Author's note: Ok, so I'm sorry it took me so long to update. Put, it's hear now. I'm planning on adding chapter five tomorrow. I would also like to say that I'm sorry if this chapter isn't very good. I'm writing with a head injury. Details if you wanna know. But, here's your chapter. Love y'all! :D
-Blay
Of course, her date was amazing; Luke was so sweet, blah, blah, blah. Gag me with a rusty spoon. I listen to her talk about it over and over again. I try and be happy for her, but I feel so angry on the inside that it's hard.
Over the course of the next few weeks he takes her out a lot. Every time they go on another date I just feel that much bitterer on the inside. The only thing that can take my mind off the entire situation is work. As it would turn out, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be. I just stand at a counter and talk to people. I get to hear some pretty interesting stories about the person the jewelry is for. People come in all the time for anniversaries, birthdays, and my favorite, the people who come in just buy the person they love something special, no real reason, just to day that they love them. Dittie is the one who does all the real work. For an old woman, she sure does move around a lot. Plus, she said that once I got Annabeth's necklace paid off I could start getting a check, which I'm not going to complain about.
I don't have much left on it, just a couple more hours and it's mine. I feel exited just thinking about giving it to her. Maybe then she'll realize that I'm way better than, douche bag Luke.
Several weeks before her birthday we have an actual conversation about him.
She was sitting on my bed in my room messing with a bracelet on her wrist. I hadn't seen it before so I asked her, "Where did you get it?"
"By 'it', do you mean herpes?" She asks looking me in the eye and then bursting out and laughter, after my heart started beating again I joined in.
"No, I mean the bracelet." I say nodding my head towards it.
"Oh, This? Luke gave it to me."
I look at it more closely. It's just a thin gold chain.
"I thought you hated gold?" I ask her, remembering from one of our many conversations.
"Yeah, well, it's not polite to turn down a gift, especially an expensive one."
One of the things Luke can offer that I can't, expensive trinkets. I have to save for a while in advance if I want to get her anything really nice.
"Did he not ask what kind of jewelry you liked before hand?" I ask.
"No, but it's the thought that counts." She says.
I actually have to restrain myself from scoffing.
"Yeah, I guess it does." I tell her. "Why did he give it to you anyways?"
"He gave it to me today, when he asked me to be his girlfriend."
My mind instantly erupts.
GIRLFRIEND?! HIS GIRLFRIEND?!
I tell myself to calm down; I really need to calm down. I can't let anything show on my face, but holy shit. I've just lost every fucking chance I've ever considered having with Annabeth. Now that she's with this ass-hat. I'm doomed to be stuck in the friend zone forever, helping her shop and get ready for dates with ass-hat Luke.
"That's great Annabeth." I manage to choke out. But it's not great; it's the exact opposite of great. Can your heart actually break? I mean like split in two right down the middle because I feel like that's what mine's doing.
"I know right?" She exclaims. She then launches into a rather lengthy speech about how sweet Luke, how nice and how his hair makes his eyes pop out.
I really wish that she would just stop.
She's interrupted midsentence by her phone going off. She pulls it out and checks it, "It's Luke, and we're going to dinner. I'll see you later Percy. Love you." She says running out my front door before I can say anything.
"Love you too. . ." I call out halfheartedly.
After Annabeth leaves, I head to work. I need to do something to get my mind off the current situation. Once I get there, Dittie gives me a stack of papers to file. While I'm filing, my mind just keeps going back to Annabeth and that stupid bracelet that she doesn't even like. I mean, yeah, I get it. It's Luke's way of saying, 'Look, I'm pompous and important and can afford to spend a shit ton of money on a bracelet just to ask somebody out with'
Typically, I'm a very non-violent person. But something about this asshole just gives me the overwhelming urge to punch him in the face, and I'm not sure if I hate him because he's dating the girl I love, or because the bad vibe and the rumors I've heard about him are true.
After a while, Dittie comes in, smiling. I look up and wait for her to speak.
"Lock up for me, will you?" She then sets a small blue box on the desk and leaves. This wasn't abnormal behavior for her, sometimes she talks, and sometimes she doesn't. I finish the filing, (which is always my least favorite part of work, too much concentration involved). After everything is done I reach over for the box and open it.
Finally, after all the hours I spent here, the necklace is mine to give.
I smile and slip it into my pocket. Annabeth's birthday is two weeks from this Saturday. I'll give it to her the night before. I have something special planned.
In the weeks before her birthday, she and Luke get pretty serious. They go out like three times a week, and she stops hanging out with all of the gang as often, even they notice it. One day, at lunch, Thalia points this out to Silena. Annabeth was sitting across the cafeteria with Luke and his cronies.
"Of course she's going to ignore us, she's in that puppy love stage of the relationship."
I tense up a little at the word 'love'.
Grover nudges me sympathetically. He's then only one in the group who knows how I fell about Annabeth.
Then everyone goes into a conversation about their first loves and I zone out.
Of course, noting ever works out as planned, the day before her birthday, while we're in AP English, Annabeth passes me a note. It reads, 'Luke said he had something really special planned for tonight. SO excited!'
I turn around and force a smile for her. I write back, 'Do you know where you're going? I pass the note back to her over my shoulder. I hear her open it and the sound of her pen scribbling over the page. A moment after the sound stops, I feel her tapping the piece of paper against my back and I grab it. It says, 'No. but I'll let you know as soon as I do.' I write, 'Ok.' And pass it back to her.
We go to the rest of our classes and she doesn't bring up her 'special date' with Luke. After school, instead of her meeting me at my locker like she usually does, (the only non Luke orientated thing she does anymore might I add.) I see her down the hall, standing hand in hand with Luke, talking to a bunch of his jock friends. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I feel like I've lost her. I've lost my best friend.
I don't even wait for her to tell me anything after school, I just go home alone, which I have been more and more often now lately. I walk in the door and throw all my stuff down an walk into my room, I try and find something to do, I need to take my mind off the whole Annabeth thing or I might just go insane. I get on my computer, but I can't think of anything that will take my mind off of her, so I snap it shut and get a book off my shelf and flip open to a random page, I don't even get halfway through the first sentence before the words start to float off the page and around my head. I get mad and throw the book across the room and grab my iPod out of my bag it in, I set it on shuffle and a song comes on. Too Close by Alex Clare. I try and focus on the lyrics, but as I listen to them I just get mad and stomp out of my room. I grab my backpack and run out of the apartment. I don't know where I'm going. I just walk. Something I end having to do a lot of lately. I spend hours walking. Days. Decades. Eternity is what I fells like. My phone buzzes and I pull it out of m pocket and check it, I have two texts, one from my mother, saying that she was going out to eat with some friends and she would be back late.
At least someone's happy. I think.
And the other one is from Annabeth. It says that she's at a really fancy restaurant; she should be done in a few minutes. I look at my watch. It's nearly twelve. The restaurant isn't too far from here, so on a whim I decide to walk to it. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do when I get there, all I know it that I'm going.
As I begin to walk to the restaurant I get nervous, I have no idea what I'm going to do or why I'm going. I hear thunder over head and begin to walk faster.
Once I get there, it begins to sprinkle. I walk around to the back door, just so I don't have to stand still. It's beginning to rain heavier. Once I get there I hear voices. I instinctively hide behind the side of the building and listen.
"I don't trust you being with that little dick-head all the time Annabeth."
I blood instantly turns to ice. It's Luke and Annabeth.
"Don't call him that." She says defensively. "And why don't you trust him?"
"Don't tell what I can and cannot say you little bitch. And I don't trust him. I see how you look at him. I don't trust you or him."
It takes every ounce of strength I have to not knock in his stupid overly white teeth.
"He's my best friend." She says quietly.
I realize that they're talking about me. Why would they be talking about me?
"I don't care if he's your damn cousin. I don't want you whoring around with him." He says.
"I'm not a whore." She says quietly.
"Well that's news to me." He says.
I want so badly to walk over there and beat the living shit out of him. I'm gripping the wall so hard my knuckles have turned white.
"I am not a whore." She says again.
"I don't give a shit what you are. Other than mine. I don't want you around that dumbass Jackson kid. Do you understand me?"
She stays silent.
"Do you understand me?" He asks her again, this time very quietly. I have to strain to listen because the rain is coming down so hard.
"Percy is not a dumbass." She says finally.
"That wasn't answering my question. I think this date is over. You can find your own way home right? Maybe call up your dumbass friend. Bitch." He says.
I can't hold my temper anymore. I come out from hiding and see Annabeth, with her back turned to me, watching Luke's retreating figure. He rounds a corner, leaving Annabeth standing in the rain in the middle of the night. I want to hunt him down right now and beat every ounce of life out of him.
I hear a small sob and my heart breaks. It's Annabeth. I walk up quietly behind and touch her shoulder. She whips around and her eyes get wide.
"Percy?" She says quietly.
I want to comfort her, to take her into my arms and never let go, to kiss away her tears and make her mine. But no, instead I just look at her.
"What the hell was that" I ask before I can stop myself.
"What?" She asks, wiping raindrops out of her eyes.
"Luke." Is all I say.
Her eyes get wide again.
"Were you spying on me?" She asks in an angry voice.
I ignore the question. "Why the hell are you with that asshole?" I ask.
"Oh my God. I can't believe that you were spying on me!" She in turn ignores my question.
I feel insurmountable anger bubbling up in my chest.
"Why do you let him treat you like that?" I ask.
She whips around and the anger in her eyes is impressive.
"Why does it even matter to you Percy?" She yells at me. She has to yell because the rain is coming down so hard.
"Why does it matter to me?" I ask. Finally, I just can't hold it back anymore. Months worth of words come pouring out of my mouth.
"It matters because I'm in love with you Annabeth! I've been in love with you from the very first day I saw you! Every time I see you I wish you were mine, not his! It matters because I love you! Ok? I'm in love with you."
I cannot believe I just said that.
She doesn't say anything to me. She just stares at me, wide eyed.
God, I've fucked everything up now. But since I've started the shit storm, I might as well continue with it.
So I walk over to her and I kiss her. I mean like full out kiss her. Like that night on the beach. My heart rate picks up and my stomach churns. I break away and I reach into my pocket and pull out her present. "Happy Birthday." I say, placing the box in her hand. I kiss her forehead. Then turn on my heel and run.
I really just needed to run. As I turn the corner I hear Annabeth calling my name. But I just keep on going.