A/N Ayyyy, guess who's here mid-week for an EXTRA update? Yep, this girl! It was supposed to be a short one, but it turned out fairly long.
I just wanted to shout out my AMAZING beta reader: zoeawwrites. Her feedback has made a world of a difference. She's the reason this chapter doesn't suck, lol. Please check her out if you need a beta-reader!
The next day(aka the day after Percy visits)
Annabeth POV
I close my computer and pack up for the day. It's my first week back from maternity leave, but I didn't tell anyone that. I just told them I went on vacation for the holidays with my family but then got sick after. It makes sense, I still look sick.
My office hasn't changed a bit, but I have, so it seems unfamiliar. Almost like a scene from a distant memory.
The photo of Percy and I is still there. I never took it down… not that I wanted to. I'm mid-laugh and he's pouting, such a typical day for us back then. Ever since we broke up, I haven't been even half as happy as I was in that photo. It's funny how I didn't even know that would be the highest point in my life. We were young and in love, just living it day by day. If only it stayed that way...
I continue packing up and head out of the office. No one else is here since it's 7pm, well past working hours. It's eerie, but I truly like the serene, quiet environment. Maybe because it reminds me of the library.
I've been visiting the library more these days. Maybe it's because I need the comfort, maybe it's because books calm me. Maybe it's because you miss him, I think. No, it's not that, I chide myself.
I make a quick stop at the library on my way home. No, it's not because I want to 'reminisce in the past', I assure myself. I'll have you know I reserved an architecture book the other day. I'm here to pick it up.
The musty smell of the library washes over me like a wave lapping on the shore. I can feel the hum of the heater working to beat the cold March weather. It's warm enough to take off my coat and let the library's scent nestle in my clothes. Or maybe it's the memories that are making me feel warm. I take myself back to those days when I used to come here to study. Percy would tag along too, and I wouldn't get much work done on those days, but they were the most memorable. I look towards the corner table in the back where we used to hangout. It's a little more worn out, but nevertheless withstood the years of use by reckless teenagers. I used to be one of them. Back in the good old days…
I make a left, heading towards the reserve shelf. With each step, I think about the past.
It's sad to think about the time where Percy and I were just frolicking our way through life, monsters aside. Step. Why is it sad though? I wonder. None of the memories are sad. Step. It must be the absence of those moments in reality that hurt me the most. Step. But I shouldn't make those happy memories sad just because that happy time didn't last. I need to let those memories exist in peace because they only make me upset. Stop.
They make me upset.
Could Percy's absence have a bigger impact on me than I thought? I think. Does this mean that I want him back in my life?
No, no, no. I shake my head and run the rest of the way to the reserve shelf. Someone yells at me to slow down, but I only change my pace once I get there. I need to check out this book and go. These memories, though good, are suffocating me. Why is my one comfort place making me so anxious? I fume.
After checking out my book, I begin to leave, but stop in my tracks. Oddly enough, the memories beckon me to stay.
Though wary of my own intentions, I decide to browse the shelves for books. I bet you're going to go to the back corner table, a little voice in my head taunts. I shake my head. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to look for books.
I slowly weave in and out of the shelves. It seems like only yesterday when Percy and I played hide-and-seek here. He always hid behind the 200's shelf where the mythology books are.
Ugh, why are my thoughts so Percy-related nowadays? I huff. My doctor says that it's because I have postpartum depression, which is also known as post pregnancy blues. She says that I feel this way because I'm vulnerable, so I'm just trying to find comfort in the places that have given me comfort in the past.
It seems that I find comfort in the memories, yet they also make me mournful. Why are my feelings so complicated! I scream in my head.
Without thinking, I'm drawn back to the back table in the corner. I ball my fists and close my eyes. Why is it so gosh-darn hard to just let it go? I'm over him for Pete's sake! I yell.
No you're not, the little voice in my head scoffs. Yes I am! I argue. I don't want to keep feeling the need to find comfort in the memories, I conclude.
I think I want to make new memories. To forget about him. To move on. I want to be done with that chapter of my life. I'm completely over him, yeah, totally. It's time to move on.
With all the emotions whirling inside of me, I sink to the floor to stabilize myself. With the memories and the feelings, I think it is all too much. Every time I think about Percy, it's like blowing into a balloon of raging confusion. Today was the last blow. My balloon popped.
I sit under the table with my head against one of the table legs and close my eyes.. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in the opportunities, independence, success, and breathe out the relationships, blue ice-cream… and Percy.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, I'm okay. I open my eyes and push myself out of the table's shelter, but something catches my eye. It's the piece of paper that I wrote a haiku on, dangling from the underside of the desk. I pull it down. I should probably throw this away before someone reads it and gets weirded out by my instability, I decide. Though no one knows I wrote it, I'd hate for someone to label me 'weak', even if they don't know who I am. I'm Annabeth: strong-willed, stubborn, and quick witted, not a depressed, sentimental couch potato, I confirm. I don't even remember what I wrote, but I know how I felt at the time, so it's probably pathetic.
I open the paper, and skim over my writing, but I see the ink of a different pen. Huh? I think, confused. Then I realize, someone wrote back. I sink back down under the table and read the response:
Someone saw you cry
Someone thinks you are lovely
I am that someone
The writing hit me like a truck, punching all the air out of me. There go opportunities, independence and success. I take a sharp inhale to get it all back, but in go relationships, blue ice-cream… and Percy. All that effort to let go, wasted. Opportunity gives me a distasteful glance, Independence looks betrayed, and Success stares down at me, glaring. They are all looking at a broken human who just realized that she has been denying herself.
I want him back, I sob. I need to get myself together.
After a few tears, and lots of sniffles, I take a look at the note once more.
It's his handwriting, I know that for a fact. It's scrawled and rushed indicating he was in a hurry. He connects his letters out of pure laziness, though he claims it's for 'efficiency.'
Does he care about me? I wonder. No… wait. How does he know that it was me who wrote the haiku in the first place? I analyze. He doesn't. He probably wrote back because he wanted to comfort the person who wrote this, I realize, which means he didn't write back to me exactly.
I want to feel upset that he probably didn't know it was me. I want to feel sad that he doesn't know how I feel. But I don't. Strangely, I feel... happy?
It's the first I've heard from him in almost a year. This scrawled out haiku is all I've got. No matter who he thought wrote the haiku, he wanted them to feel better, he wanted them to know that he cared, whether he knew them or not. I sigh. That's just classic Percy. He always cared about others.
That includes me… right? I question.
He cares! He probably doesn't know who he's 'caring' about, but it's me! He thinks I'm lovely. Though he doesn't know it himself...
Why does this make me so happy? I groan.
Enough overthinking things, I need to think about something else. I fold up the note carefully and put it in my pocket. I've been trying to forget him, but it's like trying to breathe underwater. At one point, you're going to have to come up for air. Right when I thought I had made my motivations clear, Percy comes into my life, through writing, to mess it all up. I should be upset, but frankly… I'm not.
Suddenly, it hits me… he's here! I saw him back in December to visit his parents for the holidays. I think he even went to the reunion with the seven. It's March now, and he's here, in New York.
I come to the conclusion that he lives here now. It only makes sense; who travels in the middle of March? But if he lives here… then maybe he'll write back, or better yet, we can reconnect!
With hope plaguing my brain, I scan the underside of the desk to see if he wrote anything else besides the response to my haiku.
Right next to the heart drawing, he wrote a short poem:
I never let go,
though there isn't much left to hold on to,
and
I've found something else
that
I will always keep with me.
At first, I'm a little confused. It takes me a second to decipher what he is trying to tell me. Who knew Percy could be so poetic? I think.
He 'never let go'. Does that mean he still cares about me? I wonder. Then again, he said 'there isn't much to hold on to'. Can't argue with that…
He found something else. My eyes water at that part. What does that mean, 'found something else'?
Seaweed Brain, have you officially moved on? Have you left me for good? I sob.
I can't help but feel frustrated because I'm getting too emotional over these things. First, I was over the moon about him 'caring' about me, and now I'm bawling my eyes out because he said he 'found something else'.
I remember how our little motto was 'never,' because he said he'd never let go when I was going to fall into Tartarus. However, this new 'thing' is something that he will "always keep with him." That seems like a forever-promise. A promise like the one we made with each other to never let go.
It's funny that always and never are opposites, yet have so many similarities. They both imply something that lasts for eternity, something without end. But, 'never' seems to have a more negative connotation, while 'always' is normally used in a positive sense. Does that mean this new 'thing' he has is better? Did our relationship have something negative about it because our promise was based on 'never'?
Ugh, I'm over-analyzing things here. He probably didn't think about it, I argue with myself. But then again, maybe his conscious mind didn't, but his subconscious did, a little voice tells me. Ugh, here I go again.
I'm overwhelmed with emotions for the millionth time today. How do I feel about him? He said he cares about me in the poem, but technically didn't know it was me, so it's a one-way thing. He has moved on, I think, but he still kept our promise of never letting go.
What even was our promise? What did we mean by 'never let go'?
We obviously made the promise with the intent that we would be together forever, hence the 'eternal' aspect of 'never', but we never discussed what it meant if we were to break up. Back then, breaking-up wasn't even in our vocabulary, because we, and everyone else, were dead-set on being together forever. Where does our promise stand in this twisted reality?
He didn't let me fall into Tartarus alone because he knew I wouldn't make it out alive. He fell with me because he wanted to stay beside me, even though it was a suicide mission, a one-way trip, a very hard fall. He did it because… he loved me. He even told me so while we were falling.
Is this what 'never let go' means?
No, it's impossible. He said it himself, he found a new person. I'm upset that I'm upset that he found someone new. The hopeless romantic in me prayed that we would wind up together in the end, somehow.
I get up and dust myself off. I need some fresh air.
Walking towards the exit, the memories pop up in my mind. This time though, it's not as sad.
I run my fingers along the book spines as I walk past the shelves. So what if he found someone? Maybe you still have a chance. He said he has kept the promise, I think.
As much as I want to hate him for moving on while I've been struggling, I don't. Perhaps it's because I still care about him, and this is the first time I've heard from him in almost a year.
I hug my architecture book tight to my chest and exit the comfort of the library. How strong can his new relationship be if they've only been together for a few months? Do I still have a chance? One side of me argues. The other says, come back to reality, you dreamy girl.
The fact of the matter is: he's kept up with our promise, whatever that may mean now.
Though logic says there's no chance, I leave the library feeling annoyingly giddy. With the note in my pocket and a small smile on my face, I conclude that today was not so bad.
Summary: Annabeth finds the notes Percy left behind and concludes that he responded to the haiku not knowing it was her who wrote it. She reads the poem he wrote on the desk and tries to decipher what their life-long promise really meant. Is it possible that he still cares?
A/N Again, credit to the beta-reader: zoeawwrites. She is super thorough with her feedback and it has helped me so much.