I never knew that you could feel it when your heart breaks.

The pain was like someone was sitting on my chest and it never went away. Ever since that fateful morning when Percy was nowhere to be found, not even after a several hour arial search on Pegasi, it had been there, making my heart fight to keep beating.

Though the camp was initially shocked and devastated by Percy's disappearance, within a week people had begun to slip into their old routine. Another hero lost, another one gone. That's all he was to them.

Even those who were close to him; Grover, Nico, Juniper, Clarisse, and even Chiron had slowly moved on, had mourned his loss and then progressed with their life. But I couldn't.

The day that marked his two-month disappearance was also the Fourth of July, which of course brought back memories of him. Pain enveloped me as I lay in my bed, thinking of the very first firework display I had attended with Percy. I haven't even opened my eyes yet and I was already emotionally drained for the day.

Throwing my covers off, I began my morning ritual that I had adapted after he left. I stripped off the sweatshirt that I had stolen from him ages ago that I now slept in. I took a quick shower and put on the usual camp shirt, jean shorts, and sneakers. Slipping out into the dawn, I crept across the silent lawns of Camp Half-Blood and over to Cabin 3. Trekking around the back, I peered into the window that looked into Percy's room.

It was empty. Empty, like it had been every other morning for the past 60 days. I took out my dagger and made another notch into the windowsill. 61 days.

Still following my routine, I grabbed a piece of toast as I walked past the pavilion and continued on towards the beach.

The beach. The appeal it held for me was very odd; every time I was there, it was like being run through with a sword, but being there made me feel closer to him. It was a drug to me.

I sat right in the surf, soaking my jeans. The salty breeze whipped my damp curls to and fro as the sun edged its way across the horizon. Gods, I missed him. I was worried, worried I would never see him again. I somehow knew that he was alive though- I felt it in my gut, a searing sensation that overtook me every time I started to doubt it. No, if he was dead, I think my heart would have stopped a long time ago. How could I be so in love? We were so young. They always say that teenagers don't know what love really is. Well, if this isn't love, if this isn't my heartbreaking, then I wasn't sure that I wanted to ever deal with full blown love. Whatever this is is killing me.

But then again, how could it not be love? I felt like my heart knew the difference between like and love, between want and need. I want chocolate... But I need oxygen. Percy was my oxygen. And right then, I was drowning.

As I sat there thinking my thoughts about love and need and needing love, I heard the muffled sound of campers merrily breakfasting, getting pumped up for the chariot races, sparring matches and capture the flag game that would happen today, along with the much-anticipated firework show.

I wasn't feeling festive.

As I walked through camp, I felt like an outsider. I'd been a lot of lonely places, but I'd never been on the outside at Camp Half-Blood. Camp had been my home and my refuge for so long, somewhere where I was never ostracized. But now, I was lonely; miserable, party of one. People seemed to look right through me, and the few that did see me were looking at me with such pity that it was almost sickening.

Either that or they were wondering why my pants were sopping wet and were trying not to judge.

I had to admit that it wasn't the best view, on the outside, looking in. I finally shuffled into the big house where the other counselors were placing bets on who would win the chariot races at noon. Walking past their haggling, I turned into Chiron's office.

"Good morning, Chiron," I said in my most happy voice I could muster.

"Hello, Annabeth," he said, smiling at me. "I have a new camper here today who hasn't been claimed yet, do you think you could show her around?" He gestured to a small girl with blonde frizzy hair who sat behind his desk. Just as I was about to accept, a golden sun glowed above her head.

"A daughter of Apollo," Chiron mused. "Yes, I can see that you have inherited your fathers looks. Why don't we get the head of your cabin to show you around instead?" The girl nodded, looking faintly shocked.

Chiron turned to me. "Annabeth, would you fetch Will for me?"

"Sure."

After I sent Will in, I ran around helping Chiron settle the girl's paperwork and got her some Camp t-shirts, which she carefully printed the initials TS on the tags. I felt oddly compelled to hover over her for much of the morning; it wasn't until later that I realized that the reason was that her wild and scared expression resembled mine so much.

I reached my limit that day at noon when the rest of the camp ran cheering for the racetrack. All of this happiness around me seemed to drain what little energy I had from me. When I asked Chiron permission to leave camp for the rest of the day, he looked at me with sad eyes and a sorrowful smile as he said I could have the rest of the day to do as I pleased.

I was headed to the Jackson's. The one other person who hadn't abandoned all hope of finding Percy was Sally, who understood my dilemma better than anyone else. Over the past two months, we had grown very close, finding strength and comfort from each other.

We mostly cried for the first hour. Paul and I discussed some Ancient Greek literature that had recently surfaced while Sally fussed about how skinny I was. I hated to admit it, but it was true. Since Percy's disappearance, I had lost a significant amount of weight and deep circles had formed under my eyes. Sally looked like she was suffering the same symptoms. When I said so, she waved her hand and said, "Yes, dear, but I have Paul here for support. I'll be just fine."

I left shortly after fireworks, thanking Paul and Sally for dinner. As I headed out, I received warm hugs from both adults.

By the time I got back to Camp, the fireworks had ended and most of the campers had gathered around the campfires, roasting marshmallows and singing songs. After letting Chiron know that I had returned, I decided to turn in. I had never felt so lonely as I did when I crawled into bed, my cabin hauntingly empty. I pretended to be asleep when my siblings came in two hours later.

"Poor thing," I heard a girl say, the sad voice contrasting the animated chatter that filled the rest of the cabin.

"I know," a second voice said. I recognized it to be my half-brother Malcolm's voice. "She just looks so..."

"Broken." I thought it must be Tiffany, a girl who had arrived at camp about a year after I had.

"Broken is a good word for her," said Malcolm. "I mean, if you look at her face you can see how much it's affected her. Her eyes are so bloodshot, with those deep circles under her eyes-"

"It's no wonder, either," Tiffany said. "She can't sleep through the night. I mean, how many times have we woken up to her crying in her sleep? Not to mention what it's doing to her weight. I saw her working out in the arena the other day in her sports bra, and I could count her ribs from ten yards away." I continued to lay there, faking sleep.

"I'm worried," Malcolm said. "I mean, I'm doing all I can to fill in for her, but we can't keep doing this forever. She's putting up a strong front, but come on. We can all see through it. Either she's going to pull through..."

"Or she's going to go insane," finished Tiffany.

"Don't say that!" Malcolm hissed.

"What? We're all thinking it!"

"She's going to be fine," Malcolm said, but he didn't sound too convinced.

Hours after that conversation occurred and my siblings fell asleep, I lay awake, turning things over. Was I going insane? I don't know, but I somehow doubted it. My thoughts weren't clouded or confused, but definitely depressed. One thing I did know was that I felt more isolated than ever before. I wasn't used to being looked after by anyone besides Percy; he was the only one I let see me with my guard down. He was the only one who knew how much protecting I needed. It made me uncomfortable to have my campers see me as weak, as barely holding on.

I needed air. I slowly padded across the cabin, the marble floor cold on my bare feet. I slipped across the lawn as I had this morning, not realizing where my feet were taking me until I arrived. Cabin three stood there, dark and empty as ever. Since I ran out of Percy's cabin that morning in frantic search for him, I had not been inside. I slowly turned the handle and entered.

I didn't know what I would find, but I felt like I had gone looking for a reason. I walked through as if I were a ghost haunting a place I once lived, touching nothing. Each room brought a wave of new pain. The kitchen, where we made blue pancakes. The family room, where he watched documentaries on Ancient Greece with me, even though he'd rather watch baseball. I couldn't even bring myself to go into his room.

I stood there, just being there. I realized how crazy I was. Here I was, in the middle of the night, in my missing boyfriend's kitchen. The one person who could ever bring me out of such depression was the one who's absence was causing it.

All of the sudden, something inside me snapped. I attacked the kitchen; I was throwing small appliances and pulling dishes off the shelves in the cabinets. I found great satisfaction when they shattered on the floor. I was screaming, out of hatred or anger or delight, I did not know. I was just throwing things, throwing things everywhere. That toaster was for Hera. That skillet was for all of the people that have moved on. That ladle was just pure frustration. I started to smash glasses on the counter tops. When the shards of glass cut me, it felt good. It was much better than this pain that I had been feeling for so long. I kept going. I was finally stopped when I caught sight of my reflection in the microwave; the room, dimly light by the moon on the lake, shone on my gaunt face, my expression wild. I hadn't realized it, but I was crying. My hair was everywhere, and my hands were shredded and inlaid with chunks of glass. Blood spattered my face. I looked unstable. Maybe I was.

All of the sudden, I was tired. More tired than I had ever been. My hands hurt. I picked my way across the kitchen over to Percy's room. Throwing back his covers, I snuggled into his bed. I would give it all up to be a part of this, a part of you. Surrounded by his scent, I fell into the most fitful sleep I had had since the night before Percy left.

Later on, I would find out that the next day the camp had searched all morning for a sign of me, thinking me to be gone like Percy. Around noon, however, Chiron was relived to find me sleeping soundly in Percy's bunk, curled up in a ball and splashed with blood. While I slept, my hands where bandages and the counselors thought it best to knock me out for several days with nectar.

I dreamt I was with him.

Waking up was like resurfacing after being underwater for too long, and in this case, I had been swimming down instead of trying to break the surface. But I knew it was time to be Annabeth Chase again, and I tucked Percy away in my mind the way someone folds up their favorite cardigan under their bed for safekeeping. I started training again, eating again, sleeping again; I was preparing to take the road less traveled by, I was preparing to find him, no matter how long it would take—because nothing seems to work the first few times, am I right?