When Percy got home from Annabeth's, after a long and cold walk with a dead phone and no shoes (he'd somehow lost them the night before at the party) he got an earful from his mother, the one and only Sally Jackson.
He understood it. He had disappeared for a day and a half and came home with no shoes, bruises all over his face, and wearing clothes that weren't his own.
After a short lecture from a worried Sally, she just hugged him and sighed. "You're the reason I have grey hair," she muttered mostly to herself, though it made him smile. He loved his mom.
After she got her hug in, he went and showered off the grime and filth that had settled on him in the past day. After he got out and changed, he also took great pleasure in chucking Luke's clothes into the garbage.
That was really all that happened with him that weekend. Well...that and Annabeth ignoring him. He wasn't going to lie and say he didn't care, because he did. It was so hard talking to someone every day and all of a sudden just going without them.
He hated it. He hoped that she was just busy, and that everything would go back to normal at school on Monday.
Boy was he wrong.
Their whole group usually parked together - him, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Hazel, Frank, Leo, etc. though on Monday, Annabeth's car was nowhere to be found. He later figured out she parked way across the lot in front of the gym with some of her volleyball teammates.
In calculus she didn't even look at him. After the bell rang, he headed over to her and cracked a joke about Dodds and her coffee breath, though she just gave him a polite smile and pushed past to leave the room.
He knew Luke told them to stay apart, but he didn't think that Annabeth would actually leave him alone. It was a few days into this weird new routine of Percy trying to initiate conversation and Annabeth always dodging it when he got a bit tired and decided to talk to her while she was by herself so she couldn't slip off into another conversation and ignore him.
He got his opportunity one day after he got out of football practice and was walking to his car. He had to head past the gym, and he saw her standing by her car with her bag. She must've just gotten out of practice.
He hesitated for a moment before he walked over, brushing his fingers through his hair. "Hey Annabeth," he said to her with a small smile. She looked up, and he saw panic flash across her features before it was gone a moment later.
He saw her eyes flash across his bruised and mangled face, and he self consciously touched his fingers to his bruised jaw. Luke could really throw a punch.
"Uh, hey," she replied back. She opened her door and threw her bag into the backseat, not meeting his gaze. He frowned a little. "How've you been?" he asked, opting to ignore her behavior. "I missed our study sessions this week. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fail that calc test tomorrow." He tried a joke, but she just smiled a bit and shrugged.
"Sorry. I was busy." She was trying to get out of the conversation, and he didn't want to let her. He rested his hand on her arm, causing her to finally look up and meet his eye. "Annabeth, we're okay, right?"
He sounded desperate, and he wanted to kick himself. She looked conflicted, and she sighed, resting her hand on top of his. The contact made his heart jump. "Percy, Luke is pissed," she said softly, looking genuinely guilty. "He told me that he didn't want me talking to you anymore."
He winced a little, and his fingers wrapped around hers. "But...we're just friends," he mumbled as he cocked his head to the side. She shook her head, her eyes now cast down. "He doesn't see it that way."
Her voice was quiet, and she pulled her hand away. His heart broke a little as he just stood there. "You're going to just go?" he asked, trying to hold back the hurt expression he knew was overtaking his face. "But..." He couldn't find any more words.
She threw her backpack into her car, her eyes cast down again. "You and I both know I have to, Percy," she said in that soft voice. "I'm sorry." He was still standing there, embarrassed and hurt, when she backed away and drove out of the lot in her car.
He wanted to say he didn't care. He wanted to just walk away and sigh and get over it. He wanted to say that he didn't like her and he didn't care if she left. But he knew more than anyone that he was just telling himself more lies.
Annabeth had to admit that it was hard to walk away from Percy. Or...drive away. Whatever.
That night that Luke and Percy fought, she and her boyfriend had a long talk. They discussed the kiss, their problems, and everything else that had been making either of them stressed.
She thought they were in a better place than they ever had been before. Luke had one condition for her, though: she had to stop talking to Percy.
At first, she laughed. How middle school-esque was it to say that she couldn't talk to a guy friend? But he was dead serious, and her laughter stopped immediately after that. Oh. She would have to stop talking to Percy.
She argued for a little while with him. He had been there for her for the past weeks when Luke was absent.
He had kept her safe when she got drunk at parties, came to every one of her volleyball games, helped her with her homework. Her family loved him. She was just supposed to throw that all away? Apparently.
It took a long, long talk before she finally agreed. She would stop talking to Percy. Her chest hurt just thinking about it. No more study sessions. No more big hugs after her games. No more hanging out with Jason and Percy and Frank all together. No more seaweed brain.
When Luke left that next day to return to school, she felt empty. Percy had snapped her several times, she assumed to make sure that she was okay, though she couldn't open them.
School was brutal, not being able to talk to the guy that had quickly become one of her closest friends. But she tried to drive it out of her mind. Her and Luke were better than they had ever been before. She was happy with him. And slowly that happiness began to overtake the sadness that Percy's absence had caused.
It was still a bit timid between the two of them, to be honest. Luke was still wary of her talking to or being around Percy, which she began to understand even if it upset her.
The fallout really happened on a big home game, on a Friday when the football team had their bye week. Everyone was there, the entire gym and mainly the student section packed to capacity to watch the Sharks take on the Hillview Vikings, the team they had lost to the previous year at the state finals.
There was a bitter rivalry between the two teams, and Annabeth was eager to show their opponents what they had worked for in the off season. It was the fifth set, and everyone was on edge. Both teams had won two, and the score was 14-13, the sharks winning by a meager point. They just needed one more. One more point and they would win.
Hazel was in the back row serving, the entire gym at an almost silence as she served. When the other team was preparing their volley back, the student section and the rest of the gym roared to try and distract them. It came over hard, and one of the girls in the back row easily dug it up to Piper.
The setter called out a specific number that correlated to Annabeth's spot. She was getting the set. She would make sure to make it the last.
The moment seemed to move in slow motion. The ball arcing towards her, the roar of the fans, the blockers leaping up to try and stop her. Nothing would stop her, she determined as she approached and leapt up, harder and higher than she ever had before. She swung, and it crashed through their hands and slammed down onto the court between them.
The entire gym erupted into cheers as the ref blew the whistle and Annabeth's team mobbed her. She was locked into a massive smile as they came over, and all of them let out loud cheers.
This game meant a lot more than just contributing to their undefeated season. It showed that all their hard work paid off from last year, and that they had a real shot to win the state title this season.
Once they shook hands, everyone mobbed the court and began talking to everyone on the team, mainly Annabeth. She talked and smiled and laughed as people commended her, though she slowly started moving towards the locker room, to her quiet, safe space.
She was almost there, when she felt a hand on her arm. The touch was so gentle and so familiar that she knew who it was before she even turned. When she did, she saw those sea green eyes and that dark, messy hair, and her heart sank. "Hey, Annabeth," Percy said with a small smile. "Uh...can we please just talk?"
He was pleading, the look in his eyes unsure and reserved. She was in a great mood, and at the back of her mind she thought about how much she missed the dork.
She slowly nodded, offering a small smile. "Sure, Perce," she said and guided him outside to the quiet hallway, where they could be alone. When they got there, she noticed that the runningback couldn't meet her gaze.
She just looked up at him silently as she waited for him to say something. Anything. When he finally did, he offered her the smallest of smiles.
"I...I miss you," he said softly as his gaze fell. "And I understand Luke doesn't want us talking. I understand it completely and I..." he trailed off and looked down. She could almost see the gears turning inside his head. "I just wanted to apologize," he said after a moment. "For...everything. The kiss and just everything."
He was playing with his hoodie strings in a typical Percy-ish way, his hands always needing to stay busy. She got a flashback to their study sessions, when he would constantly be playing with his pencil and drumming it against the table.
She remembered one time in particular, when he looked lost in thought and continued to drum the pencil on the table long past the amount he usually did, and she could tell he was thinking about something in particular that was bothering him.
She set her pencil down and looked up at him, seeing his brow furrowed and his gaze set on his notebook. She reached over and gently touched her fingers to his forearm, making him look up at her. "Hey, you okay?"
His eyes widened for a moment before he nodded, though the look in his eyes made it appear as though he didn't even believe himself. She pouted, giving him a look, and he sighed, dropping his head.
"Just thinking about stuff," he admitted with a small sigh. "I haven't gotten many offers to play for colleges yet, and...if I don't get offers I can't go to college," he told her. "My mom doesn't have enough money just yet, and I don't have enough saved up..." She could tell his mind was racing a thousand miles an hour, and she bit her lip as she moved her hand to cover his, the drumming of his pencil on the table finally stopping.
His hands were warm and weirdly soft, and when Annabeth got a mental image of Percy moisturizing, she had to stifle a smile. "Hey, don't worry about it," she said soothingly. "Offers are gonna come. You have so much time for them, Perce."
She could still see a bit of uncertainty in his eyes, and she gently rubbed her thumb along the back of his hand as comfortingly as she could. "And trust me, any school would be lucky to have you." It was such a simple thing to say, but she could see the tension release from his shoulders and a calmness spread through his features.
He nodded, and gave her a small smile before his eyes fell to her hand that was still resting over top of his. "Thanks, Annabeth," he mumbled before he gave her a genuine smile.
She smiled and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Of course, seaweed brain."
She was ripped out of her memories when Percy placed a gentle hand on her arm, giving her a sheepish smile. "But aside from that, you played so well tonight. Thanks for just...hearing me out," he said with a small laugh, pulling his hand back.
In that moment, the absence of his touch wore her down. As she looked into those green eyes of his, she felt at home. She felt comfort and warmth from every time he had been there for her when she was sad. She felt happiness from every day they'd spent together doing homework and watching him play video games with her little brothers.
She felt everything all at once, and really questioned why she'd ever let him go. Before he could do a thing, her arms were wrapped around him, her face tucked into his neck, and he froze up.
She wondered if she had gone too far, but then his arms wrapped around her and his chin rested on her shoulder. "I missed you, wise girl," he mumbled softly. She just laughed and shook her head. "I missed you too."
It was a moment later that she pulled back, and she caught a glimpse of his usual sunny smile, and her heart warmed. She really had missed him, though she was still torn whether her relationship or this friendship was worth more to her. She didn't even understand why that had to be a choice, but it was.
She had a lot to think about.