A/N: I had been thinking of this story for a long time, and every time I thought of a story line, it ended up similar to this one. I actually had trouble thinking of the title, and I changed it many times when I was still composing. Also, I don't know how frequently will I be able to update, because honestly, I am not a good story writer, and not good with words, so I write slow. I will try my best to make it interesting. The story line I thought of was quite interesting, I think, but I'm not sure if I could present it to you the way I think of it. I may not be as good as some other writers on this website, but I would still like to try, because I actually found it quite interesting to write.
I really don't want to say this, especially at the very beginning, and I think that most people will think of this as a spoiler, so I will just make it brief. It's just a warning. This is a Percabeth story, and there will be mentions of Jasper, no Thalico, because their counsins. Hope you like my story. Also, Nico and Thalia are cousins also with Percy and Jason's Thalia's twin brother. Happy reading!
Also, I am assuming that all the readers to this story know the key features of the main characters like Percy, Annabeth, Piper, Thalia etc., so when you read the description at the beginning you will be able to know who is who, so I presume that the names won't be appearing as a shock.
This story might have something to do with the Selena Gomez song, but it was not my inspiration.
Romance might not be the main genre, but it still plays a big part. Drama and hurt/comfort is more like it. Though the genre of this story will still be putted as Romance/Hurt/Comfort. Still want to tell you people that there will be romance inside.
This may not be the best summary, but if you like complicated stories, then this is your cup of tea. I warn you here, everything is going to get complicated as the story proceeds, so this also means that there will be more confusions, and I will try my best to avoid it. Anyway, I just need to emphasize that THE RELATIONSHIPS WILL BE COMPLICATED.
SUMMARY:
(Annabeth Chase) She was not the same to people who knew her. (Percy Jackson) He was numbed to every emotion. (Piper McLean) She was not always the decent one like in other stories. (Thalia Grace) She was the only one that understood everything. There were stories that were untold, truths that were not exposed. She wanted a new start with him. He wanted a chance to explain himself. "I'm so sick of that same old love, that shit, it tears me up.". Both of them wanted something new, not only a new relationship or friendship, but to renew everything. Will that wish come true? After all the things that happened, namely the 'incident', will they return to their old self? Will they be less cold hearted, and be less sensitive to emotions? Rated M for swearing and drug use/trafficking. Not the best summary, maybe not fully summarized the story, but read on if you fee like it.
The last two weeks before graduation, also the most dramatic weeks for Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, Percy, and Jason. They had just finished their last few exams, and someone was throwing a party to celebrate. This was what all college students do after two stressful weeks of exams and revisions. Unfortunately, Annabeth, Thalia and Nico weren't really those party type. They were planning on staying at home and have a scary move night. They had it all planned, until the call from Annabeth's boyfriend, Thalia and Nico's cousin, Captain of the Swimming team, Percy Jackson. They had been dating since high school, they were the high school sweethearts to everyone. People always knew that they wouldn't be spotted separately, usually. After nearly three years of dating, they were still lovey-dovey, and inseparable.
"Wise Girl, care to spend some of your precious time and come to the party with me?"
"No, and don't get drunk Seaweed Brain, I assume that Jason will keep you out of trouble."
"Please?" Percy was pouting at the other end of the line. Although Annabeth couldn't see it, but he knew perfectly well that Annabeth knew.
"How about a no."
"I don't take no as an answer. I know you're hesitating and giving in." He then teased.
"Ugh… Fine, but I'm bringing your cousins."
"Yea sure, I don't mind as long as you came. See ya in a bit. Love ya." He hanged up.
"It seems like we were going." Annabeth sighed to the other two who were groaning. "Just wear something casual, shall we? Its not like people actually care what you wear, it's not a prom, or anything serious." She added.
They arrived the place not long after. They wore nothing special, but their usual clothes. None of the were fans of make up. Percy was already at the door waiting for his princess, Annabeth Chase.
"Looking good Wise Girl." He kissed her before she was about to say something, because knowing Annabeth, Percy knew that the next thing that came out of her mouth would not be something good. She would probably scold him first for dragging her to a party.
"Wanna have fun tonight?" Percy asked.
"Hell yea!" Shouted Thalia. Nico always acted like an emo, but he never admit that, and he, like Annabeth, wasn't really a party person. Thalia was way different, her style was punk like, and she was usually really straight forward. She would always wanted to go to parties and have fun, she didn't really give a shit in school work, but, courtesy of Annabeth Chase, she still passed her exams. Whenever she wanted to go to a party, Nico and Annabeth would promise her a scary movie night to keep her at home, and sometimes Percy would join, but it would end up with Percy and Annabeth missing out most of the movie making out, and Nico and Thalia gagging and teasing on the side, or maybe trying very hard to focus on the movie.
Percy usually wouldn't go to parties because he would rather stay with Annabeth, and if he went, and Annabeth didn't he knew how worried Annabeth would be. So been the good boyfriend he was, he stayed by her side, distracting her from whatever she was doing.
This party was one of the biggest party people had thrown. The biggest one would obviously be the prom, but it was organized by the school, and not students.
Thalia went off to drink in no second, and Nico was weaving around, trying to find a shadow to stay, leaving Percy and Annabeth sucking faces, and exchanging saliva. The host was the Stolls, also the biggest pranksters, and unfortunately, Leo was also one of the people who helped organized this party. When the Stolls were in charge of something, you'd better be a hundred times more careful than you usually were.
"Percy, can we just get coke? You know that the punch might be spiked, knowing whose the host of tonight's party." Annabeth said, not wanting to get drunk. She could drink quite an amount. She drank with Percy sometimes at home during a long holiday, either to practice their alcohol tolerance or just to have fun, sure every time they did that they had fun.
Knowing that Percy would say yes, she dragged him to the kitchen where the drinks were. She grabbed two cokes and gave one to Percy, but he shook his head slightly, and smiled with mischievousness sparkling in his eyes. "Nah uh, Wise Girl, first party you attend, and it's before graduation, come on. Please? One shot, just one each?". Annabeth reluctantly agreed. She found it odd that Percy would trust the drinks in the party hosted by the school three biggest pranksters, but that night, Annabeth shook it off.
She grabbed the green one as Percy grabbed the blue one. They both raised their glass to each other, "To graduation, to anniversary!", they both said before they downed the drink at once.
Once they started drinking, it was hard to put it to a stop, since it was just the two of them, drowned in their own little love bubble, the drinking scene was familiar with both of them. They had small bits of alcohol every Saturday, they would control the amount, courtesy of Annabeth again, to not get them drunk. This time, maybe because of the environment where every one was drinking and enjoying them selves, whereas, barely any of them were actually sober enough to drive or anything. There was no difference to Percy and Annabeth.
"Be back in a sec, Seaweed Brain, need ta use the bathroom." Giving him a kiss, she went off.
Even with the drunken state, she still knew what she was doing or who she was talking to, thanks to the practice every once in a while. Same with Percy. But that day, it seemed like that Percy had been staying at the party for too long, long enough for a life time, way too much. When Annabeth came back from the bathroom, she witness a scene that she had always feared, and that scene would always imprinted in her mind, no matter what. She had trusted him with her life, yet the sight in front of him surprised her.
Minutes later, she dragged a semi, near unconscious Percy in to his house. His mother Sally was on a vacation with Paul, the house was empty. She had been to his house millions of time. Her relationship with Percy's family was as good as Percy with his family, she even had a key to their house, and Percy had a key to Annabeth's apartment. She dragged Percy upstairs and put him on his bed, it was not like she wasn't upset and disappointed with Percy's action, she was beyond upset, she was furious, but because of her love towards Percy, she still managed to maintain her anger, and settle Percy safely.
When Percy's body made contact with the soft king size bed, he slurred. He opened his eyes fully. "Annabeth? Is this my house?" His voice contained surprise.
"Yes, this is your house, and this is your room." She answered in monotone, she wasn't quite ready to pour anger in it, actually, she was paralyzed by the scene at the party. She didn't know what to think. She decided to confront Percy when he became sober, but, when she thought of it, anger boiled in her veins. She couldn't contain it anymore.
"Perseus Jackson," She said in a deadly calm and yet serious voice. Percy was a bit startled by the tone, and winced at the full name address, even in his semi conscious state, he was still able to speak and listen clearly, even though his mind would more likely be malfunctioning. "Care to explain what happened after I got up to go to the bathroom?" Still in the same tone.
"What?" He looked at her. She glared, grey eyes turing into steel, staring at Percy. She said nothing, "Oh, that, I remembered." He said rather cheerfully. Annabeth had no idea where did this sudden cheerfulness came from, she was not sure if it was for the incident or for the fact that he remembered.
"Hmm… So, you saw what happened didn't you." He didn't wait for an answer and continued, not looking at her, "Well, it was obvious wasn't it, I thought it was quite clear. Didn't you understand my message that I was addressing to you in that? I just wanted to try something new, you know…" She didn't let him finished. She stood up abruptly, ignoring the pain in her head, she grabbed her stuff, and turned around one last time and glared at Percy, who wasn't looking at her. "Goodnight Percy." She said through teary eyes, her voice shaken. Percy with his eyes closed mumbled something that she couldn't and didn't want to make out. Before she went, she turned back and got out a piece of paper and a pen, she left a note on his night stand with his phone on top:
Read it when you are SOBER!
You will lose the keys to my apartment when I stopped loving you. For now, we're done. Consider yourself lucky that you still have the privilege to go to my house, but that doesn't mean that you are welcomed anytime soon. — A.C.
A drop of tear dropped on the paper, and smudge the words a little, but still readable.
She turned off the light and close the door, rather loudly than expected. She ran down the stairs and ran out the door with tears in her eyes. She didn't bother to call Thalia or Nico. She drove home. Lucky her, that she wasn't caught drunk driving, and was safely home without any suspicion from the police.
She went upstairs to her room straight away. Without changing anything, she flopped on her bed, crying into her pillows. She tried to dry her tears when she heard the front doors unlocked, but she failed, she just couldn't keep her mind off what Percy had said to her. No, she had to distract herself. She sat up in her bed, tears were still streaming down her face. She had never cried so hard over a break up, not that she had a lot, this was only her second relationship. Frankly, she was not so into her first relationship.
Thalia and Nico came to her room to check if Annabeth was home. Both of them were not drunk, they were just a bit tipsy. Annabeth's lights weren't turned on, so they didn't know that Annabeth was crying. She was barely able to contain herself, but she made no sound, she silently hoped that Thalia and Nico wouldn't notice her and thought she was still out. However, that night was the night Annabeth had her worst luck.
"Annabeth?" Her lights were flicked on, and immediately both of her best friends and roommate ran to her, and sat by her side. She was numb, she didn't have any reaction, she didn't even bother to look at them, she just sat there staring at the ceiling, with her eyes closed, and tears stain still not dry. Her face was complete wet, and her hair was not better. Her blonde curls were sticked on her face, but she never bothered to do anything with them. She was paralyzed, at that moment, she couldn't move, she felt like she was dead in her own body.
"Annabeth?" This time was Nico who spoke. Although he acted like an emo, or maybe he was a emo, but when he was with Annabeth or his cousins, he showed emotions when they needed it. His voice was filled with concerns.
Because Annabeth still didn't move, she seemed immobilized. Thalia noticed the severeness of the situation, she didn't even tried to make a joke or tease her. She just sat their shocked by Annabeth, she didn't know what to do, she had never saw Annabeth like that in her almost fifteen years of friendship. Thalia and Nico shared a worried glance. They walked out, turning the light off on their way.
"What do you think happened?" Thalia asked voice filled with worries. She knew what Annabeth's family was like, she knew that was the reason why she (Annabeth) was living with her and Nico.
The following Monday, everything was as it was, nothing seemed to be different. No one was talking about the party last Friday night, and no one seemed to care that if there were any new couples after the party, or any other gossips. Every one was just interested in their score, because the second last week before graduation would be the week announcing their scores.
No one seemed to notice one person standing in between Thalia and Nico facing the locker, well maybe except two people, but that two people walked away silently. Usually that person with her head in the locker would be Annabeth, and usually it was the blonde princess curls that hung till her waist was what people seen near the lockers. Today, at the same place, instead of the long blonde hair, it was a black hood that people saw from the back. Turning around, instead of the face clear from make up, and curls in a messy bun, what people saw was a face with very thick smokey eye liner, and black lips, with two strips of blonde curls hung from each side of her shoulders. Her forehead was covered up by the hood, and her grey orbs were hardly visible because of the smokey makeup.
Every one was not oblivious by that change. Annabeth usually wasn't a person that people considered a nerd, since her boyfriend had a reputation, and she was the smartest person in her grade. The drama wasn't that dramatic in college compared to high school times, but every where couldn't be lack of sluts. Not many people knew her, but all of them seemed to have silently agreed not to mess with her. Although people except her friends didn't know a damn about her black belt in karate and her master degree in judo, but she seemed to had that aura to made every one have a silent agreement with her not to mess with her. She wasn't in the popular league, nor was her boyfriend or any of her close friend, but every one in her grade knew her. Even some students from the grades below knew her and her group of friends. People had asked about her change, either out of curiosity or out of concerns, but she all brushed them off without any explanation. Thalia and Nico didn't gave any clue to the change, although they knew perfectly well why, or they would had guessed.
Annabeth was not the only one that changed, but her change was written all on her face. Percy was also not the same. To the others, he was the same Percy they knew, but to Jason, he was so different from before the party, yet he was not the only one that noticed the change, but he was only one that showed concerns. He knew that something had happened, and he knew better not to ask, because Percy would tell him when he's ready. No body noticed that whenever Percy looked at Annabeth, guilt was written all over his face, and in his eyes. Little did they know, this was the only real emotion that Percy had showed after the party, all the other emotions that he showed were fake, he acted the same as before for Jason's sake. He didn't want Jason, nor anyone to know what really happened, he wanted no one to know about the truth, so he chose to act the same to cover up. All of Annabeth and Percy's actions and changes weren't obvious to other people, but they were obvious to both of them. There were rumors of why had Annabeth changed her style, nonetheless, Percy was the only one that knows the whole truth, even Thalia and Nico only knew part of it.
The last two weeks pasted with nothing major happening. Annabeth would change the shades of her eyeliner and her lipstick according to her mood in the morning. People were still curious why she had changed, but they were only whispering, and soon after people seemed to have gotten used to the change and nobody bothered to think about it. The first day of her change, she had the darkest mood, and so her makeup color were the darkest. Black eyeliner, and black lipsticks. She still appeared in the library, but people usually wouldn't notice her, because she was too dark in color.
She wasn't really interested in the graduation ceremony. Even with her change in style, her IQ and her behavior in class and everything else she presented to her teacher didn't change. She was the chosen valedictory long ago. At the time when she got chosen, she was so excited, she kept jumping around, Thalia almost thought she was high. She was extremely excited and looking forward to the graduation ceremony. After the party on that Friday night, she changed her view. Although she was still proud that she was the valedictory, but she wasn't planning on staying at the ceremony long enough for it to end.
"Thals, can we leave after my valediction." She said more like a statement than a question. Thalia knew better not to argue. She simply just nodded. "Let me inform Nico, wait here, I'll be quick.", she left without another word.
Weaving through the crowd, she didn't say another word, not even an 'excuse me', not that she wanted to be rude, its just that she didn't felt the need of saying it. Today was suppose to be a happy day, and she was somewhat relieved that she was finally graduating. Therefore, she wore the lightest makeup so far in the two weeks. She did not wore lipstick, instead she decided to wear lip gloss, not the shiny type, but just enough to kept her lips moist. Her eyeliner were not so smokey and dark like always, her eyeliner were thinner and lighter in shades for the sake of last day of school, and she also needed to face the whole school faculties and parents, she shouldn't be showing the school that she was a dark person. One streak of her hair was grey, not any kind of grey, but like the ones called space grey, She didn't bother to dye it back just for graduation, she decided to leave that way. Her clothes were a little different from the other days, instead of the black hoody, she forced her self to wear her normal clothes, but not the color she wore before the party. Her clothes were grey with a black jacket, not leather just fabric, and black skinny jeans, pure black, no blue mixtures, her shoes were converse with sea-green shoe laces, otherwise all black, but not shiny.
She walked towards a corner, where she spotted Nico. Too bad that she had to face more than one person. Her former, or as she had always persuaded her self, former, best friends, Percy and Jason were with Nico. Her curls bounced, and her head slightly tilted downwards. Slowly, she approached Nico, not given even a glance to the other two, she put her left hand on his right shoulder, and said near his ears, "Wait for you five minutes at front gate after my valediction, bring no one, no come no go, your choice.", and with that, she walked away without glancing back. A hand tugged on her wrist. She knew who that was even without turning back, ⎡classy move⎦, she thought. She shook off his hand immediately after the touch, and before she started to walk again, "I don't want to hurt anyone in the last day of school.". Throwing this sentence over her shoulder, she walked away the same way she approached. She could feel that person, Percy's, longing stare on her back, but she didn't care, she tried to block that feeling away. She did that for half a month, and she could do that just one more time.
Annabeth's words to Nico was not just for him, she knew perfectly well that Jason and Percy would heard her, and that was what she wanted. The 'bring no one' meant Percy and Jason, specifically Percy, and the three of them knew that very well deep down, but they wouldn't name names.
Annabeth's valediction was a success to her, it improved her mood a little. She left right after she got off stage, she didn't even wait for the teachers to congratulate her, she didn't felt like celebrating. There would be a prom on the next day, but Annabeth didn't felt like going, nor did Thalia and Nico. Thalia wouldn't go because she thought prom organized by the school wouldn't be as fun. Annabeth, after 'that' party, would never wanted to have a date in a while, not even prom date, she just didn't felt like it; and she didn't felt that prom was her thing anymore.
A/N: Please check out my other stories if you haven't, they were both one-shots, and they were completed. I welcome any kind of reviews. :) It will mean a lot to me if you review or comment on my story, and I will update, but I am not really sure when. You know, although I am on summer holiday, but I still don't have much time, still quite busy. Please understand that. Really hope someone will like my story. And I also hope my story made sense. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, you are more than welcomed! Please review, and say whatever you want, and I will reply to your questions if you have one. Personal Messages are also welcomed!
Stay tuned :D
SapphireTrafficker