Hey! Thanks for all the lovely, supportive reviews, guys!

Chapter 2:

Respective Fake

Percy POV (a couple of weeks ago)

I don't expect people to love me; heck, I don't even care whether they like me or not. Hate me all you want. I'm a pessimistic, sullen person who people tend to chafe at when in my company.

I don't expect people to like me; I do, however, expect people to respect me.

I feel like shouting this at the group of populars who sit behind me in calculus, chucking bits of screwed up paper with hurtful comments written on them at me.

Sorry, I'd better introduce myself before I start the usual rant about my disgust for the group of phonies behind me.

I am a boy. I have black hair. I have green eyes. I am pale, skinny, a weakling, blah blah blah. That's right: I'm Percy Jackson, Goode High School's own personal circus freak!

At least, that's what Luke Castellan, the most egotistical, steroid pumped jerk you'll ever meet, says. Him and his clique of daft cronies, Ethan Nakamura and Chris Rodriguez, are the banes of my existence. They torture me every day, physically, mentally, emotionally. They are constantly at me. Luke had a personal vendetta against me, and I have no idea why.

His girlfriend and her minions were even worse. Because, where Luke could control anyone with his vile tongue and his huge muscles, Annabeth held the entire social hierarchy in her fist. One word from her, and a person who had been her best friend a second ago would become the target of everyone's loathing.

They hate me. Everybody hates me. I'm not a particularly hateful person. Just that Annabeth has decided to hate me, and everyone hangs on her every word. They wouldn't if they had grown up with her. If they had seen her at her worst.

I grew up with her; we were never friends. But we didn't hate each other, either. We coincidentally attended the same junior school, Yancy Academy. She used to be tolerable; a bit of a stingy prude, too uptight, had to have her nose in everyone's business. Little Miss Know It All. But she was tolerable.

Now, she's unbearable. I don't know what happened on those holidays, on that tiny break between junior and high school. I do, however, know that something big happened in her life. I know it was probably something really bad; people don't change so drastically for no reason.

Now I just have to find out what the hell happened to make her go from Goody Two Shoes, to Bad Ass Slut.

Annabeth POV (present)

The teacher is droning on about something. I'm not listening. I'm too busy thinking about what happened last night. I must have applied half a tub of foundation to my face this morning, trying to hide the big ugly black bruise that had formed over my right eye overnight. It still looked horrible. My normally grey iris was red, and the skin around it puffy. Luke really knew how to pack a punch; I felt sorry for all the kids who had been at his fist's cruel mercy before.

At lunch, I had found a quiet, serene corner of the school where I sat huddled, locked in my own private little world, my face hidden by my long hair that fell in perfect blond ringlets, glaring sullenly at my small lunch of salsa salad.

Oh, what I would have done for a hamburger right then. Or crispy, salty, greasy, fatty potato chips. Or— stop it, I thought. You're only torturing yourself.

The other part of me hissed: no, depriving yourself of these delicacies is what is torture. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from marching right over to the cafeteria and buying a plate of chips.

I know I'm anorexic. I know I'm underweight. I am too deep into the habit of depriving myself of nutrients; it literally hurt for me to swallow a sip of coke. It's just so loaded with carbohydrates, and glucagon— stop it, I thought. You sound like a nerd.

I hug myself tighter, trying to stop the trembling that had overtaken my body.

Images of a little blond haired girl with braces and pig tails, in a lavender and apple green dress, holding a stack of books in her hand crowd behind my eyes, giving me a splitting headache.

The little girl is sitting in a corner, much like the one that I'm sitting in now. She has a book in her lap, glasses on her nose, and she holds a half eaten ham and cheese sandwich in her right hand. Her jeans are faded, there are holes at the knees; her light grey sweater is plain, stained and too large for her skinny frame. Her blond curls are pulled into a messy ponytail, with curling strands falling out and framing her childishly cute face.

Then the big boys come. They laugh cruelly. They kick her book and sandwich away, and haul her up by her armpits. Her glasses are knocked off her head, and one boy stamps on them with his heavy boots, leaving them a crumpled, crooked wire frame with shattered glass. Now that I think of it, much like my life.

The little girl just stands there, crying and screaming litanies that a girl of her age shouldn't have possessed. The boys are just laughing as they stomp her lunch to bits and rip the pages out of her book, which happens to be her very favourite, and one of the only things that triggered good memories of her childhood.

The hair band is ripped out of her hair, and her blond curls tumble into disarray. The boy who has a grip on her throws her to the ground, and as the boys leave her sobbing, the one who destroyed her book chucks the cover down, and leaves with his friends.

The girl crawls over to the ruined cover of her book, and cradles the dear, familiar title to her heart.

I don't realise that there are tears running down my face until I brush my hair out of my eyes, and my finger tips are wet. I wipe my face with my sleeve and curl in on myself, wanting to finally break down. But other people enter the classroom, and I roll behind the desk, where I am content to stay forever, curled in on myself; here I can remove my mask; here I can just be myself and not worry about whether the next thing that comes out of my mouth will get me kicked out of the It Crowd.

As I lay under the desk, I let myself think about my little horrific day dream. Or, daymare, I guess you could say. The horror story that used to be my life.

And the book that was so brutally mutilated that day, that I still have hidden away somewhere in the top of my closet. The title comes to me, as well as a stab of agony.

The Tales of Peter Pan.

How I used to wish that I could just add a little fairy dust, and off I could fly to another world where you were accepted no matter you were like.

But I've changed now. My life has changed. Everything's changed.

For the better.

I suddenly sit up and wipe my eyes that had begun smarting again. I'm already over my little pity party, and there's work to do and people to impress. I sneak out of the classroom and plant a fake smile on my fake, made up face, and stride out the doors into the school grounds with a fake gait of confident pride, into my little circle of fake friends, where I put on a fake persona, so easy to slip into that it scared me shitless.

Please don't forget to review— they make me happy :)