Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus characters all are owned by the one Rick Riordan. Plot outline based on the French film Des Vrais Mensonges. The chapter name belongs to the respective artist(s), in this case Eminem ft Rihanna.

Thanks to: Sora Loves Rain, Mr Invincible, Thanatos Grim, alyaJackson

Percy, a handyman, sends an anonymous love letter to his boss Annabeth. After initially throwing it away, she forwards it to her separated aunt to cheer her up. Mistakes, misunderstandings and marriage (or absence of). Rated T for topics discussed and swearing. Based off French film Des Vrais Mensonges. AU.

Chapter 3 – The Monster

Annabeth

Let us begin the horribly structured entry to this tacky and rather vomit-inducing diary of 2014 that Percy bought me for Christmas. A festival that has degenerated into a marketing scheme that people actually buy into.

But every book needs a beginning, so here is mine.

Who am I?

My name is Annabeth, because the pressure to be a Cute, Perfect, Doll-like Annie of a daughter was too much.

[That's not who you are, that's your name. And an Annabeth is only who you perceive it to be.]

I'm twenty-two.

[That's your age.]

I live in San Francisco, California.

[Stop, already.]

I really don't know who I am, but I'd like to say it's a culmination of many factors around me.

I have two brothers. I'd love like to get closer to them but I really can't be bothered. It makes me sound trashy but I am, really. My mother's a kind that takes control and buys everything – smart and a woman of today,

[what does that mean]

she always is practical and concerned for me, although she's never there. I'm not, either.

My dad has a real hard time speaking anything of real worth, and is successful in the world of business where money does the talking.

I can't appreciate anything. I'm the kind of person who spends hours wasting away her life in search of happiness, although she knows that it will always be the pursuit and if you don't know what it is, you can't be happy. I used to read all the time, and had at least 500 books on my primary school library record, yet I'm now so scared of ruining the memories that I had and not living up to the expectations – to the point where I cry every time I think of reading.

It's like that with swimming as well. I was fast, I had technique, I was progressing; but the stress and trauma from swimming eventually led me into a web of cornering out and crying and quitting.

I also, although very concerned about body image,

[such a hypocrite, saying that media is just blinding people and forget about them]

binge eat. I clam up all the time and lash out at people in fear of not being in control. I tie my hair so tight each day, once even using 10 hairties,

[traction alopecia inducing]

because I want to control the little things. So superstitious, so worried, so much like living on lava.

I feel like I'm stepping on glass every day to do anything. I'm really scared of letting the company go because I'm not happy with it yet, but I want to be.

[The essay on the Pursuit of Happiness won't appear now.]

Time passes so fast but I can't appreciate it, followed by massive regret.

I often do things just because I want to come out on top. I think I'm controlling things whereas they're controlling me.

Breakdowns are very common, as are panic attacks.

I usually go through periods where I freak out and start crying violently where I overthink so much I'm convinced the world is a grand plan to kill me and it's like the Truman Show

[or whatever it was called]

all over again. I realise I'm just a pawn in the chess game of life and my fantasies and then go back to numbingly searching through Tumblr and Pinterest and Twitter and raking through illegal TV show sites and hours and hours of Youtube. Because ultimately I'm lazy and I'm too lazy to control that.

It's my reprieve.

But then I force myself to get the groceries and do the bills on top of everything to prove to myself and the world I'm superior.

I know I like one thing.

I like walking really slowly on a cold morning in London or Munich or Geneva during a bright spring day. Just wandering with nowhere to go. No pressure, nowhere to return to, nowhere to stop at.

[But maybe you just thought you liked it because you hadn't liked anything in a long time.]

I don't even feel bad about leaving anything because I don't even know what I like.

My sarcastic, slightly funny and loud personality has been clammed up deep inside post high-school. Post-Luke.

The naivety I had; the inability to handle money nor time, has turned me from a reckless and carefree girl who returns home to a pile of regrets, only to succumb to the other side of herself and repeat it the next day; into an over-controlling freak. I tried to control my flaws and it turned me into – well, this.

I'm a confident, arrogant girl with wit and a mean skeleton. Tearing people down is what I do.

[You are one of said 'people'.]

Exactly.

[You don't know.]

I don't know.

I don't know why we insist on drinking milk from another animal or we classify people as people and animals as animals and why people say sorry for things that have nothing to do with them which only makes the person receiving the sorry guilty and then –

[Stop. You don't know.]

Omniscience

Annabeth didn't frown, albeit her angry words.

"One moremistake and you're out. How many times do I have to tell you not to shine those shoes and not to hang that coat up and – OHGODSAREYOUTHROWINGTHOSEAWAYDON'TYOUDARE."

She huffed. On the outside, she seemed rather peeved – nothing special. But a calm(er) outside always meant she was just investing all of her energy in her tumultuous mind wars. She had been dealing with weeks of bad luck, karma, what-you-have-it, and snowball effects were not good. She had an incapable assistant who not only accidentally threw 4 crates of important blueprints out the window (directly into the dumpster, I tell you) because a woman walking below them near the dumpster was 'suspicious'.

She had her privileges revoked due to financial problems, was being humiliated and degraded.

Key speeches, strings of carefully-woven phrases had been flushed down the toilet (not her fault). Gone.

Not to mention jerks running into her, spilling her coffee down her shirt and getting the wrong size dress she was require to wear for today's presentation.

Did she forget all her nail polishes spilling on the asphalt driveway, staining her handbag? No? Good.

And that one of her best friends got dumped via Facebook (but their conversation was more over the spelling/grammar mistakes than over his doucheiness).

"Blue skies in, grey skies out," she murmured.

Percy looked at her quizzically and she merely breathed in and out again, with a knowing smile.

"Do you ever listen to what I tell you to do?"

He gave her a lopsided smile.

"If they tell me to walk in a straight line, I wear crooked shoes."

"And how would that work, exactly? And anyhow, that'd only inconvenience you. There is a reason that they tell you that, you know. And that they are they."

"You lost me… just about there."

But they both knew Percy was doing that to rile her and would only take a bullet for her and stuff like that. Like, no biggie.

"So, Perseus Jackson. You were a pigtail puller. Or a pigtail pinner. Wait, does anyone still use pins anymore?"

"Huh?"

"Were you one of those guys who would sit behind girls in kindergarten and First Grade and pull on their hair to bug them?"

She left out the part 'cause they had a crush on them?'.

"Uh. YeahIguess."

The conversation decided to finish itself there, so there was nothing either of them could do about it. However, lucky enough for them, a new one waltzed into the room – in form of more instructions (who would guess).

"So, Percy. The lapels should all be pressed, and I need the vases put on the coffee tables, and – just wake up already, okay? Were you even listening? I'll repeat: the vases need to be put on… what? Tell me."

"Uh…"

"On what?"

"On top of the world?"

"Dear God, I weep for our generation."

Percy

First thing I notice is that I'm being kicked out.

Second thing is the rather large piece of card tied around my neck that states in neat print 'I am an incompetent assistant, especially as I fell asleep long enough for this to be written and put around my neck'.

Oh, the irony. And oh, I fell asleep.

As I get up, a rather uncomfortable piece of paper slips from behind the sign that reads:

You're fired.

Omniscience

"If you want to tell me I'm fired, tell it to my face. Not by a piece of paper that was slipped surreptiously-"

"Surreptitiously." It was a lot quieter than it would normally have been said, though.

"By a sign that clearly showed that you have no qalms-"

"Qualms."

Even quieter. And even colder.

"About embarrassing me. But you can't tell me I'm fired to my face. What-"

"You are no longer an employee at this company, Mr Jackson. I think you have understood that perfectly clearly. Therefore, you have no right to be in my office without a permitted appointment."

And to fulfil that cliché movie scene of old Hollywood-

"Good day, Mr Jackson."

"I-"

"Good day."

This time there was no hiding the fact that she was scared.

A/N: The diary entry was originally an essay on myself, which had to be and was judiciously edited to fit the situation. Any couples you want me to write about? Where do you think this should go? I'm leaving to Germany today, but hopefully I can still post. What do you guys want for Christmas?