ANNABETH

Life is awful. Life is nothing but one cruel and inevitable prophecy of constant heartbreak and betrayal. It is followed by the watchful eyes of death- ever presently hovering over each one of our shoulders.

It was a fool's naive dream to believe there was any form of respite from it. My home, which some would compare to a temple of safety and respite from the cruel world was anything but that. I would concede that ever since my hellish, witch-spawn of a step-mother decided to take an unannounced vacation of an undetermined amount of time, I was currently living what would be a respite from the storm.

For the briefest of moments, I allowed myself to become that naive, foolish person. To believe for the scantest of moments that I could truly find some form, any form of respite in my life. To allow me to be the vulnerable fool, even if it was for a day. As quickly as the thought came, I banished it, locking deep within the cold stone that my heart had become. Weighed beneath my sins, my insecurities, and every other memory of the person I used to be- the person I would never allow myself to be again.

I pushed past the sound of roaring exhaust beneath me, instead turning my focus on the person who was currently driving us on this accursed and most-assured death trap. What had originally been a passing joke on wanting to run from it all had soon turned into a boy holding his hand out to me.

I didn't know why I accepted it. I knew better. Should have known better. I was the smart girl. I was the straight-A girl. I was the girl dressed in clothes that were always too big on her, who always kept her head down, the one who abhorred social contact with anything other than her phone.

I knew who he was too. Miscreant. Troublemaker. Delinquent. Fighter. It seemed like he spent just as much time skipping his daily detention as he did class. And for all the labels he carried on his shoulders- labels others had painted him with, the boy before me was anything but that. He was perceptive, dangerously so. Smooth with words and had a penchant for somehow always having something to say, even where no words needed to be said. And the minute he looked at me with his sea-green eyes, eyes in such a beautiful shade that I had never seen before, I knew he had me figured out.

I could tell by the way he looked at me- with that raised brow and the crooked, asinine smirk that I just wanted to slap off of his stupidly pretty, tanned face.

And that's how I found myself on the back of this wretched deathtrap, his leather jacket snugly zipped up against my form. Blackjack, he called it. Just another wanna-be bad boy naming his stupid motorcycle, trying to impress whatever bland woman he could pick up with it.

It was with the roar of the exhaust and the rabid screams of some asshole teacher whom most everyone disliked, staff included, did we find ourselves flying out of the school parking lot and weaving through traffic, never slowing down until the loud noises of the city had left us behind, and the streetlights of the suburbs had appeared in the distance.

And in that short period of time- the fifteen or twenty minutes that had felt like hours, I truly felt respite from everything that was going disastrously wrong in my life. I wasn't an adrenaline junkie, and I didn't go out of my way to find myself in trouble… too often, at least. I couldn't deny it though, between my heartbeat hammering away in my ears or my arms clenching even tighter around his waist, I was truly having the time of my life.

When the ride had ended, sooner than I wished it would have, I found myself in a homely, quiet suburb. The homes were modest, if not teetering on the edge of being an obviously wealthy neighborhood. His home was a quaint place, a nondescript two-story home with dark blue vinyl siding and an admittedly gorgeous front porch.

I didn't truly recognize it at the moment, but this had been the start of the most life-altering friendship I would ever have in my life.

He deftly swung his leg over the bike, turning around to quickly unlatch the chin strap to my helmet and take it from me. I looked up into his sea-green eyes which seemed to buzz with the same sort of thrill and excitement that must have been in mine. His long, dark hair just barely began falling below his eyebrows and was unruly and windswept from the ride. His sun-kissed hand reached out to me. My eyes wandered to the trident tattoo on his arm. I wondered how many others he had, hidden beneath the same lock and key my heart was under.

It was the first to come of the many experiences I would share with Perseus Jackson.

More to come soon, hopefully. Just a taste of what's to come.