Author's note: Ok, so. I suppose you should know that I do most of my writing at night because I have insomnia. And that leaves me with nothing else do do. So, you can expect updates almost everyday around midday. So I took, envelope123's advice and I made this chapter more teen-like. Tell me what you think! Love y'all! :D

-Blay

I spend the next three weeks with getting to know Annabeth. I learn what she likes, what she doesn't. What makes her tick, stories from her childhood. Everything. The routine is the same every day. We go through our classes together, we laugh, and we joke. I introduce her to the rest of my friends, Grover, Thalia, Juniper, Silena, Charlie, Travis, and Conner. Much to my relief, they take to Annabeth quickly. Soon we're all laughing and joking together. After school we go to my apartment and hang out together, just the two of us. Soon, my mother starts commenting on how much happier I seem now, thankfully never in front of Annabeth. It's true, I am happier now. Annabeth was like my own personal sun, she just radiates warmth, and even after she's gone I can still feel her presence.
One Friday evening Annabeth and I were sitting on my couch watching some stupid horror movie. I didn't think it was that scary, but any time anybody would pop out Annabeth would squeak, (Which was an extremely cute sound) and would grab my arm, which I didn't mind in the slightest. The killer was about to find his victim when my phone beeped and Annabeth jumped slightly. I snickered and she hit me. It was a text from my mom saying that she was going to be held up at work and not to wait up for her. I sigh and Annabeth raises her eyebrows at me, "My mom has to work late. Again" Annabeth says, "Oh." And turns her head back to the screen, now would be a perfect opportunity to ask her.
I would imagine that you're mildly curious as to what I want to ask her. At least once a month, my friends and I take a camping trip to Montauk. It's nothing special really. But it's a tradition. My mom started it after my dad disappeared. She stopped coming once she decided I was old enough not to get myself lost or killed. We were leaving tomorrow morning and not coming back until Sunday afternoon.
"Hey Annabeth?" I ask taking a deep breath.
"Yeah?" She asks, not even taking her eyes off the screen.
"Would you wanna go camping with me and the rest of the group this weekend?"
"You really want me to come?" She asks.
"Of course." I say, laughing a little a bit.
"I would love to, I just don't know about my dad. . ."
"I can get my mom to talk to him if you think it would help." I suggest.
"That just might work." She says, breaking into a breath taking smile.
My heart rate picks up instantly. God she was so beautiful when she smiled. I just keep looking at her. I know that I've been looking at her too long, but then again, so has she. Her phone goes off, ruining the moment and she shakes her head a little, almost like she was trying to shake something off. She checks her phone and frowns slightly.
"Damn, he's here earlier than he said he would be."
I frown too. I'm happiest during my afternoons with Annabeth. I like being able to spend as much time as possible with her. She stands up and looks around the dark living room for her bag, I stand up too and stretch a little, I see her bag at the same time she does, we reach for it at the same time and our hands touch, just for a second. But it feels like someone has sent an electric shock through my body. I snap my hand back and she does the same. Does that mean she felt the same thing? She smiles a little and reaches for her bag again. She slings it over her shoulder and we walk together out of the apartment like we always do. She hugs me, like she always does before walking out the buildings doors.
"See you later." She calls over her shoulder at me.
I smile and wave at her. Once she's out the door I head back upstairs. I think about the hug. It's my favorite and least favorite part about our afternoons together. I like it because of the obvious reasons. But another part of me resents them slightly. That part of me always wishes for the hugs to go further. I wonder if I will ever get the chance. Maybe if she comes camping with us this weekend. . . I wonder about this as I walk back up the stairs to my apartment.
I get back, take a shower, and then climb into bed. I'm just about to drift off when my phone goes off. I contemplate just checking it in the morning, but decide to check it anyways. It's a message from Annabeth, it reads:
I canNOT believe I got my dad to say yes! I'll see you tomorrow! :)
I reply with: Sweet! Be at my apartment. 8 sharp! :D
I set my phone back on my night stand and drift off to sleep.

I wake up at seven the next morning and see that I have a text from Grover. It says:
Bringing the van. See you at 8.
I send a quick reply and start packing. I typically do this the night before. But I forgot to with Annabeth over. I grab my duffel bag and start stuffing it with a few pairs of shorts and a couple of tee-shirts. I throw my swim shorts into it and look around, trying to remember what else I need. I spot my toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant and throw those in the bag with the rest of my clothes, I spot my iPod and speaker and throw that in there too. Finally I grab my phone charger, some bug spray, and a random book off my shelf. I'm ready to go. I walk into the living room and smell pancakes I smile and walk into the kitchen. I see a plate of blue pancakes, and I find a note from my mother saying that she had to go into work early and that she hoped I had fun on my trip. I felt a little sad. My mother had to work all the time just to support the both of us. Further proving my theory that the best people had the worst luck.
I pick up a pancake and take a bite out of it. It tastes amazing. I make my way over to the couch and turn on the T.V. not really focusing on what was on. There's a knock on my door and I look at my cell screen. It's only 7:45. I get up and walk to the door. I open it and smile when I see who it is.
"You're early." I tell her.
"To be on time is to be late and to be early is to be on time." She quotes.
I smile and she walks in. I walk back over to the couch and I sit down again.
"So," I ask, turning towards her once she takes a seat next to me. "how the hell did you manage to get your dad to let you come with us?"
She smiles and simply says, "When there's a will, there's a way?"
"How long are you on kitchen duty for?"
"A month." She replies with a smile. "But it is SO worth it."
"It will be." I say.
We watch T.V. for the next few minutes, waiting for Grover to get here. Finally we hear a horn and I turn to her and smile. I reach for the remote and turn the T.V. off.
"You ready?" I ask her.
"You bet." She says.
We walk downstairs and I can feel a bubble of nervous excitement forming in the pit of my stomach.
I see Grover grinning in the front seat of his mom's minivan. I see Thalia, Silena, and Charlie sitting in the back row and Juniper in the passenger seat. They're all grinning and ready to go.
Grover pops the trunk so Annabeth and I can put our stuff in the back. Once we've done that, we open the van door and climb into the middle row. Grover turns around and looks at Annabeth and says, "Well isn't this a pleasant surprise." Annabeth blushes slightly and Grover laughs. And turns further around to look at all of us. "Are you all ready for the best weekend of your entire lives?" We all yell and scream and clap and Grover yells, "Yeah baby!" and just like that, we're off. It's about a two hour drive. But it's never boring. Grover has some sort of alternative rock station. We're all talking about our plans for tonight, which include a bonfire, as usual. Travis and Connor will be meeting us there.
"You know," Annabeth says, turning to talk to me. "this is the first time I've ever done this."
"What, camping?" I ask.
"No." she says. "Go somewhere with friends."
I don't know what to say to that. What can I say? I suddenly realize something. That in all the afternoons we had spent together over the past couple of weeks she never once spoke about friends from home. Surely she had some other friends back home. I mean, she's such an amazing person. I turn to her and say, "Well, you are now." And she smiles in return.
We drive for about another hour until we arrive. As soon as the beach comes into view we all break out into cheers and applause. We clamber out of the van and start to unload everything. But I just stand there for a moment and let the smell of wet sand and saltwater seep into to me. I think about my dad. His warm smile but rebellious looks. God I missed him. I wish everyday that I could know what happened to him. I just want some closure. Just to at least know what happened to him so I can move on, start healing, because deep down, I have a hope that he's still alive, that he's lost and he doesn't know where to find us, or that he got amnesia or something and couldn't remember who he was, or who we were. I send out a silent prayer for him, hoping that wherever he is, he's safe.
After I have my moment, I walk over to the van to get my bag. We take turns bringing everything. It was Thalia's turn to bring the tents, and the Stoll brothers turn to get the food. We start to set everything up on the beach, it takes a few hours, mainly because we're all goofing off, throwing sand and pebbles at each other.
It's midday before the two tents are constructed. The Stoll brothers are nowhere to be seen. It's getting kind of hot so Thalia suggests we go swimming. We all agree and go into the tents to change. I come out of my tent the same time Annabeth comes out of hers. She's wearing a purple bikini top and a pair of denim short-shorts. She smiles at me and I smile back.
"I'll race you to the water." I say.
She doesn't respond, she just takes off running towards the water. I smile and run after her. Now, one of my favorite things is running. I, don't mean like when they force you to run in P.E. I'm talking about just running at a flat out sprint, just for the hell of it. One of the best feelings in the world is your heart hammering in your chest and your legs flying beneath you.
Even though she got a head start by cheating. I still brat her to the water, I dive in and feel instantly refreshed. I always feel better in the water. Safer. Stronger. I swim around for a few seconds before I spot Annabeth's legs, I get an idea. I swim over silently and bump into her leg. She jump and I snicker, return to the surface behind her, she whips around and glares out me. I hold up my hands and she sticks her tongue out at me and dive under water. I'm about to follow her when Grover dives in and swims toward me. He stands up next to me and says, "Are you ready to party?" He's grinning so big I can't help but smile too.
"Totally man." I tell him.
The rest of the afternoon is spent just chilling, going in and out of the water. The Stoll Brothers show up around three with a few boxes of God only knows what. Around sunset we start getting all the wood together for the bonfire. Annabeth and I are in the woods hunting down kindling and sticks when I ask her if she's having fun. Her face breaks into that breath taking smile I love so much and she nods her head excitedly. "It's been great. Thanks for inviting me Percy."
I smile at her. "It was no problem."
We finish gathering the wood and bring it all back to camp. Once we get back we can see that everyone else has collected larger logs and they're already in teepee formation. Annabeth and I hand our sticks over to Travis and he begins expertly adding them to the pile. I go and sit on the driftwood bench that surrounds the bonfire pit. I gesture for Annabeth to come and sit next to me. We sit in silence, just watching Travis getting the fire started. Grover comes and sits next to me.
"Travis man, when is that fire gonna be ready? I'm starving." Grover asks.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty hungry too, I haven't eaten anything since the pancakes this morning. Everybody else nods there head in agreement.
"Right, about, now" Travis says as he steps back, suddenly, the whole teepee has gone up in flames. Everybody cheers. Conner gets up and fishes in one of the boxes he brought, he starts handing out bags of marshmallows, chocolate, and sleeves of graham crackers. He hand everyone a skewer and we all start roasting marshmallows and making s'mores. I get up and go to my bag to get my iPod and speaker out. I walk back, plug it in, and set it to shuffle. An upbeat My Chemical Romance song comes on and Juniper stands up and faces him, she sticks out her hand dramatically and says, "Dance with me goat boy."
You would understand the nickname if you've ever seen Grover eat.
He stands up, takes her hand and begins to spin her around the sand.
Next, Charlie gets up and offers his hand to Silena, she takes it and they're dancing too.
Both of the Stoll brothers offer their hands to Thalia at the same time, so she takes them both and they start dancing as well.
Soon it's only me and Annabeth, so I do the only thing I can think of, I offer her my hand and she takes it with a smile. I pull her up and we start to dance as well, another one of my few, mainly useless talents was dancing. But it seemed to finally be coming in handy.
We all danced and sang along with the song.
I spun Annabeth around and she let out a peel of laughter.
My heart jumped and I smiled before I could stop myself.
She didn't seem to notice, she just keep on smiling and dancing with me. God, she was beautiful. Her eyes alight with laughter her gold hair shimmering in the fire light.
The song ended and everyone broke apart laughing. Travis walks back over to the box and digs something out. A bottle of vodka. How he managed to get it, I couldn't tell you. But soon we were all sitting around the fire, drinking and joking. Around my third cup of Coke and vodka, I started to feel a little light-headed and fuzzy, so I decided to slow down. Soon the bottle of vodka was gone and everyone was drunk. Even Annabeth, which shocked me a little.
"Oh! Oh! I have an idea, let's play a game." Thalia suggest, somewhat sluggishly.
"Like what?" Grover asks.
"Oh, I don't know, how about truth or dare, or spin the bottle." She suggest .
Everyone nods their heads and Grover says, "Ok Thalia, you first."
"Hmmm. . ." She says looking around our little circle, looking for her victim. Her eyes land and Travis and she says, "Travis, truth, or dare?"
He thinks about this for a moment before saying, "Dare."
Thalia smiles and says, "I dare you to take your shirt off."
Now, to anyone not in our group, this would seem like a rather simple dare, but everyone but Thalia and Travis know that they like each other. We all have a running bet going to see when they'll start going out.
Travis grins and begins to take his shirt off slowly, making a show of it, before he slips it above his head he winks at Thalia. Once it's off he spins it around like a lasso and throws it at her. She catches it with her teeth and everyone dies laughing. Once the laughter dies down, we're one to the next person. It's Charlie's turn, then Grover's, then Silena's. she looks around the group before her eyes land on Annabeth, "Annabeth Chase!" she yells in a dramatic voice, "Truth, or dare?"
Annabeth considers this for a moment before saying. "Dare."
Silena gets a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I dare you to kiss someone in this group."
Everyone 'ooh's' and Annabeth, without hesitation might I add, turns to me, smiles and kisses me full on the mouth. Even intoxicated, Annabeth is an amazing kisser. Her lips are softer then I imagined, she's gentle with it at first, but then she settles into it. It feels like electricity is coursing through my body. I can't register anything other than the pressure of her lips on mine. Deep down I realize that we've been kissing for too long. But I don't care. I hear catcalls and wolf-whistles. But I don't care. When I feel the tip of her tongue at my bottom lip, something hits me, it's a red Solo up. Thrown by one of my so called friends.
We're forced to break apart. Annabeth hiccups and giggles. The rest of the game goes on. When it's may turn, I dare Grover to jump in the water wearing only one of the girls bra and panties. He gets up, walks into the tent and comes out wearing a matching leopard print set. Everyone claps and whistles as he takes off running for the water. Despite all the fun, I still have the kiss on the back of my mind, did it mean anything to Annabeth? Or did she just pick me because everyone else was a couple? The game goes on and when it's Annabeth's turn she asks me truth , or dare and I say truth. She thinks for a moment before asking me, "Do you like someone?"
Damn. I pride myself on being a pretty honest person so I say, "Yes." The rest of the game people try and get me to tell my crush, needless to say, I do not. Finally, around three or four in the morning people decide that it's time to go to bed. Annabeth, Grover, Juniper, Conner, and I have one tent, while Silena, Charlie, Thalia, and Travis have the other. We all climb into to our assigned tents and everyone calls out goodnight to each other. Approximately three seconds after Grover gets settled in his bag, he starts to snore. I try to do the same. Although I'm exhausted, I can't sleep. I keep replaying the kiss over and over and over again in my head. The logical side of my brain keeps telling me that she kissed me because she was drunk, the other side, and my hopeful side tells me it's because she might like me. I don't know how long I've been laying there thinking when Annabeth says, "Percy, are you still awake?"
"Yes." I say.
"Do you want to go on a walk?" She asks me.
I agree and we try to leave everyone undisturbed as we get out. We start walking towards the beach in silence. We automatically go to the pier, walk to the edge and sit down with our feet dangling over. The sun was rising now. We just sat there in silence as we watched it climb up the night sky. She lets out a yawn and leans her head on my shoulder.
"This has been amazing." She says.
Tell me about it. I think in my head. "It's because I'm here." I say in a pompous voice.
"Oh yeah, totally." She responds, laughing.
We just sit there as we watch the sun make it's decent over the water. We're not talking, but it's not an awkward silence, it's just one of those awed silence.
"Percy?" she asks again.
"Hm. . . ?" I respond.
"About that kiss earlier tonight. . ." She says, trailing off.
My heart sinks a little. Maybe it was because she was drunk and didn't want to hurt Silena or Thalia or Juniper.
"It's fine." I say with a light laugh, even though my heart now feels heavy. "You didn't want to hurt all the other girls by kissing their men." I say the last word in a funny voice. She laughs. "Plus," I add on, "you were kinda drunk."
She looks at me with incredulous eyes, "I did not have that much to drink." She protest.
"Oh, I know." I say "You're just a lightweight." I push her shoulder and she tips over a little bit. "See what I mean?"
She just sticks her tongue out at me and we continue to watch the sky.

The rest of the weekend goes fine. We don't have any more late-night drinking parties. But, we do have games of midnight hid-n-seek. Which if I must say so myself, I am an expert at. Sunday evening rolls around and we pack up the van and head home. I'm never really all that sad. I know we'll be back. And from now on, Annabeth will be too. Or, at least. I hope she will be.
We're back in the city by seven, and at my house by 7:30. When I walk in the door my mom hugs me then Annabeth, asking how it was. We told her about all out antics, but we both left out the drunken kiss. Around eight, Annabeth gets a text from her dad saying that he's outside waiting for her. I walk her through the building and to the doors like I always do. She hugs me like she always does, but this time she kisses me on the cheek before running out the door. I smile and walk back up the stairs.