.

He snapped out of it and quickly stepped forward, addressing her politely, "Yes, I'm Jason. And you must be Piper?" she only nodded, shying away from his gaze. "It's nice to meet you." He held out his hand for her to shake, but she only looked at it strangely before delicately slipping her hand into his. Her skin was utterly smooth against his calloused skin and it fit perfectly – more so than it ever has with Reyna, if he was being honest.

"I'll take some of your bags there," he said after awkwardly staring at her for a minute. He lifted her duffle with ease and began walking in the direction of the parking lot, Piper hesitantly trotting behind him with her suitcase. It remained silent between them until they reached his care where they stuffed all her stuff in the trunk and began their journey back to his house.

The first ten minutes was silent between the two until Jason hit traffic again. He had forgotten that the way coming back was backed up, too. Now they were gonna be stuck on the highway for at least another half an hour. He grew nervous, not because he had anywhere to be, but because he was stuck in a car with a pretty girl who barely knew how to speak English. What was he supposed to say to her? All the French he knew was Bonjour! and that was it.

"Bien sûr, je suis coincé dans une voiture avec un Américain," Piper muttered, rubbing a hand over her face.

"What?" Jason asked, utterly confused as to what she was saying. He looked over at her hoping to read her face, but her head was turned towards the window. The nerves began to kick in after awhile and he started to drum his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the cars to move so he could get home and get the hell out of this car.

"So…." Jason trailed off, hoping to start a conversation but coming up short. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say what he wanted to say. The thing was, he didn't have anything to talk about. He could talk about how his mom single-handedly ruined his day by making him pick Piper up. Or he could talk about how angry his girlfriend is that he ditched her to pick up a foreign exchange student. Or he could shut his mouth and sit in the awkward silence. The latter seemed to be the most appealing.

"Your school is good?" Piper asked, breaking the silence. Jason smirked at her heavy accent and minimal English speaking. It's nice to know that he wasn't the only one struggling in the awkwardness of the car ride.

"Yeah, I guess. The teachers are kind of annoying and strict and the lessons are boring sometimes, but it's good." He rambled, stopping himself when he saw the slighlty confused look on her face.

"Je parie que les enseignants sont intelligents. En France, les enseignants étaient signifie et stricte." She commented. Jason decided not to respond, pretending that he understood the sounds that were coming out of her mouth.

"You have friend?" Piper asked, continuing the conversation although Jason sort of wished she would stop talking and resume the silence that had once engulfed the car.

"I have a good group of friends. We always hang out and have a good time. I'm sure you would like them, especially my girlfriend Reyna." Jason offhandedly responded. Reyna and Piper could easily get along – they both made him kind of nervous.

"Family?" she asked, deciding to keep her sentences short and uncomplicated so that he could understand easily.

"It's just my mom, my sister, and me." He responded, also keeping his replies short to not confuse her. The conversation continued like this: her asking simple questions about his life and him replying with some sort of cohesive response. Finally after an hour, the line of cars began to move and Jason was able to get to his apartment in under twenty minutes.

Piper and he climbed the stairs with her luggage in tow to the floor his apartment was on and entered the household. He could smell the aroma of chicken noodle soup as he kicked off his shoes and pulled off his coat, hanging it on a nearby hook.

"Ce un morceau de merde," Piper grumbled, following him into the kitchen where his mom stood next to the oven.

"Jason, why the hell are you so late? It's almost five o'clock!" his mom scolded, placing her hands defiantly on her hips.

"We ran into traffic," at the mention of their escapade, Piper entered the kitchen and smiled at his mom.

"Hello, Piper! It's great to finally meet you!" his mom walked over to her and squeezed her in a tight hug which she hesitantly returned. "How do you like America so far?"

"Is… different." Piper said with a shrug, eliciting a chuckle from his mom.

"I bet! Jason, watch the food while I go show Piper her room." She commanded as she shuffled out of the kitchen, Piper in tow. He dropped down into a chair and heaved a sigh, exhausted from spending hours in the car. Piper was going to be staying here for at least a month and he couldn't imagine getting along with her. It was almost impossible to hold a conversation with her, let alone get to know her. Thalia would probably have a better time becoming acquantinces with her than he would. It was only a month – he could get through it easily.

. . .

Piper was weirdly quiet in the house; Jason almost forgot that she was there if he didn't have to sleep on the couch every night. As soon as they got home after the awkward car ride where Thalia tried to make conversation with Piper, she would go straight to his room and work on her homework. (He knows that she does her homework because the door is always open when he passes the doorway. Not that he does it often.) And she only talks to them when they have dinner.

"How was your day at school, Piper? I hope the language barrier isn't super tough for you. I think your English is very good." His mom stated bluntly, acting as if she wasn't embarrassing the life out of Piper. Jason mentally face palmed.

"Is great." She responded, smiling faintly before twirling the spaghetti around her fork. She looked a little disgusted by the over cooked noodles but decided to choke it down so as not to offend his mom.

"Your classes aren't too tough, are they? Jason or Thalia could always help you out." His mom whispered, acting like he or Thalia couldn't over hear. As if the dining room wasn't completely silent.

"Is fine, Madame Grace." She whispered back, playing along with his mom's antics.

"Oh, good."

And that was that.

Jason didn't see her too often during school because they took completely different courses. However she did become good friends with Annabeth, who just so happened to be the girlfriend of his best friend, Percy. They hung out at each other's lockers after school frequently with the love birds, which wasn't exactly the kind of situation that he wanted to hang out in but whatever.

Which is why he knew exactly where she would be that Thursday afternoon. Piper was later than usual coming out that day; Thalia was getting impatient and shoved him out of the car, demanding that he go find his girlfriend. Pssh, she wasn't his girlfriend. He paced down the halls, looking around for the brunette when he stumbled upon a small group of girls surrounding her locker.

"Do you even know English?" one of the girls sneered, leaning in close to Piper's face. Jason stopped in his tracks and watched as the girl played with her braid. Piper smacked her hand away, a very annoyed look drawn on her face.

"Look, she can't even speak. She's obviously retarded." The red-haired girl joke, receiving a round of laughter from her groupies. "Hey, why don't you go back to your home planet, alien?"

Piper had been holding her tongue for far too long and finally snapped, "Je vais frapper vos seins hors petite salope!" Whatever the hell she just said did not sound very nice.

"Oh, hold up whore – "

"Alright, I think that's enough," Jason finally stepped in, taking hold of Piper's forearm so she wouldn't start a fight or spit out anymore French insults. He immediately recognized the evil red-head as Rachel Elizabeth Dare, one of the head cheerleaders of the school. Percy and she went way back, and that relationship was not a fun one. "Piper and I have to get going."

"Oh, Jason," Rachel said, surprised that he showed up out of nowhere. She gulped nervously, glancing back at her lackeys, "Well, I'm late to cheerleading anyways so I'll see you around." Then, with one final sneer, "Bye, Frenchie."

He waited until she rounded the corner until he turned to Piper and said, "Frenchie? Really?"

But instead of hearing a laugh or seeing her smile, Piper looked furious, "Grande, tout simplement génial. Bien sûr, vous vous présentez."

"Pardon?" It was times like these that Jason really wished that he could speak French, at least at some degree. His head always hurt when he tried to decipher what she was saying. Of course, it sounded beautiful anytime the words rolled off her tongue, but he didn't need to share that with anyone.

"Je peux prendre soin de moi, tu sais ça?" she laughed, although he was sure that whatever she just said wasn't the slightest bit funny, "Je n'ai pas besoin de votre aide putain. Je m'occupais de leur bien et puis tout d'un coup que vous venez de valse ici..."

"Whoa, calm down!" He said, resting his hand on her shoulder. She quickly shrugged it off, which hurt him a little bit. "English, please?"

"Leave. Me. Alone." She spat out, turning on her heel and heading towards the parking lot.

Jason stood in the middle of the hallway, flabbergasted at Piper's sudden anger. The past two weeks, he had only seen the quiet Piper, who hid in her room and dutifully completed her homework. The Piper who politely chatted with his mom at dinner time and did the dishes for them after every meal. The Piper he had just witnessed was not a force to be messed with.

. . .

After that little spat, things had been terse between the two. The car rides together were dead silent; even Thalia didn't try to fill in the awkward stillness, just sticking her earbuds in and blasting her punk rock or whatever it was she listened to. Piper avoided him like the Black Plague, taking her dinner into his room whenever his mother would allow it, claiming that she had "lots of studying to do".

She even stopped hanging out with Annabeth for a while since she knew that Percy and he were close buddies. This made Annabeth very distressed, causing Jason to earn an earful from the scornful blonde. Not even Percy could calm her down after her long lecture. Eventually, Piper came around and starting talking to Annabeth again but kept her distance from Jason. Figures, he thought with annoyance.

All he was trying to do was help her out. Those girls weren't nice; he knows that Annabeth still gets taunted sometimes by Rachel because she's Percy girlfriend. Instead, Piper had to flip a shit and take it out on him, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. And now… now she was mad at him, which strangely hurt him. She had been sweet to him and he missed the occasional smile or laugh that he received from her when he told a really bad joke or something like that.

A hand waved in front of his face, snapping him back to the present. He looked over at Thalia who had an irritated look on her face. "Are you coming inside or what?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm coming." He said, stepping out of the car and heading up the stairs to their apartment. Piper had already shut the door to his room, closing herself off for the night. He gloomily walked past the room and flopped onto the couch, switching on the TV.

His mom came home some time later and began to cook up a storm in the kitchen; she was making one of his personal favorites: lasagna. Actually, that was one of Piper's favorite dishes too now that he thought about it. Weird, he shook his head and focused back on the show that was playing on the television.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated in his pants pocket. He knew who it was from without even needing to look: Reyna. She lately had become really clingy and needed to hang out with him like every day. It was tiring sometimes, especially on days like these when all he wanted to do was go to bed early. Alas, he didn't want to face the wrath of Reyna so he checked his phone:

What are you doing tonight? I just bought a foreign film that I'd like to watch with you ;)

Foreign films. The bane of Jason's existence.

"Mom?" he called out, straining his neck to look over the back of the couch.

"Yes, Jason?"

"Can I have the car tonight? Reyna wants to hang out." He explained, lifting himself up on his elbows to look his mom in the eye.

"Again?" Jason nodded, "Sure, do you need gas money?"

"Sure," he called out as he heard his mom walk down the hallway to her bedroom. He texted Reyna back:

I can come over. See you in an hour?

His phone buzzed a moment later, like she had been glued to her phone:

See you then, babe ;)

Nicknames. Those were also the bane of his existence. She usually only used them when she wanted something extra from him. Oh, he knew she'd be talking his ear off tonight. It was going to be a long night.

He walked down the hallway, bracing himself for what could be one of the most tense and awkward moments of his life. He needed a change of clothes and they were in his room. Which is where Piper was. Fuck.

Gently knocking on the door, he heard her voice call out, "Entrez!" which he assumed was the okay for him to open the door. Jason walked in as quick as he could to pick out another change of clothes. Hastily glancing at her, he realized that she was focusing on the geometry textbook that sat in front of her. Her eyebrows scrunched in concentration and her nose wrinkled in confusion. He quietly snuck up behind her and peered over her shoulder to look at what she was working on. Volume and surface area.

"You're plugging it in wrong." He simply stated, causing her to whip around in surprise.

"Quoi?" she asked in confusion.

"You're supposed to be using pi and the radius to find the surface area." He said, pointing at one of the problems in her textbook.

"I not understand," she trailed off, shifting over on the bed to allow him to sit. Okay then, he thought, cautiously sitting next to her on his bed. He gently took the pencil from her hand and copied down one of the problems and looked at her. She was concentrated on the paper and looked at him quickly, before returning her gaze to the paper.

"For the cylinder, you have to take the radius which is that number," he pointed to the number on the page, "and substitute it for r." He rewrote the equation with the radius in the equation. Realization flashed on her face as she took the paper from him and completed the equation speedily and with little conflict.

"Thanks." She said, smiling shyly at him. He smiled back, relieved that she wasn't ignoring him or worse, yelling at him.

"I'll just leave then…" he trailed off, jumping up from the bed to get ready for his impromptu date with Reyna. Until she stopped him.

"Wait!" she called out, grabbing the back of his baggy shirt to hold him back. He turned back, stunned that he was actually talking to him. "Um, I want to say sorry for what I say at school. I was angry and you just being nice. So…. Sorry?"

He smiled (and not because her English was kind of terrible) because he was finally forgiven and could stop walking on thin ice around her. "It's cool," he responded, causing her to sigh in relief. She laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear bashfully under his gaze.

His phone vibrated in his hand and he checked it without thinking:

Hey, where are you? You said you'd be here ten minutes ago! :/

Shit, he thought. Reyna. Running his fingers through his hair, he realized how much he didn't want to go out tonight. He looked at Piper one last time before turning around to exit the premisis.

"Wait!" she called again, causing him to stop dead in his tracks and look at her, "Could you help…?" Gesturing to her textbook, she gave him a pleading look. Her brown eyes widened and her cheeks flushed out of embarassment. How could he say no? But Reyna's gonna be pissed, his conscious warned him.

Reyna could wait.

Sorry, something came up :/

He responded, turning off his phone and sitting next to Piper on the bed once more, "Now, for volume…"

. . .

He was dreading coming into school the next day because he knew that he was going to have to face the fury of his girlfriend. He thought about telling his mom that he had vomited and couldn't go to school, but he was sure that she would find some way to force him out of bed and into the car. So, here he was, trying not to actually vomit all over the dashboard of the car.

"Yo, Jason, you okay? You look like you're about to pass out or something," Thalia commented from the driver's seat, recklessly switching lanes.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He responded, leaning his head against the cool glass of the window to calm his nerves. Sooner than he would've liked, they were at school and Thalia was practically dragging him out of the car and in through the front doors of the school. Quickly, he made a bee-line for his locker and began to devise a plan to avoid Reyna for a little while longer.

Unfortunately, he would never set his plan into action because she was standing in front of his locker, looking around in the hopes of finding him. He sighed heavily, bracing himself for the wrath he was about to feel. He cautiously walked over to her and greeted, "Good morning, Reyna."

"Seriously? That's what you're going to say to me?" she asked. Oh boy, here we go, he thought, closing his eyes in hopes that he would suddenly warp to a different place. "Why couldn't you come over last night? You said you were going to." She told him, all accusatory.

Nope, it didn't work.

"I told you, something came up." He responded. It was true, he wasn't about to leave Piper to fend for herself against the treacherous mathematics known as geometry.

"Well then, what was it?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting her hip out in a no-nonsense manner.

"I was helping Piper out with something. She was really confused and I know she has a hard time –"

"Piper? Really?" she asked, almost sounding like she was offended that he skipped out on one date to help a foreign student. "What the hell, Jason? You really ditched me to hang out with that weirdo? Where the hell do you get off?"

"She's not a weirdo," he defended, "and it's not my fault you texted me out of nowhere. I've hung out with you after school every day this week. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is I'm your girlfriend," she said, poking him in the chest on the emphasis of girlfriend, "and you shouldn't be ditching me to hang out with some girl who is gonna be gone in a week."

"All the more reason to hang out with her." He blurted out before he could stop himself. She slapped him abruptly, leaving a stinging feeling in his cheek.

"Fuck you!" she screeched, "Are you serious?!"

Right then and there, Jason had an epiphany. He didn't really like Reyna, at least not anymore. There must have been something there before that had started their relationship, but it was long gone now. Now, all he wanted to do was talk to Piper, which was kind of insane because she couldn't speak English very well. Just something about her made him feel more at ease and comfortable, unlike how he was feeling right now with Reyna glowering down at him.

It had hurt a lot more than he had initially though when Piper was ignoring him after he had stepped in when those mean girls were bullying her. In fact, he hated himself for just standing there and doing nothing when he could have been helping her out. Suddenly, everything made sense. The weird feelings he got when he first picked her up at the airport. The hurt he felt when they were in a fight. The giddy feeling he sensed last night when they spent most of the night together in his room.

He liked Piper.

"Jason!"

Reyna's yelling brought him back to the present. Staring into her eyes, he knew that there was going to be no easy way to do this, "Reyna, I think it's time we broke up."

. . .

"What?!"

He flinched at the sheer volume of her voice and instinctively took a step away from her, hoping not to become a victim of another slap. Before he knew it, she stomped away from him with the crowd parting like the Red Sea for her. He could finally breathe again.

He couldn't get over the fact that he liked Piper. It was crazy, beyond crazy really. How could he adore a girl he couldn't understand half the time? How did he even know if she knew what he was talking about when he said things to her? There was no way that this was possible.

But it was. And Jason had to figure what to do with these feelings before Piper returned to France in a week.

Shit.

. . .

Today was the day. The unfortunate day that Piper had to return to France. And Jason still hadn't said anything to her. Well, nothing important at least. They talked all the time ever since he helped her with her homework. They chilled in his room, doing homework or simply just talking. He slowly began to realize that he never felt this way with Reyna.

He actually enjoyed talking to Piper; he didn't have a fear that she was all of a sudden going to rip him a new one for something stupid he did. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to sit in his room all day with her and listen to her speak with her incredibly beautiful accent or watch her explain the streets of Paris with a sparkle in her eye.

Honestly, he didn't want her to leave – he wanted his bed back, but he didn't want to have Piper missing in his life. There wasn't much that he could do about it, since she already booked the flight and he knew that she was ready to go back to her own family in France. He easily saw it on her face every time his mom would address Thalia or him at the dinner table.

So, that Saturday morning, Jason drove Piper up to the airport. His mom had a conference at work and Thalia decided to be Thalia and not help out this one time. Which left Jason to drive through the horrendous traffic to the airport, where he would have to find it in himself to say goodbye to the one person who had brightened up his life in the past month. It was quiet in the car, probably because it was before nine and Piper had told him the night before that she detested traveling via airplane because of a movie she saw with Tom Hanks in it.

After enduring an hour of silence, the couple arrived at the airport. Jason helped to lug her suitcase up the many staircases of the facility and walked her through security (which was his least favorite part of the whole endeavor). At last, they arrived at the destination of her flight's departure. Piper hefted her backpack onto her small shoulders and gingerly accepted the suitcase from his hand.

They stood there for a moment, facing each other but not saying anything. Jason decided to memorize everything about her in that one moment: her creamy, tan skin, her deep dark brown eyes that captivated him from the first moment he saw her, her mocha-colored hair that framed her face flawlessly – everything. He wanted to remember everything about her, from the way her lips curved into a smile all the way down to her tiny feet that she hid in her sneakers. It suddenly hit him that if he didn't hear her laugh right then, he might die.

Surprisingly, she stepped forward and hugged him tightly. Her arms wrapped around his torso perfectly and she smelled like jasmine and vanilla swirled together. If she could stay in his arms like this, he was sure he would be the happiest man in the universe. She pulled away abruptly and stepped away from him, glancing back at the flight attendant who was giving a five minute warning for her flight.

"I guess I'll see you around." Jason said. Yeah right! She's gonna be in a whole different country! His conscious was screaming. Turning around, he started to make his way back to the parking lot.

"Jason, wait!" Piper called, running up behind him and tugging on his arm. He looked over his shoulder, down at the girl who had changed his life completely in less than a month. Her dark, brown eyes were pleading with him to do something. He wished he knew what to do.

"Uh…" he said dumbly, turning around fully and scratching the back of his neck.

"Thalia helped me with English." She blurted out, immediately looking down at her feet. "I'm still not very good, but I give try?" she said uncertainly. He nodded for her to continue; she took a deep breath, "Jason, I-I like you. At first, you were weird and silent and… weird." She started to laugh until she saw the confusion in his face, "But then you act kind and are nice to me, even though I am weirdo." It was Jason's turn to laugh, easing her anxiety and causing her to laugh as well, "What I try to say is I like you and I miss you."

He was pretty sure that she meant that she was going to miss him, as in the future tense. But it didn't matter to him because he was smiling like a huge goof because she just admitted she liked him. "You like me?" he asked in disbelief. It was impossible that a girl like Piper could like a guy like him.

"Yes," she smiled at him and added, "je t'aime."

He was pretty sure that meant something romantic, so he went for it. Slowly, he placed his hand on her hip and leaned into kiss her. Her lips were soft and he almost melted right then and there when she placed her hands on his neck and traced circles underneath his jaw. How was he still alive right now? He was pretty sure his brain had exploded from pure bliss.

They were ripped apart by the shrill call of the final boarding for Piper's flight. He groaned, knowing that he couldn't hold her up any longer, no matter how hard he tried. She smiled and gave him a last kiss before slipping a piece of paper into his jean pocket.

"My phone number." She told him, "I be back for summer. You see me then?" He nodded, afraid that his words would fail him.

Inevitably, she had to leave him to board her flight. She gave him one final wave before disappearing from his sight. He willed himself to walk all the way to the parking lot where he could sit in his car and self–loathe in peace. If only he hadn't been so stupid, he would've realized that Piper was the most beautiful, radiant, perfect girl he's ever known.

Well, at least he had a few months to find a way to make up for it.

. . .

Jason picked Piper up at the airport on June 14th, two days after school let out for the summer.