Wow. Two chapters in one day! Your welcome! Please review!
*This chapter happens one month after the last one.
Disclaimer: I do not own PJO.
Halloween passed, with Thalia, Clarisse, Katie, Silena, Percy, Nico, Grover, and I all trick-or-treating together. Luke, Rachel, and their gang still aggravate us every day, but I guess I've almost gotten used to it. Some days are worse than others, and some days I just hear whispers and mutters directed at us, the "loser" group of our grade.
Thalia decide to wimp out on playing softball for school this year, and the track-and –field finals have passed, with me winning the sprint and my team winning the baton relay for the championships between the local school and their teams. Rachel had stayed on the team, but had been banned from a couple of meets.
She had come in tenth in the sprints out of all the kids, getting third best for our team. Argos had also put her on my team for the relay along with a fourth grader named Phoebe and another fifth grade girl, Zoë. I had pulled ahead of the team ahead of us on the last lap and made us win the baton-relay championships. Rachel had been even madder at me ever since, still ticked off that I had made the team even after almost two months of doing track.
Today the morning had gone as usual, Percy and I walking to school together and then Grover and Nico joining us in the classroom to joke around and clean. Now lunch had come, and it was the same drill as every other day.
The eight of us were eating lunch, trying to have a normal conversation with each other when of course Rachel and Luke had to step in. Rachel came up behind me and Percy and sat between us. Now, the tables that our school has for lunch are pretty small and usually only fit four people per bench on the side of the table. So when Rachel sat down, I was knocked onto the ground due to the fact I was sitting on the edge of the bench.
I silently cursed and pulled myself up, brushing the dirt of my jeans. That was the first time that Rachel had pushed me of the bench. I looked over at Luke and saw that he had pulled the same stunt as Rachel and had knocked Grover off the bench. All of our friends were glaring daggers at the uninvited guests.
"Whatever, you guys," Percy said to our group, "Let's just leave."
I nodded, and we all started collecting our lunches and backpacks to go down to the lower playground area.
"Running away so fast Chase?" Rachel sneered to my retreating back.
I stopped in my tracks, and didn't breathe. I bit my lip and decided what to do. I turned back around, and saw that Rachel had now stood up to face me, her green eyes piercing me and her mouth sneering cruelly at me, begging me to pick a fight with her and her friends.
My breath was shaking, and then I felt someone tug on my arm. I glanced behind me to meet Percy's eyes. He nodded to my friends, telling me to head along with them and ignore Rachel. I turned back around to look at Rachel's sneering face. At the last second, I turned my back to her again and left with my friends.
When we got to our handball court, Percy turned to face me for the first time, and I knew what was coming.
"What's Rachel's deal?" Percy said.
The rest of my friends came up behind me, interested in my answer. The handball lay by the wall, our game forgotten.
"Look, Rachel and I do have a small history and it does involve Luke. And once again, I don't want to talk about it. She knows what she can say to hurt me, and she uses that, as you can tell. That's all I'm saying."
I knew that my friends wanted more information about it, but they left it at that. Even Grover didn't know why I left Luke and his friends. I knew he left because Percy and Nico became friends and Grover learned that they were better friends to him than Luke. I already had my four girls as my other friends, but I had still hung out with the boys too.
For the rest of our game, we just had small talk and didn't really joke around, our minds on Luke and Rachel.
After school, the eight of us were planning on staying after school and just hang out, maybe do some homework or something. So after lunch, the girls and I double-checked with the boys about our plans. Everything was still going to go as planned.
In class, Mr. Brunner gave us free time to read our class book. I settled behind the counter along with a few other kids. We were reading Bridge to Teribithia for required fifth grade academics at our school. I leaned against the back of the counter and settled down.
About five minutes later, I felt someone sit down next to me. I looked to my left to face Luke. I rolled my eyes, not wanting to deal with any more jerks today. I looked down, and kept reading. I felt Luke's eyes still trained on me.
"What do you want?" I hissed.
He didn't answer.
"I want to know why you left." He sneered. His voice was cold and untrustworthy.
I sat up, and looked over the counter. Mr. Brunner was at his desk, grading papers. Percy, Nico, and Grover were at their desks reading. Katie was at the front of the classroom, sprawled out on the floor with her book. By her, Rachel sat on a stool, her eyes focused on her reading. Thalia and Silena were at their desks. Under our table, Clarisse was lying down, propped up on her elbows to read.
No one was paying any attention to our conversation. Suddenly I realized something. Rachel wasn't glancing at the counter. She didn't know that Luke was talking to me.
I sat back down to glare at Luke.
"Why should I tell you why I left? You never asked last year."
He didn't have an answer to that.
"Why now?" I finished.
He glared at me for a few more seconds, and then answered.
"What kind of jerk hangs out with people for a year and then ditches them without any explanation?"
"Is this why you have been torturing my friends and me every day?" I hissed, snapping my book shut.
"You act like I'm the bully Annabeth. Who was the one who ditched their friends?" He said through clenched teeth.
"What the heck Luke? Why didn't you ask me last year? You could've said something to me about it. But no, you just went on as though nothing had happened. You didn't care at all that Grover and I didn't hang out with you anymore. You never cared about us."
He rolled his eyes and sneered at me.
"Whatever. You left us and didn't even look back."
"You think I didn't look back? You think I never missed you guys?"
"Yeah! I do!"
"Well you obviously didn't miss me either, I mean, you replaced me with Rachel!"
"And we didn't replace the cripple!" Luke said in a sing-song voice.
"Don't talk about Grover that way." I snarled.
"Oh, protecting your loser friends again? What a good friend." Luke sneered back. "I told you before, and I am telling you again. You only have the losers left, and you belong with them."
I blinked back the tears starting to form. I cursed how weak I was acting in front of him.
"You probably think you're the smartest girl in school. News flash Annabeth, you aren't that special. You're not smarter than anyone here. Stop acting like you are," Luke finished.
The bell rang just as the tears started spilling. Like Rachel, Luke knew how to make me feel so weak.
I stood up and without thinking, ran out the door without my stuff. In the hallway, my classmates were celebrating about the weekend that had just started. I ran past them, my hands covering my face. I stumbled down the stairs and turned into the girls' bathroom in the hall by our classroom.
I got in one of stalls and shut the door. I leaned against the door and cursed myself again for crying over what Luke said. I waited, calming my breathing down. Then, I heard footsteps outside the bathroom. The footsteps came into the bathroom, and I saw my friends' shoes.
"Told you Thalia. See her converse under the door?" I heard Clarisse say.
"Annabeth?" I heard four voices say.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This story will only be about fifteen chapters long and will not have a sequel. It will end after fifth grade and have a tiny epilogue. Don't expect this story to be long.
Thanks for reading and please review!