36. Adventure
Many people will tell you love is an adventure.
Some, Leo supposes, will say that the only worthwhile loves are the ones where your heart breaks and disappointment reigns until, finally, two people can't stay away from one another any longer and they get their happily ever after.
Others might say a calm, dependable love is best. One that is steady and constant, unquestionable. Of course, the couple will have their challenges, but there is no hopeless struggle, or surrender to whatever life throws at you if you are not with the one you love.
Honestly, he couldn't tell you which is better. It would be nice to have a quiet life with the one you love, of that there is no doubt, but Leo doesn't think he would be satisfied without the passion and feeling.
You know the one. You must. If you've been in love- in love like Leo was, with the uncertainty and the risk and the sacrifice- then you must know. The feeling you get when you know, without a doubt, no matter what happens, the person you love loves you back just as much.
It's that moment, that feeling, that keeps Leo going.
Love with Reyna, because that is who Leo loves, Reyna, the girl who he is absolutely sure is his soulmate, is an adventure.
It started with school.
Leo had just got stuck at a new foster home- don't ask- and was now sent to Half-Blood High.
If it wasn't for his new friends, Piper, Jason, Percy, Frank, Hazel and Annabeth, he probably would have left the first day.
If it weren't for Reyna he definitely would have left before the end of the year. Because no matter where he went, or who he stayed with, no matter how nice the family was, none of them could replace his mother.
But somehow, despite him telling himself not to, he made friends. And with friends came roots and with roots came the need to stay.
Hedge partnered them up for an English project, Reyna invited him to her place (when her dad conveniently wasn't there) to work on it a few weeks after he had first come to the school and he had kissed her.
From there… it had been one of the passionate torturous loves.
Her father told her she couldn't date. It was a secret. They met in secret corners- at the start it was sexual, with no ties closer than a brief friendship. Eventually it wasn't just about the sex and the mystery of Reyna Arellano.
Eventually he got to know her, and that was worse. This path he was letting himself go down was dangerous- his heart was in serious danger from this girl.
No matter how many nights he stayed awake thinking about her, about leaving this home, about leaving his friends, he always went to school the next day.
Leo had heard a lot about forbidden loves and tragedies. He had heard of Romeo and Juliet. And while he was expecting nothing as horrific as suicide and poison in their ending, he was sure it couldn't end well with them.
Because she was a drug, one that he would inevitably have to quit. Somehow, sometime, they would have to stop.
Leo knew he couldn't do it. He didn't have the strength for that.
But he also knew that in stories soulmates got their happy endings. And that his adventure with Reyna, their love story, was far from over.