chapter thirteen: larger than life
It's raining hard. A canopy of clouds has flooded the sky, bleaching the colour from the world. Annabeth's hand is cold and immovable around the handle of her umbrella, and salty tear tracks dry slowly on her cheeks. She stares into the neat, rectangular pit her tiny family are all standing around, only half listening to the priest's voice.
"Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet," he recites, hands clasped, "Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, where souls brim-full of love abide and meet; where thirsting longing eyes watch the slow door that opening, letting in, lets out no more." As his words wash over Annabeth, Helen lets out a choked sob.
Annabeth chews slowly on her lip, watching rain lash the surface of her father's mahogany coffin and trickle slowly in droplets down the sides. It's impossible to stop imagining him lying motionless inside it, face pale and decimated. For some reason, she keeps expecting to look down to find coffee spilled over her shoes and blood staining her hands.
After the priest finishes his sermon and her dad's coffin has been covered with loose earth, she's asked to say a few words. Annabeth only shakes her head; she knows if she even began to let loose the raging grief in her chest, it would do nothing but drown her like a tidal wave.
Now, it's coming up on two weeks since she found him. She hasn't been to school or seen any of her friends since, for fear of breaking down. Still, she probably should. At the very least, it's going to be hell to catch up on schoolwork. It's Friday, so maybe she can take the time to steel herself enough to go back on Monday.
Somehow, she knows that won't be enough.
In an effort to fend off the numbness in her body, Annabeth gets out of bed and grabs King's lead from where it hangs on her bedroom door. King gets up with her, barking and nosing around her legs. She manages a smile. "That's right, buddy. You ready for a walk?"
When Annabeth walks past the kitchen door with King, Helen doesn't look up from the forms she's working through. She only calls, "Where are you going, love?"
"Walking King," Annabeth responds, stepping into her shoes.
"Oh, okay," Helen murmurs. She scrubs her hands over her face, worsening the mascara smudges on her cheeks. "Wear a coat—it's cold out."
Annabeth's coat is upstairs, so she doesn't bother. She opens the door and closes her eyes as she walks down the steps, but the image of her father sprawled over them still flashes behind her eyes. She focuses on King's excited panting as she clicks open the gate, barely registering the bitter September chill that scrapes at her bare arms.
She walks King along their normal route, wishing she thought to bring her earphones with her. The walk helps a little; the cold shocks her awake, lessening the dissociation that's recently been all she knows. She folds her arms around herself and allows King to tug her along.
But as she comes up to the crossroads, she hears someone shout her name. "Annabeth!" She whips her head up to see Percy cycling up on his bike, brows furrowed.
"Oh. Hi," she manages. It's such a wonderful, beautiful shock to the system to see Percy that she almost starts crying then and there.
"Annabeth, are you alright? God, you look freezing. You're fucking blue." He swings off and lets his bike clatter to the gravel path, pulling off his jacket. Holding it out for her, he rubs a calloused hand up and down the side of her cold arm. "What are you doing out in just a T-shirt, you idiot?" When Annabeth doesn't move, he sighs and tucks his jacket around her himself. His expression is indiscernible. Annabeth almost doesn't expect it when he pulls her into a tight, unflinching hug. "I was just cycling up to see you. To check if you're—if you're okay." Those last few words are halting. Uncertain.
It's easy to melt into him, to hug him back harder. "Percy," is all she can say. Suddenly, she's warm again.
He pulls back slightly. His eyes are searching, stripping her to her core. "I know you wanted space to grieve, but it's been days. I was worried." He lets out a uneasy laugh and hugs her again. "God. Everything must feel awful right now."
Annabeth nods, cursing the dampness threatening to fall from her waterline. "It kind of is. We're…we're managing, though. I'm okay." She pauses. "I missed you. And the others."
"We've missed you too," Percy tells her. "Whenever you're ready to see us, we'll be waiting." He pauses. "You seem tired. Have you been sleeping?"
She barks a laugh. "Not really."
He's silent for a moment. "Are they any closer to catching whoever did it?"
"You mean the killer?" Annabeth shakes her head. "No. All we know is that my dad was involved in some shady shit earlier on in his life, and what do you know? It came back to bite him." Her voice is unstable, almost unhinged. Percy's arms have slipped away from around her, but he's still holding onto the hem of her shirt—like he's afraid she'll slip away again if he lets go.
When Percy speaks, his voice is unbearably quiet. "I'm sorry, Annabeth. He didn't deserve this. You don't deserve this."
"I keep seeing him," she grits out. "I see him in the daytime; I see him at night. His blood, his face, the stupid coffee I spilt everywhere. I don't know how to stop it. I can't…" She trails off into a distressed sob, letting Percy gather her into his arms again. "Why the hell did I have to be the one to—to find him?"
"Everything's gonna be hard for a while," he mutters. "Don't think about the present. Don't think about the past. Just keep moving. I'll be here."
"How do you know what I should do?" she complains, scrubbing away the hysterical tears that brim from her eyes. "Even I don't know what I should do. It's infuriating."
He half-smiles, pulling away for the last time. Annabeth instantly misses his touch, craves the feeling of safety she finds in her oldest friend. "Do you want me to walk you home?" he asks, gently taking King's lead off her. He bends down for a moment to pet King, who whines and nuzzles his leg. She nods, sniffing. Percy disappears for a moment to grab his bike and then he's at her side again, lacing his arm through hers. "C'mon, let's go," he urges. "It's goddamn cold out here."
When Annabeth is home again, she realises Percy's threadbare jacket is still wrapped around her shoulders. She tugs it tighter around herself, breathing in the scents of machine oil and cheap detergent that cling to the worn leather.
Starting high school for the second time feels like a homecoming, albeit an unwelcome one. The first few months are hard. Still, she finds refuge in Percy, in Leo, in Piper. They seem to have come to an unspoken agreement to hang around Annabeth as much as possible to keep her mind off the bad things. She doesn't know for certain, but she suspects Percy may even be taking fewer shifts than normal. If she's honest, he's probably the only thing keeping her from going crazy.
Helen is running out of forms to fill out, running out of her husband's possessions to pack up in neat boxes and store in their garage. Her normally well-kept appearance begins to fray. First, it's her hair—then her nails, followed by her clothes. Annabeth tries to look after Bobby and Matthew as much as she can to take some of the burden off Helen, but it doesn't help. Annabeth will sometimes find her stepmother sitting stock-still and silent in front of their fireplace, staring with an empty, pearlescent gaze into the roaring flames.
Annabeth tries to be distracted by her schoolwork. She catches up quickly and never loses momentum even after, studying late into the night and into the early morning as a means of seizing jurisdiction over her insomnia. It's never lonely; King's taken to curling up at the foot of her bed, and his warmth keeps her company. The nights aren't hellish as long as she sleeps only long enough to rest, not to dream. She can't count the number of times she's woken up screaming, the bloody sight of Frederick's corpse seared into her retinas.
She isn't afraid of his murderer, only hates that they're just another question left unanswered.
It's easy to settle back into school, to return to the routine of things. It's last period on Thursday and she's kneeling on the floor of their photography classroom with Jason, gluing prints to the project board they're working on together. Their photos are littered all over the floor. "I hate pinhole photography," he groans. "I can't wait until we finally move on and do portraiture."
"Agreed," Annabeth mutters, trimming the edges of one of her prints. It's a view of Virginia from her window—the sun crests the horizon, and strange shadows are cast by the trees. It's an interesting composition, though definitely not her favourite. "I wanna do the independent project already, to be honest."
"That's not till next year."
"I know," she mutters, sticking the print down. Their board is titled Kenneth A. Connors, the photographer they're studying. "I don't mind this, though. At least I'm picking up some techniques."
Suddenly, the bell goes. "Damn," Jason curses. "This has gotta be handed in on Monday, right?"
"Yeah. You wanna finish it tomorrow after school?"
"Works for me." They stand up, filing everything away and head out amongst the flood of their other classmates. Jason checks his watch as Annabeth opens her locker and takes out the textbooks she'll need at home, slipping them into her satchel. "My sister can't pick me up for our appointment until four," Jason tells her. "We could hang out until then." When Annabeth pauses, he adds, "You don't have to."
"Yeah, sure," she decides. "You can test me on some Latin verbs."
The pair of them end up on a bench in the park. Annabeth revises Latin for the upcoming test while they brainstorm ideas for their portraiture project. "I think I'll probably try experimenting with lighting and stuff," Jason muses.
"Yeah," she answers, too absorbed in her conjugations. Eram. Eras. Erat. To Annabeth's shock, Jason pulls a tobacco pouch out of his bag and starts rolling a cigarette. She blanches. "You're literally fourteen."
"I'm aware of that."
"You know I'm talking about the smoking, right?"
Tiredly, he sighs, "Yeah, I know it's not great. It's harder to quit than you think."
"How did you even get addicted?" Annabeth asks, wincing at the judgemental tone in her voice.
Jason doesn't answer immediately, busy wetting the paper's adhesive strip with his tongue and rolling up the cigarette. Hollowly, he stares at his neat creation for a moment before speaking. "My mom was, uh, a pretty bad influence. I'm lucky smoking was the only thing I picked up from her."
"She still around?" Annabeth asks, already regretting the question.
His pale gaze flickers to her own. "Nah. She was drunk—car crash."
Annabeth loses her breath. "I'm sorry," she says, but even that sounds pathetic. All the apologies in the universe could never make her own dad exist again.
"It's fine—I don't really miss her. And as Thalia's eighteen, she's legally my guardian. Keeps us out of the foster system, at least." Digging around in his pocket, Jason pulls out a lighter. "You've got it worse. You loved your dad."
The scrawled Latin she's been writing stands stark before her, ink-dark and larger than life against the crisp, white pages of her notebook. Voice quiet as a far-off echo, she says, "I did." She sits unbearably still for a minute while Jason works on his cigarette. The bitter smell of the smoke he breathes out is an anchor to reality; Annabeth squeezes her eyes shut for several heartbeats, fending off the oh-so-familiar image of her father's broken form on the steps. The Image, capitalised. That's what it's become to her. Knuckles white on the spine of her notebook, she drags out, "Jason."
"Yeah?"
"Can I try it?"
Cautious, he asks, "What? You really want a drag?"
"Just one won't hurt."
For a second, it looks as though he might say no. But then he holds out his cigarette, an offering. "Sure, but you're probably not gonna like it."
She takes it. Between her fingers, it's a foreign object. Annabeth knows she'd never start smoking—she's too smart for that. But she wants to know if it'll make The Image go away. Raising it to her lips, she inhales and pulls the smoke right down into her lungs. It's bitter, harsh. The exhalation feels good, so she takes another drag. This time, she coughs. It doesn't help. The Image is still there, branded like a bloodstain into her retinas. She passes the cigarette back to Jason, almost disappointed. "Thanks," she murmurs.
He smiles, almost haltingly. "Do you need to talk about anything?"
She lets out a breath, staring at the crumbling ash on the ground from Jason's cigarette. A breeze picks it up, blowing it out of sight. "I don't know."
"You can, if you want. Talk about it."
Running a thumb over the open page of her notebook, she shakes her head. "I don't need to…to talk. I just need to process."
Jason's lip quirks. "Talking can help with processing."
"What, so you're a fucking therapist now?"
"Hey, I could so be a therapist," he rebukes. "So, what's on your mind?"
"My dad," she mutters.
"I kinda gathered that."
She swats him, nearly making him drop his cigarette. "Jackass. You told me to talk." Jason doesn't respond, only gestures for her to go on. "I've always had trouble sleeping. Insomnia runs in the family. I'm the only one out of the four of us who suffers from it, though—the three of us, sorry," she corrects herself. "Anyway, now I'm getting these…fucking nightmares. Of him."
"Of finding him?" Jason asks softly.
She nods, bunching up the hem of her shirt in her fist. "So now it's, uh—harder to sleep. 'Cause I'm scared to." A self-deprecating laugh bursts out of her. "God, I sound stupid."
"No, you don't." He nudges her. "Well, why don't you go on sleeping medication? My mom used it, to help with her BPD."
"But what if it doesn't stop the nightmares?"
Jason shrugs. "Doesn't hurt to try."
She dwells on that. "Maybe I'll ask a doctor about it, then," she murmurs.
Jason goes back to his cigarette, burning it to the filter. When he's done, he drops it on the grass and stamps it out with his heel. "Hey. Want me to test you on some Latin?"
Annabeth jerks back into real life, once again reminded of the test she'll be sitting in a few days. "Oh. Yeah, thanks." They sit there for another hour, going over the dozens of Latin conjugations Annabeth needs to learn. Finally, a car pulls up on the road beside their park bench. The window catches the light as it rolls down, and a girl with cropped black hair and a tattoo curling up the side of her neck leans out. She honks the car horn. "Jason, get in! We're gonna be late."
"Coming," Jason shouts back. He stands up from the bench, slinging his backpack on. "See you tomorrow, yeah? Don't forget—we've gotta finish our project."
"I'll be there," she answers. The car door closes, and Annabeth is alone again.
annabeth and jason's friendship is everything to me right now aha. and percy comforting annabeth? exquisite. next chapter will be a little longer, and it'll be up on wednesday as usual! let me know what you thought :D