In gym the next day, we were playing volleyball. Annabeth was incredible. She never once let the ball hit the ground. I watched after her as she followed Alaina into the dressing room after class laughing about something she'd said.
"Someone's got a crush" Jaden teased.
I ignored him; I didn't really feel up dealing with Jaden's provocations at the moment. Of course, my face didn't seem to understand the concept of ignoring and burned bright red at Jaden's words.
"Oooh, you do! You really like her don't you!" Jaden shouts, pleased with himself for discovering this.
"Brice likes someone? Who?" Eli joins in. He is grinning from ear to ear eager to be let in on this 'secret'.
"Annabeth! Brice has a little crush on Annabeth Chase," Jaden beams, "He has been watching her all period." I felt my face burn as he says it out loud, really feeling stalkerish this time.
"Oooh, someone's blushing." Eli taunts.
"Will you guys shut up!" I shout. But my pleas for them to quit only seemed to make them want to tease me more. I gave an exasperated sigh, realizing that they were not going to stop anytime soon. I opted to ignore them for now, but eventually I would have to find something to distract them from my love life, not that I had one.
I sat on the stairs leading into the building waiting on my friends. We were planning on going to one of our favorite New York pizza places after school to hang out. Jaden and Eli were running late because they were held after class to complete a missing assignment. Knowing they would take a while, I flipped open my pre-calculus textbook and began working on tonight's homework. I had just started on question five when a figure sat down next to me.
"Working on Mr. Neilson's homework?" Annabeth asked looking over my shoulder at the textbook in my lap.
"Just thought I'd get a head start on it while I waited," I responded. I tried to prevent a smile from spreading across my face, but it was difficult when on the inside I was ecstatic that Annabeth had sat by me and initiated the conversation. Usually I was the one pestering her about everything trying to talk to her.
"Sally liked having you over last night. She said it was a nice change to have someone normal over for once," Annabeth laughed fondly at a joke I didn't understand.
I just nodded, "I had fun. They seem like a nice family."
"Yeah, they're great," she agreed before falling into silence. Her hand twisted a ring around her necklace. I had never paid much attention to it before. It had many beads with different designs on them: a pine tree, a trident, the empire state building, etc. It also had a piece of coral and a college ring strung on it.
"What's that?" I asked her motioning to the ring she was twisting.
"Oh, the ring? It was my dad's," She stopped talking. For a minute I thought she wasn't going to say anymore, but after a moment, she started again. "He got it from Harvard, where he met my mom. He sent it to me a long time ago in an attempt to make me forgive him and return home. I wasn't going to, I had tried that before and it never worked out, but Percy talked me into it," She smiled now, "I guess, I like to keep the ring to remind me of that. That my dad does care and wants me a part of his family."
I looked down at my feet now, unsure what to say to that. Annabeth was opening up to me about her family, and I couldn't even think of a good response. I felt guilty for even bringing it up. The situation with her dad felt complicated, and I wasn't sure how much she was willing to share. "What did he want you to forgive him for?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
"Just… everything," Hah she laughed coldly, "I was young and a bit jealous. He got married to my stepmom and I wasn't happy about it. Especially when they had twins, I felt unwanted and blamed for everything. I ran away when I was seven. Met some friends who'd ran away too. Together we found this camp that accepted kids like us. Um, troubled kids with dyslexia or ADHD, ADD, type kids. Anyways, he wanted me to come home from the camp, which is why he sent the letter with the ring."
"You ran away when you were seven?" was all I could think to say. How can a child feel so unwanted that they run away at that age? Suddenly, everything I thought I knew about Annabeth shifted. She wasn't the prefect, beautiful, smart girl. She was so much more. She was a girl who'd overcome a lot of troubles with her family. She was jealous and stubborn, but willing to admit it. She had grown past her troubles and held onto a keepsake to remind her of all that.
"Yeah."
"Brice!" I heard a voice call. Annabeth and I turned to see Jayden come shoving through the doorway with Eli following closely behind him.
"Hey, you guys done?" I asked.
"Nah, Walters is cool. He let us go early if we turn in our essay tomorrow." Jaden said.
"Which means I will have mine in tomorrow and Jaden will have his done in another week," Eli grins jokingly, but we all knew it was true.
"A week is too soon. It'll be a minimum of two weeks of staying after school and at least one lunch detention before its done," Jayden smiles as if proud of his lack of effort into his schoolwork.
"How am I even friends with you two?" I tease shaking my head.
"Cause you love us," Jaden winks, "And we need you to raise our collective GPA."
"Ha, I'm sure that's why. Anyways, you guys ready to go? I'm hungry."
"I'm always ready for pizza," Eli answers.
I turn to Annabeth who was still sitting there listening to us. "Annabeth, you wanna come too?" I asked her, "We are going to get some pizza and hang out. It'll be fun."
Annabeth shook her head no, "Sorry, can't. I've got someone coming to pick me up."
I nodded in understanding. I waved goodbye as we left and she waved back a faint smile on her lips making my heart flutter in my chest. "You've got it bad," Jaden and Eli teased me the whole way to the pizza place.
I gazed out the window of the restaurant and watched as dark clouds slowly rolled in making the sky gray and dreary. A few drops of water began splashing onto the window as rain started pouring from the sky. Groaning at the unexpected downpour, "Did either of you guys happen to bring an umbrella today?" I asked my friends who were sitting on the booth across from me chowing down.
"No, didn't know it was supposed to rain," Eli said, his face stuffed with pepperoni pizza. He reached across the table and set another slice on his plate before continuing, "The news said it should be sunny all day."
"Guess the gods must be having a bad day, huh?" Jaden said.
"What?" both Eli and I said at the same time.
"You know, like the stories moms tell their kids in a thunderstorm. Zeus must be angry or something," He trailed off at the confused looks on our face, "You haven't heard of that before?"
"Not really, I mean maybe," I shook my head. I still didn't recall my mom telling me any stories like that. I'd heard the myths before, but never really connected them to the present, even for little kids.
"Oh, maybe it was just my mom then. Weird." He looked a bit unsettled by this. He seemed to glare silently out the window. Jaden had a naturally cheerful personality. He was always cracking jokes and teasing, so when he became serious and quiet, it was obvious that something was wrong.
"Jaden?"
"Hmm,"
"Everything okay?" I asked.
He didn't respond, just nodded his head slightly and continued watching the rainstorm outside. I knew there was no use pushing him into talking. If there was something wrong, then he would tell us eventually. Sighing, I turned back to my pizza. Eli and I continued talking until eventually Jaden got over whatever was ailing him and joined in. I smiled knowing that he would be fine when he jumped in the conversation talking about the new Star Wars movie coming out.
Shortly after the rain stopped, we left the restaurant with me trailing just behind a very animated Jaden and Eli. I zoned out of their conversation and let my thoughts drift. I wondered what that was with Jaden at the restaurant, why his mood suddenly changed? After hearing about Annabeth earlier that day, I had been thinking more about all the things I didn't know about people. The majority of people that I knew were from school, but I knew next to nothing about their families or home life. Even the people I was close to like Jaden and Eli, I didn't know much about. Jaden told me he was an only child, he lives with his mom and stepdad, but he never talks about his real dad. I don't think I've ever even been to his house; he always came to mine. I scowled at the steaming sidewalk with the realization that I knew so little about my best friend.
