Thalia could not stand that Latino elf. He was so annoying. She replayed the conversation in her head.
"Hey beautiful," a voice behind her tree said, Thalia slightly jumped but then realized it was Leo.
"What did you call me Valdez?" I said, turning around, trying my best to look menacing.
"Nothing," he said, "You thought I was talking to you? I was talking to the tree." He makes up the dumbest excuses. That was also his mistake. I just glared at him then punched him in the face.
"Jeez woman! What did I do to you?" he said while covering his right eye.
Thalia smiled slightly at that memory but went back to her serious face.
"You talked to my tree, nobody talks to my tree." And then she walked away.
After she walked off she decided to go the lake. And pondered the real reason Leo said that.
"Oh please!" said a familiar voice of a woman beside her. Thalia jumped then saw it was just Aphrodite, "you're honestly not thinking about that. I mean, isn't it obvious?" when Thalia just stared at her blankly Aphrodite looked at her disapprovingly.
"Of course you wouldn't know. Being a former hunter of Artemis after all," she sighed, "He, meaning Leo, did that because he wanted to ask you out, but got nervous and chickened out. I think that you shouldn't have punched him. He's a sweet boy who tries to mask his real emotions with humor. He has been feeling like a third wheel ever since Jason and Piper got together. And then he felt like a seventh wheel when they were on the quest to beat Gaia, with everybody in couples, Percy and Annabeth, Frank and Hazel, everybody was a couple except for him. He was just the Repair Boy, as he referred to himself, " Aphrodite said sadly, wow I didn't know she felt sympathy for other people.
"Hey! I heard that!" she said, looking peeved, "Anyway, the boy talked to me when he was on his bed, he thought I hated him because of his father and he told me that, that wasn't his fault and he just wanted to feel love. Really, I was close to tears when I heard him. You should really give him a chance, he's been hurt all his life and his mom died when he was young, and because of that all his relatives think he was a demon child…" she trailed off.
"Look Aphrodite," Thalia said to the goddess, "that's a really touching story but are you sure that I'm right for Leo?"
"Why of course!" she said to Thalia, "I'm the goddess of love for Pete's sake! Look, I know you're not sure about your feelings, so all I'm going to say is the cliché thing to say: follow your heart, that's all that really matters," and with that she smiled and just like that she was gone, leaving Thalia to think and wonder: How the Hades am I going to follow my heart? It can't speak!
She sighed and stood up and walked off to her cabin, just realizing how tired she was.
She made a promise to herself to talk to Leo tomorrow and apologize for punching him.