A/N: Hey guys! Back again with another semantic of love! Hope you like it!

Falling out of love is like a constant ache, but being cheated on is like a stab wound to the heart.

She can't believe it.

Almost doesn't believe her own eyes as she sees her boyfriend kiss and laugh with another girl. It takes her a few hours just to process it and even when Luke shows up that evening with a smile like nothing's wrong, she wants to believe it.

"Leave," she says in a quiet but firm voice.

He argues back just once before he realizes what she saw. "It's not—"

"Leave."

His face morphs into a scowl and the next words out of his mouth feel like a twist of the knife already embedded in the wound.

"You're leaving me? Trust me, you won't find anyone better than me. You'll come crawling back soon enough."

A fresh wave of tears wash over her after she shuts the door. Her vision might be blurry and she might be in pain but she makes a resolution to never let his words come to fruition.

She will never go back.

But he's ingrained himself in every part of her life. And to tear him off is like tearing pieces of herself. She feels raw by the end of it. Raw and exposed and still hurt.

He had promised her forever, had vowed she was the one, had looked into her eyes and said he loved her.

All lies.

It's too much. She doesn't know how to handle it. So she does the only other thing she can think off, she uses it as fuel to work harder.

Works towards that job, works on herself, works on everything and anything until she burns up every piece of hurt and pain and all the lies.

And from the ashes of that flame, she rises.

It takes a year.

There were nights she felt the loneliness, remembered the feel of his arms. There were nights where the pain was too hard and too consuming to burn through. There were days where she had no drive to push any harder.

But she makes it.

"Annabeth?" The voice is all too familiar. She takes a breath, knowing the moment had come. Slowly, she turns around, watches Luke's eyes widen.

And then watches those eyes scan the rest of her body.

"You look…"

"Good?" she completes the sentence for him. "I know."

A visceral satisfaction rises at the way he reacts to her confidence.

She's spent a long time getting to where she's at, a long time realizing that it's the other way round, that he won't find anyone better than her.

And even longer time understanding that it doesn't even matter what he does or doesn't find.

So when he leans forward in that flirty way, no doubt attracted to the person she's finally become, she's not having it.

She's not willing to play this game again.

"Bye Luke," she interrupts, turning on her heel and walking away.

Heartbreak like that leaves a mark, and she feels a sting from that old wound even though it's healed, there's still a scar left.

But she's not lesser for it, she's strong in spite of it.

(Even if that scar acts up when she glances over at the cute guy in the corner who keeps looking at her, telling her it'll happen again.)

But that's love. It comes with low lows and even higher highs and it's worth taking a chance.

So, she brushes off the last remnants of the man who stabbed her heart and walks towards that chance.

A/N: I haven't really covered cheating as a form of heartbreak over this series, so I decided to address it in this one. It's one of the hardest things in love, to recover from, because the betrayal of trust cuts deep.

I think getting to the point where it's not about that person anymore, meaning it doesn't matter if they see your glow-up, doesn't matter who they're with, or not with, is when you've truly moved on and I wanted to make sure that Annabeth gets to that point.

I might do a longer fic at some point to cover this topic but I figured it's a semantic of love I should write about.

Please Review! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

And as always, thanks for reading!

See ya! :)