Country Life

Ch. 3

Eventually, Percy slowed to a walk and I caught up with him, my breath shallow. I stopped and put my hands on my knees. "Wait." I said breathlessly and Percy stopped walking, chuckling.

"Tired, princess?" He asked. I glared at him and stood up.

"Of course not." I straightened my back and walked off.

"Hey!" He jogged to catch up. "You don't even know where you're going."

I shrugged. "I wasn't going to get lost. How far away are we? I'm starving."

"It's right here." Percy said. At first, I was confused. There was nothing around other than more trees and sticks, but then Percy pulled back a couple branches and the forest became a meadow. Tall green grass swayed in the wind and the sun seemed to light up the place with a bright glow. I caught my breath.

"This is… beautiful." I said.

"Yeah, it's one of my favorite places. I come here all the time with my friends." Percy said. He went to the middle of the meadow and sat down with the backpack. He patted the seat across from him.

I almost sat down, but I caught myself. There could be spiders in this ground. "I can't sit here. I need a blanket or something."

He stared at me. "You're kidding, right."

"No. Why would I joke. I told you, I'm very serious." I smiled slightly.

"You're in luck, I actually brought one this time. I usually forget it, so be prepared to sit on the actual ground next time." He got up and laid the blanket out and I sat down first this time, crossing my legs.

I raised an eyebrow. "Next time?" He just smiled, and didn't say anything.

"So," I said, biting into a PB&J sandwich that I'm pretty sure had been prepared by Sally, not Percy. "Tell me something about yourself. I feel like I don't even know this family, but I'm living with you guys."

"My family has been in the farming business for as long as I can remember. My grandpa lived with us until I was three, when he got in a plane crash coming back home from a trip to New York. The farm is on my mom's side of the family, but my dad also grew up on a farm as a kid. This town is super small, it only has 221 people in it. With you, I guess that makes 222." I laughed quietly. "My best friends are Leo, Jason, and Frank. And I also have a girlfriend. Her name is Rachel, and her friends are Calypso, Hazel, and Piper. We all hang out together a lot. They keep asking if they can come over, and it's been kind of a struggle to keep figuring out new excuses every day."

I instantly felt guilty. "You mean… they can't come over because of me?" I hadn't really thought about how me coming here would affect them. No wonder Percy didn't really like me when I got here yesterday. Well, I was also being pretty rude too. When my mom had told me about this trip I was taking, I had only thought about how much it was going to suck for me. It had never crossed my mind that it could suck for them too.

"Yeah, it would be too much of a risk. We can't have anyone knowing that you're here." Percy said sullenly.

"I would love to meet them though. Maybe you could invite like your best best friend over." I smiled.

"Jason." He said. "And yeah, my parents and I have already talked about it. Also, I think you would like Jason's girlfriend, Piper. She's cool, she wouldn't tell anyone. So, what about you? What is Hollywood life like?" Percy changed his position on the blanket. Instead of sitting cross legged, he rolled onto his stomach and let his feet rest in the grass.

"Busy." I said. "And amazing at the same time. I don't really have any friends. My makeup artist, Silena, is the closest it gets. We're really close. And my stylist, Lacy, is super cool too. I live with my mom and Malcolm, my brother. Mal is barely ever around though because he attends Columbia University."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "Colombia? He must be pretty smart."

"Yeah, he is. He wants to be an engineer when he grows up." I said.

"What about you? What have you always wanted to be?" He asked.

"An… actor?" I was slightly confused. "I already have my adult job."

"No." He shook his head. "I mean, what you wanted to be when you were a kid. Or what do you want to be now? If you weren't an actor."

I thought about it. "I guess I would want to be an architect."

Percy laughed. "Why?"

"I don't really know. I guess I've always felt like I don't have anything… permanent in my life. My brother is always running around at college, or sitting in his room doing loads of homework. My mother barely ever sees me, even though she's my manager. And my dad's family have basically cut off all contact with me. They think my Hollywood life is a bad influence on their boys, Matthew and Bobby. So, I feel like if I could build something that would stand for three hundred years, I could have something important in my life that was permanent." Before I knew it, I had spilled everything. I couldn't believe I had been so stupid. My guard immediately went back up. I saw Percy's face turn from shock at my sudden burst of words to pity at the meaning of them.

"Annabeth…" He trailed off.

I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I don't want your pity. I have a good life, and I just told you the bad things about it. Everyone has dark things in their life. Besides, I don't even care about any of it. That's just how I used to feel when I was younger."

He put his hands up. "Back off! I was actually just going to say that makes sense."

I stared at him. "Oh. Oh, ok."

"Come on, we should finish the rest of the tour. We still have a lot to go." He put things away in the backpack, and then helped me up.

Percy showed me the rest of the things at the farm, from more beautiful forests and meadows, to the cows and chickens that they raised. There was a small river running through the middle of their land. Even though everything was amazing, it was pretty awkward between us after what had happened at lunch. What was worse, though, was that I had returned to my usual cold self. And I felt bad about it.

We got back to the house around dusk, the sun falling slowly in the sky. The country sunset was beautiful. Red and orange filled the horizon. In the city, it was hard to see the sunset because of the tall buildings. Here, it was clear as day.

"Hey guys!" Sally said when we walked in. "How was your day?"

"Fine." Percy said. He sat down at the dining table. If he didn't want to elaborate, then I wouldn't either.

"I'll be in my room." I announced.

"Ok, sweetie. Come back down in about fifteen minutes. Dinner will be ready then." Sally wasn't looking at me when she spoke though. Her eyes were boring holes into the back of Percy's bent head.

I climbed the stairs, and went to check my phone. 3 missed calls from Mom. I sighed. There were also thirteen texts asking where I was, was I ok, call immediately – things like that. I slid left on the missed call from Mom, and my new 6S started to dial her number. She picked up on the second ring.

"Annabeth! You didn't call yesterday." She didn't sound very worried.

"I texted Malcolm instead. I didn't feel like talking."

"Anna, you know you need to listen to me. If I tell you to do something, you do it. I'm your mother."

"Not a very good one."

Athena sighed. "I don't want to fight. How's the farm?"

"Boring." I said. "When will I be home?"

"The end of August. You're staying for the summer."

I laughed. "You're kidding, right. That's ridiculous. How are you going to go out to nice dinners with boyfriend #7 when we don't have any money coming in?"

"We have plenty of money, Annabeth, even without you working. Also, his name is not boyfriend #7, its Michael."

"Whatever. I'll figure out a way to get home. Even you can't keep me in a hellhole like this."

"I can and I will, Annabeth, because I'm your mother."

"Are you really? Because, I haven't seen a lot of motherly actions lately. Instead of shipping me off to a small town to 'fix me' maybe you could have tried harder to be nice to me. Maybe, if I wasn't ever an actor I wouldn't have ended up like this!"

"Stop this. You've been a brat since you were age one. It was bound to grow into a bigger problem later." Athena said. By now, I was crying. Nothing like having your mother tell you that you weren't ever a good person.

"Bye, mother." I said quietly, and hung up. I checked the time and saw that it was 6:47, about fifteen minutes since I came up here. I went to the bathroom to wipe my eyes, and applied a little concealer around them to reduce the puffiness. I took a deep breath, and headed downstairs, wondering what I would have to eat down here.

Dinner was awkward, to say the least. I took my seat next to Percy on his right, and looked at the burger and chips in front of me.

"I don't eat red meat. I only eat lean." I pointed at the burger.

"Well, that's all we have for dinner, so either eat it or go without food." Poseidon said.

I pushed the plate away from me. "I won't eat tonight." I got up and started walking up the stairs, but a firm hand pulled me back down and pushed me in my seat.

"Eat." Percy said.

"Why would I do that just because you said so?"

"You're being completely rude. My family is nice enough to let you stay here with them, and you can't even be grateful for having a full dinner. You disgust me. So, eat it. And then, when you're done, you can ask to be excused because that is the polite and normal thing to do." Percy turned back to his food and continued eating.

"Percy!" Sally yelled. "Annabeth, I am so –"

"No, it's alright." I said. "It was rude of me to not eat what you made me and a waste of food." I was hurt by his words, but I knew they were true. Percy was probably so done with my attitude after spending the day with me.

I forced the burger down my throat. It made me feel sick. All I could think about was the day at McDonalds. I finished about half of it, and ate most of my chips. Dinner was silent for the most part. Percy and I were sitting right next to each other, but it felt like we were worlds apart. Sally just looked embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," I spoke up. "I really can't eat anymore. I just… can't handle red meat. Actually it's just burgers that I don't like."

Sally smiled. "It's alright." I was about to get up, but I remembered what Percy said.

"May I be excused?" I didn't look at anyone, but I could feel Percy's eyes on me.

"Of course!" Sally said. I grabbed my dish and went to the sink. I thought about washing it and putting it in the dishwasher, but I didn't know if the dishes were clean or not. I just set it in the sink.

Percy came in at that moment. "Can we talk upstairs? Go up, and I'll be up in a couple of minutes."

"Um, yeah sure." I said, confused. I walked up stairs and waited in my room. I tried not to think about what he was going to say to me, but the thoughts came to mind anyway. Probably something rude and about how I needed to be nicer to his parents. It wasn't long before he showed up in my room.

He peeked his head around the corner. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah." I was sitting on the white couch in my room and Percy sat on the other side of the couch. He flicked on a light switch, and the gas fireplace came on.

"Oh!" I said. "I was wondering how you turned that thing on." Percy laughed. "So… what's up?" I asked.

"Why didn't you want to eat the burger?" Percy asked. "It wasn't because you don't like red meat. You would have been able to eat all of it if it had just been a dislike of food."

I sighed. I thought about saying something rude, but that didn't seem like the best idea right now. I decided to go with the truth. "When I was younger, my mom used to comment on how I couldn't fit into a size anymore, or how I was eating too much for dinner. She started doing that when I was about seven." I looked to see if Percy was going to say anything, but he just listened intently. "Then, when I was eleven, I wanted to go to McDonalds. I was eating my burger when she said that if I kept eating burgers like that I was going to be fat. So, I haven't touched a burger since then. Even when I just see them I get this sick feeling in my stomach." I felt a tear run down my cheek, and wiped it away.

"I'm sorry." He said. "I shouldn't have been so rude down there, and I should have just let you not eat it. I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that someone couldn't like a burger!"

I laughed loudly. "I used to love them, but things are a lot different now."

"Thanks for telling me." He said, serious. "And, I'm sorry about making you eat it."

"It's not a big deal. It's a good thing I didn't go without dinner anyway." I said.

He smiled. "Goodnight, Annabeth."

"Night" I smiled, and he walked out of my room. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep on the couch. In the middle of the night, I thought I saw a boy spreading a blanket over me, but I couldn't be too sure. It might have just been a dream.