Annabeth,

Rachel's green eyes flew over the words on my laptop hungrily, waiting to find out why I had been so nervous when I had come to lunch today.

Honestly, I wasn't nervous.

I was terrified.

For the last few weeks, I had been thinking about him non-stop, and I had been wanting to meet him almost from the moment I had first started talking to AB. But, now that we were actually going to meet, my brain started kicking in.

What if he was a psychotic killer?

What if this was all some dare from his friends, make some girl fall in love with you on the internet?

What if… What if it was Percy?

Last night, I had this horrible dream, one of the worst ever.

If I closed my eyes too long, I could see it again, him standing there, wearing the college tee shirt that would tell me who AB was. And it was so realistic… He still looked so perfect, like he always had.

And the worst part was that it all fit together!

A son named Noah. A crazy woman as Noah's mother. It all made sense…

But it didn't feel right either.

Percy was… evil.

Absolutely cold-hearted.

He had tricked me. Me! He not only had an affair, but he had a son. And now he parades around as this wonderful father who gave up so much for his son, but he wasn't in Noah's life until he was about one or so.

And AB…

He loved his son. He had been there for every doctor's appointment, every sonogram, and every time his ex let him have custody of their son. And this guy wouldn't want to trick me, much less go to such extremes as to do so.

And… I think AB might actually love me.

And Percy…

I don't know.

"You're going to meet him!" Rachel smiled, making it so that it really wasn't a question, "Today!"

The petite redhead pulled me into a hug in the booth that we were both sitting at, and my eyes looked over at my laptop again, glancing at the time.

I only had an hour until I had to be there.

"Are you nervous?" Rachel asked as she smiled at me.

Nervous.

Nervous didn't cover it.

You're nervous when you go to your first day of school.

You're nervous when your leaning in for your first kiss.

You're nervous when you wait for your grade to be handed back to you after a hard test.

I was about to explain all this, but I decided against it.

"Yeah," I finally nodded, pushing my blonde hair behind my ear, "Um, do you think this guy sounds familiar?"

"Familiar? You think you already know him?" Rachel knit her eyebrows in confusion.

I felt sick as I opened my mouth to begin.

"You know, like someone we both know…"

"Both know?"

"Like someone we both to… like."

Rachel's St. Patrick's Day green eyes widened in shock as she realized who we were talking about.

"You think it's Percy?"

"Well, I just… I had this dream…" I trailed off as I realized how crazy I sounded.

"Like a half-blood dream?" Rachel asked, knowing that I could sometime dream the future. But that ability had stopped a long time ago, when my dreams had started being wrong.

Like that dream where I married Percy, which so didn't happen…

"I don't know," I shrugged as I closed my laptop and put in my bag, "I'm just being paranoid."

"Of course!" Rachel agreed, patting my hand that I was being logical again.

It couldn't be Percy.

It couldn't be, I kept telling myself that as I slid my laptop back into its case and got up from my seat at the diner that I had been going to since I was sixteen.

Aside from the threat of running into Percy at any time, I loved being back in New York. I loved going to the places that I went to as I was growing up. I loved getting off from work and exploring the city like I used to when I was a teenager.

Every time, there was something new.

A new building. A newly opened store. Something shut down. Or someone new was added into the crowd of pedestrians.

Things could change here. Nothing was ever the same.

And I liked that.

I could start over here.

"Alright, send me a picture, okay?" Rachel smiled, "I want to see if he's as hot in person as he is online."

I smiled and nudged her.

"Will do."

Percy,

My cell phone pinged with a new text.

Wish u were with us!

-N

I clicked to see the picture that had been taken with Noah's camera phone, and I had to turn my iPhone upside down to be able to see the picture of Noah with JoJo at some arcade, where Noah was holding a teddy bear that was bigger than him.

At least they're having fun

I saved the picture, smiling to myself as I looked down at my watch.

Almost time to go meet her…

I shoved my cell phone into my jacket pocket, silently thinking about how strange it was that it was already cold this fall, and I started walking from the park towards the ice cream shop where I had been taking my son for the last three years.

I didn't know why I had chosen the ice cream shop when WG had asked a place to meet, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

And, now that I was thinking about other places that I could have chosen, I realized that the ice cream shop was really the only place I could choose. Everywhere else, I had a memory with Annabeth. And I wanted a new memory for WG, or whatever her name was.

What was her name?

Alex?

Beatrice?

Cassie?

I was beginning to think of different names when I saw her.

"Oh Crap," I stopped and moved behind an oak tree in the park I was crossing, and I hesitantly craned around to make sure that it was her.

Definitely.

That's Annabeth.

She looked the same as she had when we were sixteen, absolutely beautiful, even in a pair of old jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt. Shouldering her ancient computer bag, something her father had bought her years ago, Annabeth seemed to be in a hurry to get wherever she was going.

I wanted to continue to hide behind the tree until she was gone.

But the problem was that I had somewhere to be, too.

I held my breath but finally got my feet moving.

I had been in New York my entire life, I knew it like the back of my hand. It should have been easy to get away from Annabeth, to take the shortcut to the ice cream shop I had been going to for years.

But my problem was that Annabeth had a good memory.

She also knew the shortcut, and she was also using it.

I didn't know that though, so I kept on walking.

Walking straight on until I ran into a certain someone.

"Oh I'm sorry."

"It was my-"

Her grey eyes widened, and I froze.

"You," her jaw tightened, but she didn't leave like I expected her to.

And I couldn't move.

"What are you doing here?" Annabeth crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing.

"I'm not allowed to walk through a park now?"

"No, you're not!" Annabeth threw her arms in the air, and I began to sense an Annabeth-breakdown coming on.

"Then what am I allowed to do then?"

"Don't come near me!" she yelled.

"Do you want me to put a tracking device on you so I know where not to go? Or do you just certain parts of the city?"

"Don't be such a smart-alike, Percy!" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

Only she didn't say Smart-Alike.

A mom glared at us as she covered her toddler son's ears and started driving the stroller away.

"Me? Me?"

"Yes, you!" Annabeth yelled, not caring about how everyone in the entire park was now staring.

"Your little Seaweed Brain?" I sneered, and her grey eyes grew hard.

"Why not? You're already a hypocrite! Might as well add that to the list!" Annabeth jabbed at me.

"How am I a hypocrite?"

"Noah!" Annabeth screamed, "You were so jealous when that guy in the office had a crush on me, but then you were cheating the entire time! And now you parade as this wonderful father, and just how long were you absent in Noah's life!"

"What the hell are you talking about? I have always been there for my son, and don't you dare say any differently!"

"I can do the math if he's six, Percy!"

"He's five, Genius!"

Annabeth's mouth dropped open, and she shrank back.

"What?" her voice was small, almost inaudible.

"His birthday is June fourteenth," I lowered my voice, suddenly not able to scream at her anymore.

Annabeth's grey eyes widened as she did the math.

No, her eyes widened because she finally understood.

I didn't leave because the guilt about having a secret son was getting to me. I wasn't so jealous because I was also cheating and knew the signs. I wasn't distant because I knew that there was a child out there who shared my DNA and not Annabeth's, too.

I was jealous because I loved her more than anything. I was distant because the guilt about JoJo was eating at me and I didn't know how to tell her. And I left because of Noah…

"He's five," Annabeth repeated, holding her hand to her mouth as she figured everything out, put the pieces together.

I didn't know what to do.

Should I hold my pride or comfort her?

Should I keep explaining or let her figure it all out for herself?

Should I tell her I miss her or was that still too wrong to do?

Annabeth didn't give me a chance to come up with an answer.

She looked up at me, looking me in the eyes for the first time since she had looked at me when I had told her that I was leaving six years ago, and she bit her lip to keep the tears from falling in front of me.

Annabeth opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped before she could.

And then she was gone, in the opposite direction from the way she had been heading when I ran into her.

I fished my cell phone out of my pocket.

I still had time if I wanted to go meet WG, but I suddenly couldn't do it.

I zipped my jacket up to my chin since I wouldn't need the college tee shirt calling-card anymore, and I began to walk back towards where I had started.

Why didn't it feel good?

I had wanted to tell her the truth, to tell her that she had it wrong. That, while I was pretty bad, I wasn't that evil.

But, before now, she could hate me with everything she had. She knew that I wasn't just cruel to her but that I was just a monster. She could just blame it on me being the jerk that I was underneath, and she never had to think about the fact that I had just made a mistake. That things really could have ended up differently.

That I wouldn't have left. That I would have married her. And that Noah could be our son.

I began to walk faster as I tried to get that image out of my head.

Before, I had hated the way her grey eyes had looked at me like I was Hades, like I was worse than Hades actually. That I was the worst scum that the Underworld could come up with.

But I liked that a million times more than the way she had looked at me today.

For the last six years, I had been thinking about the day I left Annabeth, in particular the way she had looked at me. The way she couldn't decide if she wanted to cry or scream. To hate me or to get on her knees and beg me to stay. To kill me or kiss me. But the one thing her eyes could decide on was pain.

The pure pain was more than I had ever seen, and it was killing me as I thought about it.

My alarm buzzed on my cell phone, and I brought it out to see the capitol letter alarm I had left, MEETING WITH WG!

I pressed ignore and mentally started planning my email apologizing for standing her up.


I know it's short, and it's not exactly where I was planning on going with this chapter. But here it is *Shrug*