CHAPTER ELEVEN - My Problems Are Only For Me, Not Everyone!

There was a sudden knock at my door. I groaned loud enough for whoever it was to hear. Maybe they'd get the message and piss off.

I kept where I was. Flopped down on the bed. I just needed some time. I needed to sort shit out in my head. I needed fucking time God dammit.

Suddenly the door handle squealed as it turned. I shot up, leaping towards the door in an attempt to shut it. Why the fuck do these people have no locks? How stupid are they? Bloody Crow Lady.

"Fuck off," I told whoever it was as I held the door shut.

"After you fuck off from the door." Jesus, just great. It's Percy. The pressure from the other side amped up and I found myself using both hands and bracing myself on the door to keep it closed.

"Fuck off, Percy," I growled through gritted teeth.

"Fuck off from the door, Annabeth," he retaliated. He pushed harder and my feet began to slide backwards.

How strong is this kid? And how frustrating is this kid?!

"Give it up, Percy!" I shouted at him. Well, at the door, technically.

"Nope." Ha, well finally he stopped pretty much parroting my wor-

Suddenly I was flung to the ground as the door burst open. And there, standing triumphantly in the doorway, was freaking Percy Jackson. I have an urge to get up and hug him. Wait – did I just say hug? I meant punch. I have an urge to punch him.

He stepped in, closing the door after him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I glared at him but he just looked down at me confused. "Jesus Christ, is there seaweed clogging your brain or something? I told you quite clearly to fuck. Off."

"And I told you quite clearly, nope."

I full on glared at him. He had the nerve to smirk.

"So, Annabeth, what's going on?" he raised an eyebrow. "I figured it out. Well, some of it. You were hurt by one of your foster siblings." I flinched and a shiver went down my spine. "That's what you meant earlier today and that's why you flinch at that word."

By brain flat-lined. This is… crazy. How? How did he manage to draw a conclusion that fast? And that close to the whole truth?

Hold it. He is friends with him. He probably told Percy everything. Percy probably knows. They probably talk about it all the time. Make fun of me. Laugh at me. He probably even boasts about it all like he's some kind of sick, tormented, twisted fucking hero.

"Annabeth?"

His smirk had dropped and now he was frowning at my in concern. Fake. It'll be all fake.

"Get. Out." I said in a very calm, even voice. Inside, though, I was shaking. Screaming. Hurting. "Just. Get. Out."

Percy hesitated. Something in the back of his brain must have told him to go, that I wasn't screwing around with him anymore. I'd closed off. Now he had to go.

He got to the door, half in and half out, and paused. He looked back over his shoulder at me.

"You know, you never really answered my question. Life was your answer, but that's too broad. Too brief. So Annabeth? I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I'll find out what your secret is."

He left, closing the door softly after him. It was minutes before I fully acknowledged I was alone again. My eyes glazed over as I looked at the door, yet didn't really see it.

Something in me snapped.

I crawled around to the other side of the bed, reached underneath the mattress, and pulled out one of the things I had actually bothered to unpack and place somewhere on the first day here. My razer.

I ditched school for the next three days, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Also staying away from everyone on the weekend. Instead, I roamed the streets. From 9:00 in the morning until 10:30 at night. I left later, avoiding the other lot.

There was a lot of knocks on my bedroom door. Mostly Juniper trying to get me to open up and let her in, both metaphorically and literally. Leo came once, offering a bag of cheese balls. Jason was the one always pulling everyone (mostly Juniper) away from the door, telling them that I need some space and I would talk when I wanted. None of them really knew what was going on, it seemed.

Percy visited the door frequently every morning. Once I even heard him sigh but instead of leaving, he slid down the wall. He talked to me through it. Mostly asking questions in which I replied with an insult towards him or silence.

My wrists and arms still stung slightly. So did the ones on my stomach. Cuts, that is. I'd lasted a whole month, then lost control. But hey, this was pretty much my worst nightmare. I would so much rather the physical pain than emotional.

The lines of dried blood and the white ones underneath it, reminded me of battle scars. The evidence of the war inside me, raging each day.

Today was Monday. Susan had yelled at me again. So, I am actually going to go to school today. Not for long, but whatever. I'll still be attending or whatever.

Like the other days, Juniper came by a total of five times before Jason dragged her downstairs.

"I'm here for you, Annabeth."

That seems to be her favourite line. She ended with that each time.

I heard the door creak very softly, alerting me to the fact that there was a body leaning against it.

"So, Anniebeth," the voice drawled out. I could practically see the huge smirk on his face through the door. "Think you're a bit of a rebel, don'tcha?"

"It's Annabeth, Goth Kid," I snapped, not bothering to hide the annoyance and frustration in my voice.

"Sure, whatever. Lost your fire have you? Not much bite left in you anymore. I think I have to retract my statement about you being half alright. You're back to boring. I hate boring," Nico said.

For unknown reasons, I wanted to yank the door open and throttle the kid or just hit him. Obnoxious little shit.

"Run, Goth Kid," I told him, "I hate wankers. Usually I knock them out. Congratulations, you are now on my hit list." I tried to put as much venom in my voice as I could.

His deep chuckle came through the door. "Game on, Anniebeth."

Strolling into school past mid-day, I casually made my way through the school to my Greek classroom. Mr Burner- no, what was it? Brunner. Yeah that's it – wouldn't be too harsh hopefully. Meh, who really cares anyway? Shit happens.

I walked through the door and every pair of eyes was drawn to me like a moth is to a flame.

"Miss Chase? You're very late," I rolled my eyes at this. No, really? "I must admit, I was not expecting you."

"Surprise," I said with complete sarcasm.

I went and took my seat.

"Ah, so as I was saying before Miss Chase joined us," that's a nice way of saying that I rudely interrupted his class, "today you get your first assignment."

Groans went through the class. The last stares at me disappeared as they found out about this 'unfortunate' news about the assignment.

Sheets of paper stapled together landed on my desk. I raised an eyebrow at what was written on the front page. Blah blah blah… research a Greek god or goddess… yada yada yada… write an essay about whomever it is… 1,000 – 1,200 words…

Yeah, this'll be a Not Doing.

"…this assignment will be partnered one," wait, what?! " Everyone's name is in this hat so I'll pull out one and then the next name I pull out will be their partner."

Since when was this a partnered assignment?! It does not say that on the freaking front of the freaking assignment! Quickly I skimmed through the outline again. Oh crap. It does say "partnered assignment". Shit. They expect me to work with someone else.

Zoning back into Mr Brunner, he was now pulling names from a hat.

"Silena…" he pulled another name from the hat, "you'll be working with Katie-"

"What!" Katie shot up in her seat. "I am not working with her!" she pointed over to Silena who was looking rather annoyed as well. "You know we don't get along, Mr Brunner. I request a re-draw."

"I demand one," was Silena's response,

Mr Brunner slowly shook his head. "Sorry, girls, but what's done is done. There is no re-draws. It's about time you two sorted your differences out anyway. Who knows, this assignment might actually benefit you."

"I doubt it," Silena grumbled in front of me. Beckendorf leaned over and rubbed one of her shoulders reassuringly.

On the other side of the classroom Katie sat down with a "Huff!". She was seriously not happy about this. Travis nudged one side of her in a Shit-I'm-sorry-but-I'm-here-for-you gesture, while Connor nudged her other side in a Dude-sucks-to-be-you gesture.

"The next pairing we have is…" he pulled out a name, "Connor…and Juniper."

Juniper clapped in excitement, shot an apologetic look at a very deflated Grover, then turned around and gave Connor a welcoming grin. You know, if Juniper weren't so complete and utterly innocent, she would probably be labelled as a "tease". If people didn't understand that that was just how she was, then there would no doubt be a whole heap of rumours about her cheating on Grover and flirting with all the guys.

Connor was pretty shocked with Juniper's behaviour. He slowly smiled an unsure grin back at her but was very obviously confused.

I had to hold in a laugh at the look he was giving Travis and Katie that screamed Okay-I'm-creep-out-a-little-here-please-help.

"Lee and…Travis."

Travis shrugged and pocked a tongue at his brother. Lee – well, I assume the kid was Lee as he was the only other person to react – groaned and slumped onto his desk.

"Grover, your partner is…Beckendorf," Mr Brunner announced.

Grover turned and gave his new partner a shy smile, while in front of me, Beckendorf waved enthusiastically back at him.

"Next up is…Percy and…ah, good," Mr Brunner looked up from the note and straight at – oh are you fucking kidding me? Guess who? Yeah, fucking me. Just. My. Fucking. Luck. "You're lucky, Miss Chase, to be partnered with Percy on your first assignment. Percy is actually one of the top students in this class"- might I just say that Percy went tomato red at this. I couldn't see his face but his ears were like a fire truck –"so he'll be able to show you the ropes to this type of assignments. Percy, I expect the usual marks on both your assignments. Now, our next pair is…"

I looked away from Mr Brunner over to Percy. He'd gotten his normal colour back at least. Suddenly he looked over his shoulder. Right at me. And smirked.

Oh Hell.

Ten minutes later Mr Brunner clapped loudly to get our attention. Well he had to do something since he was sitting so low in that wheelchair.

"People, people, listen up," he said once everyone shut up. "With the remaining time in this lesson you are to get with your partner and sort out what God or Goddess you will write about. I want to know and have it written down before you leave this room. Now, move along."

Around me others got up and the chatter began, just louder and more open this time. Beckendorf shouted over to Grover that he would go over there. Grover just stood there looking a bit lost. Silena and Katie turned to each other and glared – neither moving towards the other. I guess if they did, the first to move would lose their contest.

"So, Annabeth," came Percy's voice as the boy pulled up a chair from the now abandoned desk next to mine, and set it beside me. "It's nice to finally see your face around here again." Those ocean green eyes glistened with an emotion I couldn't quite place. There was defiantly a bit of amusement in them…but there was something else too…

"Well I couldn't let everyone go without seeing it for too long, now could I?" I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, looking right back at him.

"Now that would just be painful for everyone," he played along, giving a wink. "So, any requests about for this assignment?"

"Yeah, a new partner," honesty is my style. Percy chuckled. "But I figure that's out of the question seeing as Goode's top enemy pair has to work together."

"Silena and Katie? Yeah, hate's an understatement when it comes to those two," he agreed. "Maybe I'll tell you a bit about all that later. Right now, though, I'm kinda hungry so can we hurry up and pick a God?"

"What about a Goddess? You're not sexiest, are you?" I shot back with a smirk of my own.

He looked a little offended. Sort of resembling a puppy that someone just kicked.

"No, of course not. We can do a Goddess if you want. Which one? Artemis? Hera? Aphrodite? Athena?"

My smirk fell as soon as he said that name. Athena. My mother.

"You choose," I told him.

He seemed a little shocked at first, but then shrugged it off. "Cool. I think we should do Poseidon. He has always been pretty awesome to me."

The bell shrilled.

"Done," I replied. "Poseidon it is."

I grabbed my bag and stood. I felt Percy shadowing me until the doorway where he stopped to write our God next to our names on the list Mr Brunner had set out. But I continued to walk right out the door.

"Hey Annabeth!" Percy called out to me as I was walking away from the classroom, towards the library. It was my free period now. instead of turning around, I called back over my shoulder.

"No."

He caught up to me easily and within seconds. He grinned sideways down at me.

"What you got now?" he asked.

"Spare."

"So you can start researching stuff then? I've got swimming, so I can't help you right now. But I'll see you this afternoon. I'll be at yours." He ditched me before I could tell him not to bother.

Frustrated, I sighed. Wandering around the library, I found a handful of books – actually it was more like an armful – and started to make my way over to my hidden spot.

Suddenly a body crashed into mine, pushing me backwards against the wall.

"Long time," the voice made my insides freeze. My breathing hitched. My heart started to beat anxiously. "No see."

I'm so so so sorry guys! I haven't updated for at least a week, I know and I'm so so so so sorry about that! I swear I legitimately am!

I always said that I wouldn't be one of those people to upload a chapter after, like, two weeks. It hasn't gotten that long, I know, but I do realise how frustrating it is to have to wait a shit load for the next chapter. And I didn't really leave you guys on a real exciting chapter. I'm sorry!

it's taken a long time, but I am proud to say that I am now pretty much on top of my assignments. I had five (I have 6 subjects btw, and I'd handed in my maths one a few weeks ago) and now I'm down to 3. My SOS feature article, well, I sort just chucked everything I had on the topic into it and handed it in. And today I hadn't in the script to my panel presentation/interview thingo. I literally just bullshitted my way through that one.

So I'm sure you all heard about the soldier who was hacked to death in England. I seriously don't know how the fuck people can do that. Those asshole terrorists, I just don't understand how they could do something so cut-off from being a citizen, so inhumane. And in the public. It's bad enough that happened, let alone in front of crowds of people. It's like those brothers who bombed the marathon I mentioned in previous Authors Notes.

I just don't understand how people could do something so inhumane. I just can't get my head around it.

When I'm a police officer, I'm going to help people. I'm going to save people from being the victims of these hideous acts of cruelty. I'm going to help.

I'll end this note short so I can publish this sooner for y'all.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TO ALL MY NEW FOLLOWERS!

And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all those who have reviewed! I really am trying to take into consideration your opinions and thoughts. I understand that some don't like Annabeth's character, and I'm sorry about that. I don't know how I can really change that. I know how you feel, though, about hating a main character even though you love the book (I hate Elena in the Vampire Diaries books, yet I really love them, especially Bonnie!).

And you'll find out a bit more about Percy's past as well. It's coming up soon.

THANK YOU ALL!

- Cassie.