Not Over You

Prologue

Seven years. It had been seven long years. Seven years since I had been called Seaweed Brain. Seven years since I had been talked down to and lectured about mythology. Seven years since I had peered into those stormy orbs that constantly calculated the best ways to cut me down. Seven years since I had inhaled that lemony scented curly blonde hair. Seven years since I had been happy. Seven years since I lost the love of my life, Annabeth Chase.

She went to college at Notre Dame to make her dream to become an Architect a reality. And I stayed in New York City to run a Marine Biology lab my father decided to "bestow" upon me.

When you hear people say that old cliché that long distance relationships are hard, well you better believe it's the truth. Without them there you feel half empty; like there's a large gap in the middle of your heart. It's harsh. It's almost impossible to go on when your everything is missing.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder right? Huh. Well too much of it makes things complicated. Soon enough you get agitated because you feel like you don't matter to them anymore, that their own agenda is more important to them then you are. You hardly ever speak to each other and when you do you're always arguing. After a while you feel as though you don't even know each other anymore...and that's when it all falls through...

Since then nothing in my life made any sense. Things fell apart. Sure, I got up every morning, got dressed, waded through the trials of daily life just like any other person, and when the occasion arose, I put down monsters as well. I was a drone, moving from point A to point B. I was doing what most demigods do: surviving, not living.

And what's another break up cliché? Substance abuse. Drinking, smoking, both became prominent habits in my hollow shell I like to call "life".

Then finally after seven years of uneventful reoccurring misfortunes, the gods decided play some kind of cruel joke on me.

For yet another cliché's sake, it started out like any other day. Uneventful. I just made it in to work and was sitting at my desk in my office, I had just clicked into the Internet browser planning on playing some RuneScape and then there she was, smiling at me, holding up a blueprint on a news thumbnail on my homepage. My eyes went wide and my heart skipped a beat. My palms were sweaty as I hesitated on clicking the thumbnail. I pondered briefly what effect it might have on me if I did. Would I slump deeper down into despair then I already was? What if the article held something on her marital status? I wasn't sure I could handle something like that.

I took a gulp. And finally said, "Fuck it."

I clicked into the article. The title said something like "Californian Architect Annabeth Chase..." I didn't bother reading past that. My gaze fell upon the larger version of the thumbnail picture, the first thing I looked at was her left hand that was holding up the blue print. No ring. I sighed in relief, the next thing I noticed was how mature she had become, she was no longer the cute teenager I had fallen in love, now she was a beautiful mature woman who I never got over.

But something was wrong. Her smile it wasn't...real. It wasn't her smile, instead it looked, strained and rehearsed. But what struck me most was her eyes. The look in her eyes...I had seen it thousands of times. I'd seen it every time I looked in the mirror. That hollow look, like...I was empty on the inside.

And as fucked up as it sounds, it gave me hope, a new fire. All these years I had honestly believed that she'd have moved on by now. Hell to be honest I thought she'd have already been married.

Okay so my negative side acted quick to try and discredit these possibilities. She could have that look in her eyes because of someone else. and She could still be married but she just wasn't wearing the ring when the photo was taken.

But for some reason—and I honestly believe Aphrodite had a hand in my emotions at the time—for the first time in a LONG time, I didn't listen or care about what my negative side had to say. I wanted—no—I needed her back. I had been frozen. Frozen solid in a world where time was endless and there was no escape from heartache. This one little picture of her had completely thawed out my world.

If she had felt the same way as I had all these years. Then there was a chance. I always had a small hope—or rather before this a diluted fantasy—that we could be together again in the back of my head. If she had suffered the same as I, then she might have had the same small hope I have had all these years.

If that was true, then I decided I would stop at nothing, I wouldn't let a soul stand in my way. I would have her back again. I would be whole again, we would be whole again.

Even if I had to go through hell and back to make it a reality.