Hey guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: If I was Rick Riordan, I'd probably say so (over, and over again, it'd get kind of annoying).

She'd thought the words too much over the past two weeks, but it didn't matter, because she was saying them again. What the hell? She muttered to herself, over and over again, ignoring Piper's concerned looks.

What the hell had she caught herself almost saying? Sure, it was a life of death type circumstance, but still what the hell?

All of it was getting repetitive at this point, it felt like everyday the same things were circling through her head, chastising her. Making this godforsaken move last longer than it should. Sometimes, like now, she just wanted to scream. Bury her face into her pillow, and let it all out, not carrying who would hear.

She wanted to not feel self-conscious of herself, to be able get through the day without looking back and forth. But of course now, avoidance was key. She didn't want to see Percy. She didn't want to see anyone, except for maybe Piper.

And she couldn't face her old friends. The concerned look on their faces when Piper had ushered her out, she didn't want to face those again. Especially Thalia's. Thalia rarely pitied anyone, but at that moment, she looked like she really did.

Burying her head into her pillow, she cringed, having a quick flashback to what had happened. It wasn't even a kiss, she knew that. There was nothing romantic about mouth to mouth. It literally only happened so that she wouldn't drown, or die. She knew that, and there was no reason to overthink it. She didn't even know why she was, she was trying to get over Percy.

And plus, he would do that to anyone. She wasn't special- she'd never be. She was an ordinary woman, out of seven point eight billion people. It didn't matter what she did, because it wouldn't have an impact on everything. With all of her years alive, she'd met people that had an impact on her own life, but what did that really matter? Her life wasn't meaningful. And yes, she'd live it, even if the days were hard to get through.

She pulled herself up from her sheets, and groaned again. Why did all of this romance shit have to be so hard? Why couldn't this be a romance novel, where the route to sorting herself would be much easier to see. An immaculate plan would fall into place in just seconds, and Annabeth would hurrah at her own prowess.

She tapped her head. There wasn't much prowess in there as far as she was concerned. Really, the only thing going through her mind was avoidance. Because avoidance always worked in real life. Sure, in the movies there was always some dramatic reunitions scene, but this was real life. Not the movies.

She checked her watch again, and it only showed that thirty minutes had passed. Piper had retreated to her room to do some work on a patient which Annabeth obviously couldn't see (confidentiality and all that shit), so she was alone, forced to tend to her own wounds.

She grabbed her phone. Hopefully it would offer her some kind of Solace. It was clouded with texts from her friends, which she tried to ignore. They all said the same thing, "Are you and Percy back together?" "Are you okay Annie?" "You can talk to us about anything you know?" "What's up with you and Percy? You guys are both acting weird." "Call us if you need us, okay?"

She knew confrontation was coming, but in that time period, she tried the best to avoid it. Luckily Piper didn't ask too many questions. She just drove her back to the hotel, and let her cry her eyes out on the bed. Piper was awesome like that.

And the first step to revitalization, Instagram.

She clicked out of that a minute later. In some cases, taking a peek into other people's glamorous lives was great, but now, it made her want to barf. Who cared that a certain celebrity got a new dog? The fact that her west coast friends were staying up and partying all night was stupid. Normally, she'd direct message one of them and ask for a location, but now, it felt stupid.

She switched to her kindle app. But that too offered no cleansing to her wounds (or whatever you called them, she didn't dwell on the logistics).

For the last month, she'd been reading the same science fiction book. It was pretty thick, but interesting. The plot was slow moving, and although it was a good book, she found herself yawning at it. Obviously that wasn't working.

Final try: Youtube. If this didn't work, she was surely going insane. Watching random videos on youtube always helped. Through the years, she'd gone through so many spirals, and discovered so many weird videos, that she absolutely loved.

There was something cleansing, almost, about seeing someone that was a little bit more crazy than you were. Annabeth's secret guilt: she loved watching cringey, clickbait vlogs. They made her laugh, just the inaneness, the stupidity of it all. She'd giggled about it many times, up all night, wondering how the hell these people got the idea to do something like this.

This day was no different. She clicked onto one of the vlog channels, and giggled as the intro started. This was one of the only things she giggled at. Other times she maintained this little cackle, a snort, almost as if she was a halloween witch, cackling over a cauldron.

The timeline said the video was about twenty minutes, and she told herself that after this, she would go to be. The sheer stupidity of it might lure her to sleep, she thought, and giggled again.

"Holy shit," She laughed, setting the phone down as the video ended. "What the hell?" She whispered to herself, and then looked to her phone again.

It wouldn't hurt to watch one more… she told herself.

At least four videos later and four sodas, she shook her head. Yeah, that definitely hurt more. It had been an hour since everything, and Annabeth found that hard to believe. Just an hour? It had felt like eternity.

Sometimes it was nice to indulge and forget. It was better if she wasn't drinking too. She'd felt herself wanting to go to the bar, and just drink many times before, and a lot of those times, she had. In some cases, it helped, but in others, it left her feeling hungover and unsatisfied. It was a short term solver, and although Annabeth, as all other twenty-five years olds, she liked to drink.

When she was twenty-one, just legal, everyone was doing it. Annabeth had been more hesitant, but eventually it had helped. Not completely, because it always left her with this empty feeling after it, but for the moment it did.

But since then, Annabeth had been trying to find long term solutions to solve her own problems. And now, she had a lot of problems. Plus, if stuff like stupid youtube vlogs would help her, then of course she was going to take it.

That is, without Piper or anyone else knowing. She wasn't that brave.

So she continued her cycle, watching videos and checking social media. It would help her, for now at least.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was again, kind of filler for what's happening next, but I still hope you liked it. I'm really working towards our next plot point, so hopefully, we get there soon enough. I'd like to thank everyone for the support- you guys are all awesome, thank you all so much!

Stay safe and healthy!

TheLil'Lion

Replies:

Caelus226, thank you so much! That means a lot, and I'm glad you've began writing more because of this (:

GodZeus, I don't want to get on any gods bad side… but I need a couple more chapters before I get them back together. Also, thanks so much for the compliments- I'm glad that you're enjoying the story!