A/N: THIS IS CHAPTER 25, ACCIDENTALLY POSTED AFTER 26.
Yes, I am a fool.
I accidentally posted the wrong one last week! Really sorry about that. I've switched them around now hence the early update. Not the end of the world as the time jump comes at the end of this chapter, but I hope you guys can forgive me as it won't happen again! ~ Emma
Ah Sundays. The day that Rory seemed to have to dedicate to homework every weekend due to various demigod related events happening each weekend. It felt stupid to be sitting at his desk answering questions on gravity instead of storming over to Rileys house and telling him they knew what he was doing, but Rory understood that it wouldn't solve anything. Now that they knew it was him, Riley was powerless. That didn't stop him worrying about Emma. He had watched her die once before and he was never going to be ready to see it again.
It was late when he closed his last book. At least he would be sure to get some done next weekend. Emma had reluctantly agreed to go with Annabeth to the year-round-summer camp for demigods. He wondered what he would do with all the time. It's not like he would hang out with Riley. Maybe he would pick up his guitar for the first time in a while or catch up with some of his LA friends, see if anyone of them had been kidnapped by murderous mythical monsters. As he fell asleep he hoped that they wouldn't invade his dreams again.
Rory parked his car outside Emma's apartment building. They had agreed to walk from there as Emma had refused to be the girl who drove into school in a different guys car right after she broke up with Austin. He understood, knowing that she liked to keep a low profile. She was clearly making her best attempt to return to that life. Dressed in a large grey knit sweater, that was tucked into the front of her blue jeans, she could have been any girl in the school if it wasn't for her black combat boots. Her hair was up, but she still let some strands hang around her face. He felt compelled to take in everything about her. The Winter Solstice was only two months away and he wasn't going to waste a moment of it, even if he was still determined to find a loophole. There was no way he was going to let that come true.
"Sure you don't wanna take the car?" He asked, as she came down the steps.
"Absolutely." She said with a confident smile.
"What are you so happy about?" He said as they began to walk.
"Returning to my life as a nobody. I can read my book at lunch, I won't talk to Austin and after a few days, no one will even look at me."
"Is that the aim, huh?" He teased.
"That's always the aim, McKenzie."
Emma had known she wouldn't be invisible yet. She had prepared herself for whispers and stares, but that hadn't made them any easier to bare. She had pretended not to hear as she walked through the hallway.
"That's Austin Rileys new girlfriend."
"Are you sure?"
"Guys like Austin don't go for girls like her."
"I heard he cheated on her on Friday night with Betty."
"After just one week?"
"Did she really think she had a chance at holding onto him?"
"She must be so upset."
"Is she new?"
"No, I swear that's the freak that always sits on her own?"
She wondered what it would be like for people to know you for something other than the boy you were dating for a week. She wondered if any of them even knew her name.
Down the corridor, she saw a familiar head of black hair. Percy. When their gaze met, he quickly looked away and turned down the nearest corridor. She had the urge to follow him. Was she really going to do this? Apologise?
'The wandering child must learn to trust, To stop the world returning to dust.'
Urg. She was already sick of that line pinging around her head like a terrible, catchy pop song.
She started pacing down the hall, shaking her head at herself. She became so lost in her thoughts that she almost rammed into his back instead of stopping.
"Percy." She said, grabbing his arm. He looked at her with disbelief and she knew she had to start talking before she could stop herself. She didn't think she'd ever spoken so fast. "I'm sorry for what I said on Saturday. I know you're only trying to look after me but I don't exactly have the best history with family. In fact, I'm pretty sure my experience is closer to Annabeths than yours and I'm sure you can imagine what would try and happen if you insinuated to her that she couldn't defend herself, but that's not my point. My point is I shouldn't take out my anger on you like that. I had a… well a rough weekend and I thought I'd be better off if I went back to being alone, but the prophecy said that if I don't learn to trust, everyone going to die and if that's not a motivation to learn how to trust people, then I'm not sure what is. So I'm asking you to be patient with me. After everything with my family and Austin and E-"
Evans name stuck in her throat like a gag reflex. The nausea returned and she couldn't shake it.
"Emma." Percy said, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Emma what happened this weekend?"
She took a deep breath. She knew how sheepish she looked, clutching onto her necklace to keep herself grounded. She told him the whole story. Everything with Austin and Evan. Percy looked horrified when she finished.
"Emma, I am so sorry." He said.
"No. I'm the one that should be sorry." She said, holding up a hand. "However, from now on you have to promise to stop trying to protect me. You're literally one year older than me."
"I promise." He said, with an annoyingly older-brothery smile on his face.
"Good."
"But I never promised not to kick Evan's teeth in, so watch out for that one."
"Percy!"
He laughed and she rolled her eyes. She felt somewhat of a weight lifted off her chest. Holding people at arm's length was hard. A lot harder than letting herself heal with the people she cared about around her.
Rory sat with the guys at lunch. He had tried to position himself away from Evan and Riley but had unfortunately ended up across the table from the latter. He tried to relax, cracking the usual jokes but made sure not to laugh at anything Evan said. Rory hated how Evan could just get away with forcing himself on Emma. The state she had been in compared to the way he smiled easily made Rory want to punch him in the face. When Rory looked over at Riley, he seemed to be thinking the same. Whenever Evan spoke Riley shot him down.
"So, Riley." Owen started through a mouthful of food. "What happened with your girl on Friday night? She just disappeared."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you spent more time with Betty than with her." Mike added.
Rory could see Austin tense as they spoke. Rory sat quietly waiting to see what Riley would do.
"She just got wasted. Girl can't handle her drink, what can I say." Austin didn't look up from his food as he said it. Rory had never known him to have trouble playing it cool.
"Bro, she was a mess." Evan added laughing. He fucking laughed. Rory clenched his fist around his knife, letting the metal dig into his skin.
"Oh, you spend a lot of time with her then, Evan?" Austin said glaring him.
"Why would I want to?" Evan said smoothly.
Owen and Mike seemed to sense the tension and exchanged a glance with each other and then Rory.
"So that you could kiss her maybe?" Austin snarled throwing his fork onto his tray.
"Did your freak of a girlfriend tell you that?" Evan snapped back.
"Don't act like I didn't see it, Evan. She was literally trying to push you off." Rory said, narrowing his eyes at the blonde boy. Evan shot him a deadly glare.
"You only wanted to get rid of me so you could have her for yourself. Guess we all want a piece of the untouched." The grin on Evans face was enough to make anyone sick.
"Don't fucking talk about her like that, you asshole. Don't talk about anyone like that." Rory raged. He stood up, pushing his chair back.
"It was a joke, chill out." Evan said, icily. "Look man, I'm sorry I moved on your girl. I didn't realise you were serious about her."
"You're not meant to apologise to him." Rory fumed. "You didn't push yourself on Riley, you pushed yourself on Emma. That's literally sexual harassment. She's the one you hurt, prick."
"Am I the only one seeing that he's got the hots for your girl, Riley?" Evan said, trying to shift the conversation.
"Evan, shut your damn mouth!" Riley shouted.
The whole cafeteria was looking at them now. Rory even glanced over to see that Emma had looked up from her book. Her face was white.
"Get the fuck out." Riley growled through clenched teeth.
"Riley, come on. We've been friends for years." Evan pleaded.
"Get the fuck away from me, or I will get her to report you and you'll get kicked off the team." Riley continued. "So get, the fuck, out."
Evan got to his feet.
"Whatever, man. This is bullshit." Evan spat. "I'm the oldest friend you've got. I hope you remember that soon or I'm done."
As Evan walked away everyone started talking amongst themselves again. The spark of friday nights gossip just got drenched in gasoline.
"Hey Rory, about Saturday..." Austin said after a few moments. Rory felt his chest tighten. "You were just being her friend, I get that now. I should have done a better job looking out for her and I'm glad you could when I was being a jerk. Are we cool?"
Rory wanted to scream at Austin and tell him that nothing about this was 'cool'. Instead he plastered on a smile and said;
"Of course, dude."
Rory managed to maintain normalcy through the awkwardness that was the rest of lunch, but when he walked out of the canteen he sighed with relief. He wasn't like Emma. He wasn't used to pretending all day in front of his friends. He didn't even hide well in front of his family.
"Hey." He heard a voice say and he almost jumping out of his skin.
"Jesus, Liam, you scared the crap out of me." Rory sighed.
"Sorry." Liam said, rubbing his neck. Until friday night, Rory had always seen Liam as kinda shy. He was the shortest guy on the swim team and him and Tyler usually kept to themselves. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Things seemed to get pretty heated out there."
"Oh right, yeah. It's fine, don't worry about it." Rory wasn't quite sure how to respond.
"Look if you wanted some time away from them you're always welcome to come sit with me and Ty. Emma too, if she'd like. We had fun on friday."
Rory was surprised. When he thought about friday night he remembered being relieved when he found Emma with Liam, but he'd never really considered how long Emma had been with him before he got there. By the sounds of it, quite a while. He definitely considered Liam a friend, but the kind of friend he wouldn't go out of his way to see. Maybe that was time to change.
"Thanks, man, I appreciate it." Rory said, honestly. "And thanks for taking Emma in on Friday. I had no idea that Riley wasn't with her."
"Oh don't worry about it, she was great. You should get her out more, everyone loved her. Shame she had to leave early. Hope she's okay." Liam said offering a smile.
"Yeah, we'll see. I'm not sure she'll be too keen any time soon." Rory said. "But I'll let her know about sitting with you guys. Thanks again."
When Rory walked away, his faith in the guys at Goode High had been restored a little.