Over the next week, Percy starts noticing that Jason – the kid in his English class – says hi to him every day before class. The first few times it happens, it's a little unnerving. As a general rule, in public establishments, Percy is not comfortable with people paying attention to him unless that person is someone he already knows and trusts. And the only ones here who fit that description are Annabeth and Paul.
So he's not sure what to make of this. Unless the school blew up or something, he's always flown under the radar pretty well. For the most part, the only good friends he's ever made at school were somehow related to the mythological part of his life – Grover, Tyson, and then Rachel. When he was in elementary school, he was always getting the report, "Does not play well with others" – and he was too busy getting thrown out of schools to make any lasting friendships. And after he found out about his connections to the mythological world – well, he had a different group of friends that he trusted more than he could any mortal. People who knew the truth about his life, and who he knew would always have his back.
And in high school, it's easy to blend into the background. Aside from being Paul's stepson, there's no reason for anyone to take any special interest in him.
Which is why it's weird that this kid he swears he had no real relationship with before this year has suddenly started to be so friendly to him.
It's more than just a passing, "Hi," too. Jason always asks him how he's doing and then looks at him as though he expects an actual answer. Percy usually just deflects with a, "Good, you?" and lets it pass, but Jason tries to actually make conversation. And ordinarily in the past, Percy would go with it – but he's finding that his most recent quest (probably as a result of losing his memories, getting them back, and then falling into Tartarus) has left him with some real trust issues.
Also, it doesn't help that the kid's named Jason. One Jason is quite enough to deal with, thanks very much.
So he sticks with deflecting Jason's friendly advances. He has nothing against the guy personally, but finding new mortal friends would just be far too complicated at this point. He'd rather stick with Annabeth, and just wait this year out until they can go to California in a monster-free city with other demigods and legacies, where they know they can live their lives in peace with the friends they already have, and the new ones they'll be free to make.
But that week, things change. Because Percy's English teacher assigns them a group project.
"All right, everyone," Ms. Herman says, "I know we started off last week with short stories, but we're going to move into our first Shakespeare play."
Percy groans inwardly. The words Shakespeare play do not bring up happy thoughts in his mind. Books are bad enough for someone with dyslexia – but Shakespeare, with his confusing words and archaic puns that are hard for any normal person to understand, is even worse.
"But to hopefully give you all a better understanding of it, we're going to do the reading in groups. You are expected to meet with your groups every two days that we're reading – this meeting can be as long as you want, as much time as you need to talk through what you need to – and discuss what we've read so far. And, to prove that you've done it, I want you each to write me a 100-word summary of your meeting."
At the groans that follow this statement, she frowns at them. "100 words is not much," she says. "It's about a paragraph. I'm not asking you to write a whole essay."
"Can we at least pick our groups?" calls someone from the other side of the room. Percy turns his head to look – it's one of the cheerleaders he met on his first day.
Ms. Herman seems to deliberate. "Sure," she says finally. "Go ahead and pick your own groups. Three people to a group, how about."
Percy hates choose-your-own-group activities. He's not very social, and – at least at this point – he doesn't have any desire to be. He'd rather not work in groups at all, but if he must, the stress of picking his own is only an additional problem.
"Percy?"
He looks up, surprised; Jason is looking at him expectantly from a couple desks down. He and a kid named Henry are together already; he waves Percy over. "Want to be in our group?"
"Sure." It's not like Percy can turn him down – he needs a group, and Jason is nice enough. Hesitantly he gets up and moves over to where the other two are sitting.
The play they're reading, as it turns out, is King Lear. Not that this rings any bells to Percy, but he's sure Annabeth or Paul will go off on some kind of rant about what a great work of literature it is. Annabeth has trouble with English, too, but she reads enough to know pretty much every great work of literature that exists.
Jason and Henry start chatting animatedly about meeting times as soon as Ms. Herman begins passing out the books. They're skinny, making them look deceptively simple. But Percy's struggled through Shakespeare in English before, and he knows that that appearance is a lie.
"Percy?" Yet again, Jason's voice startles Percy out of a reverie. The other two guys are looking at him oddly.
"Sorry," he says quickly. "Just . . . blanked out there. What were you saying?"
"How does tomorrow after school work for you?" repeats Henry. "For our first meeting?"
"Sure, I think." Percy scans his nonexistent schedule in his mind. "I'll just have to – never mind."
"What?" Suddenly, the two others are abundantly curious.
"Oh, just" – He shuffles uncomfortable. "I was just going to say I'd have to talk to my girlfriend about it."
"You have a girlfriend?" Both of them try unsuccessfully to mask the surprise that flashes across their faces.
"Yeah. Annabeth Chase. You know her?"
"Annabeth?" The surprise comes full-force back onto Henry's face. "I have calc with her. She's your girlfriend?"
Percy gets how it might surprise some people. If not for their other world, he and Annabeth might never have met and realized how well they work together. But for all the complaints he has about that other world, for all it's done to him, he'd never trade for a normal life. Because if he had a normal life, Annabeth would not be a part of it – and he doesn't even want to imagine his life without her in it.
"Yeah. She's great, isn't she?" He finds he can't stop the tiny smile from forcing itself onto his face.
"Uh, yeah." Henry shifts uncomfortably.
Percy's hackles automatically go up. "What is it?" he asks.
"Nothing," says Henry. "She just – nothing."
Before Percy can react to that, Jason intercedes. "Why do you have to ask her?"
"Huh?" This time he heard the question fine; he just doesn't get its gist until Jason explains himself.
"Your girlfriend. Do you need her permission to meet your group? I mean" –
"No!" Percy doesn't like what Jason seems to be implying. "I just – we just usually walk home together, and she's" – He stops, deciding that he's just digging himself deeper into the hole of questions he really doesn't want to answer. "Just . . . she might want to stay with us and do her homework while we discuss."
"Okay." Jason shrugs and drops it. Percy lets out a quiet sigh of relief. He doesn't want to explain that Annabeth's staying with him and why, or why they don't like to walk alone. Firstly, it's none of Jason's business. Secondly, it brings up memories Percy doesn't like to relive.
Class ends soon after, with their teacher assigning them to read Act I by the next afternoon ("I don't care if you read the whole thing tonight or tomorrow during lunch, just so long as you're ready to discuss it with your group when you meet tomorrow. I'm expecting those summaries in two days!"), and Percy leaves for math, slipping the little book into his backpack.
Algebra is torture as usual, and he can barely understand why people (namely Annabeth) would take calculus if they didn't have to. She has enough credits because her time at Camp Half-Blood counted as homeschool credits, and she managed to get that time while Percy was missing counted, too, even if all she did was work on the Argo II and occasionally try to contact gods and nature spirits for information on Percy. But since that ship work involved so much algebra, geometry, physics, architecture, and all those other things that Annabeth can go on and on about, she was able to fill out the paperwork for those classes.
Percy's not jealous. Well, he is, a little, but he also expects it of her. If anyone can succeed in school, it's Annabeth – and besides, her not doing extra work means she has time to tutor him. It's not exactly win-win, but it's about as close as Percy can expect to get.
Biology is less awful than English and algebra, but it's also not his favorite subject. He tries to pay attention, though, because if he wants to study marine biology like Annabeth suggested, he'll need to know this stuff.
Of course, when he sees her in fourth period, his whole body relaxes. They sit in their regular seats in the corner, holding hands under the table so the teacher doesn't nail them for PDA. And when they go out to lunch, he brings up his group work in English.
"So, I have to stay after tomorrow," he says.
"Did you get in trouble or something?" She squeezes his hand, and he loves that unspoken reminder that she knows and understands that if he got in trouble, it most likely wasn't his fault.
"No, nothing like that. But I have English group work to do, and we're going to meet after school. Do you want to stay, or . . ." He trails off.
She purses her lips. "I . . . do," she says slowly, "but I wonder . . ."
"Wonder what?"
"Well, I mean – we're going to have to get used to being separated. We went on missions separately this summer. How much more dangerous can walking the streets of New York be?"
"Plenty more dangerous," he objects. They find their usual secluded lunch table and sit down without breaking stride in their conversation. "We were with other people when we went on those missions. We always had others to watch our backs or cover for us in case we" –
He doesn't want to say it – doesn't want to remember those times of freezing up on the battlefield, forgetting where he was and what he was doing, fighting off awful flashbacks from times he'd rather forget – but he doesn't need to, because he knows she remembers it just as well.
"I know," she says quietly. "But this whole year – I mean – we can't be together all the time. We can't need to be together all the time."
He wants to protest, but she has a point. At this point, Annabeth is so integrated in his life that he doesn't know what it would be without her. He's not sure if it's actual need or just a combination of want, love, and shared trauma – but he does see her point. At the same time, though, there's a difference between needing to be together and feeling better with the other person.
"I don't think" – Percy looks around. Maybe the cafeteria isn't the best place to have this discussion. "I just wondered if you wanted to wait."
She seems to deliberate – probably weighing the logic of her previous argument with how much she actually does want to wait and walk home with him – and then nods slowly. "Yeah, I will."
He sighs, more relieved than he'd really like to admit. "Good. We can . . . we can talk about the other stuff more later, okay? I know what you mean, but I don't think it's – well, we'll just talk about it later."
"That's fine," she agrees, easily enough that he knows she's also relieved to push it off. But before she can say anything else, the bell rings and they separate for their fifth-period class.