I posted a one-shot yesterday, and I would really appreciate it if you read it and left a review! It's titled outrunning hope. And tysm for all the support! Anyway, this chapter is really really important, so I hope you enjoy it! Additionally, there's a little excerpt of a blog post, which is in italics, so please note that!

Disclaimer: help! I'm running out of ideas (unlike our dear Uncle Rick, he has a bunch up his sleeve).

~headline: annabeth chase is okay~

…

Annabeth stares at the empty document in front of her as her cursor flashes black and white. She knows what she wants to write, but she doesn't know how to do it without being hypocritical. Because that's what this is. She's taking back a lot of what she's said by even writing this post. It's the kind of thing where if she posts this, she'll be making a controversial statement. And even if, like, only fifty or so people see it, it'll still be on the internet, along with all of her other works, so millions could potentially see it. Not that they will, they won't. Blogging is a passion, of course, but Annabeth knows that it'll never get big. That's why she aspires to become a journalist so she can take that passion and make use of it. And it's something she's good at. She tries to bring insight into each and every one of her blog posts, although she knows that in some cases, her perspective can be and seem one-sided. And that's partially why she's writing this post, to cease from being one-sided, to show that she can illustrate and see the full story. Athens Acropolis is like a portfolio for her writings, a portfolio that can show the world (and also, maybe colleges) what she has to offer.

Annabeth thinks she has a lot to offer. Creativity is there, yeah, self-confidence, which is extremely important. Although she's not always confident in herself, she's confident in the strength of her work and her widened perspectives.

The cursor still blinks black and white in front of her, almost patronizing her. I mean like it's a cool song, write about that I guess, her mind helpfully provides as if she could post a sentence reading, "I listened to Percy Jackson's new song and it actually wasn't that bad," and call it a day. Come to think about it, that's actually a pretty good title. Annabeth types it in as the header. That's always a good starting point. Whenever Annabeth gets apprehensive about writing a blog post or doesn't know how to phrase something, she types random letters, sometimes comprehensible sentences onto her document, until something actually decent comes out. It's actually a pretty helpful method, so she does that now, typing word after word, some that make sense, and others that don't. She writes for hours, until it's probably way too late at night, and she needs to go to sleep because there is school tomorrow.

She tries to type quietly because waking up her father at one am on a Wednesday night is probably not preferable considering that she's actually trying to fix her sleep schedule. Or, well, has tried. It seems that's a lost cause right now. Plus, if she's being honest, she doesn't know if said father cares that much about what she's doing late at night. He's probably just happy she's not out at a bar or popping pills. Because to be honest, he probably thinks that Annabeth's some sort of druggie who copes by abusing harmful substances. Though she doesn't know. She'll never know how her father sees her, and he isn't really offering her any answers because quite obviously, he doesn't care. Or it doesn't seem like he cares.

She looks back up at the document in front of her, and sighs as she reads the text. It's somehow turned from unrecognizable garble, to a speech about the dangers of insomnia, to a rant about her father. Extremely far away from the topic that she's actually focusing on. Maybe she needs to try something else.

Heading to Youtube, she pulls up the Girl in My Corner video, and listens through it. Once she gets to the lyrics— her lyrics, she thinks at least, her hands clench, because Pylos has avoided talking about it even more, specifically changing subjects whenever she brings it up. It's actually really annoying and she's getting quite fed up by it, because Annabeth Chase does not like to be left in the dark about things. She likes to just know. And as much as she likes Percy Jackson's song (lyrically, it's brilliant and the melody is extremely catchy), she has positively no clue why lyrics so similar to her own are in there.

Slightly inspired, she goes back to the nonsense filled document, and idents, trying to write an actual post on another line.

~headline: i listened to percy jackson's new song, and it actually wasn't that bad~

…

So I think we all know by now I have some pretty controversial opinions on our resident heartthrob pop-star Percy Jackson. And it's not something I'm going into, because if you want to hear about my rants about how he's changed, then you can go to my The Percy Problem series, which is linked there. Now, I'm not going to say that what I'm writing isn't hypocritical, because it really is, I can't deny it. I've finally realized that going into different industries change people, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Bottom line, I think that as long as you aren't hurting people, you're fine. Which is weird for me to say, because I haven't been entirely fair to Percy Jackson. I didn't realize this before, but although I'm about to see new perspectives, I haven't looked at his. But that's not what this post is about, really. I just wanted to say that before everyone went pointing fingers, telling me I'm a big ol' hypocrite. I know, I know, I know. I know it all. And I'm ready to take it all.

Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, real talk: Percy Jackson's song was actually really really good in my opinion. I welcome all others, but I have to say, it's the first of his more recent songs that actually feels real, like he's not trying to take on a persona. Yes, there are some parts of the song I'm a bit quizzical at but those are for personal reasons— not because the song isn't good, because it is. The way Percy's voice carries throughout the song feels genuine, as if he's really singing about a specific person. I think everyone figures that person is his girlfriend, Calypso Atlas, and despite my questions about this, I think it's sweet that he wrote a song about her, even before they were a confirmed couple. I find it a bit weird to think about it, but Percy and I are the same age and he's already writing songs about relationships— genuine ones, ones that hold meaning. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

But what I do know is that Girl in My Corner is a good song. And although Percy's style has definitely… shifted to say the least, what he's saying in that song feels genuine, no matter who it's directed to, whether it's Calypso Atlas or someone else. And although there's no chance at all he's reading this, I would like to say: you've done well Percy. All we can hope for is that his currently unnamed album, the one he's supposedly coming out with in a couple months, will be as good as Girl in My Corner was. It seems to me, at least, that he's getting his stride back, and that's important. Keep up the good work Percy.

…

Annabeth reads through the blog-post, satisfied. She'll have to edit it the next morning, because currently her brain status is at sleep deprived walrus. She looks it over once, and then shuts the computer before wading over to her bed, and falling against it. As much as she hates the appearance of it, it's not the most uncomfortable thing in the world, so she curls up in the mass of sheets and blankets, finding a comfortable position.

And then realizes she forgot to turn the damn light off, which can really put a damper in someone's mood especially if they're comfortable. She groans, and then gets up from her bed trying to keep the blanket mountain intact to turn off the light. Once it's off (thank god, she's never been able to sleep with the light on), she goes back to her bed and has to switch positions a bunch of times until she's comfortable again.

There she stays, curled up in the sheets, in the warmth, for the rest of the night. It's not a dreamless night but she isn't having a scary dream persay, just a strange one. Basically, flying monkeys. Taking over the world.

Which is good, because the last dream she remembers having is of her being pulled into water by her mother's reflection, so a plain and simple nightmare like this is a very big step up. Plus, it'll give her something funny to tell Piper the next day, or well, today, because it's technically one am, which means tomorrow is today. So she'll tell Piper about it today.

She's too tired to be thinking about that type of shit. Back to the flying monkeys.

…

Annabeth wakes up, obviously, tired as hell, and immediately regrets staying up that late. After avoiding getting up for a good twenty minutes, she sluggishly sits up, and rubs her eyes. It's going to be another great day.

The shower is open, luckily, and with a level of precaution she grabs a towel and enters the bathroom. Bobby and Matthew usually wake up later than her, which means if she gets to the bathroom before them, it's basically on lockdown there for thirty minutes. She gets ready to go onto the shower, and then sets her towel on the small brown cabinet under the sink. After getting into the shower she washes her hair and cleans herself.

Here, the water is immediately the right temperature. Back in New York, she had to wait a bit to get it to the correct temperature, but the good thing about here is that she can just get in the shower and have the right amount of hot and cold there. Her little rebellion is that whenever she gets out, she switches the water to cold just to see if someone will accidentally forget to change it when they get in. It's evil yes and definitely not so great to do, which she understands, but by now it's not for her step-brothers, it's become more of a force of habit.

She wraps her towel around her body, and ties it up tightly. For a moment, she just stares at herself in the mirror thinking about how horrible she looks. Her hair is a wreck, frizzy curls sticking out in all directions, and she'll have to put some curl cream in it later. There's this little green and purple bottle she's used for the last couple of years not to tame them— but make them look healthy— which works pretty well. That's later in her routine, so now, she grabs her light purple toothbrush and puts a line of toothpaste in it, before brushing her teeth. Once they're clean, she quickly goes in with floss and then transitions over to her facial lotion. It's a small egg-shell white bottle (and who even says "egg-shell white", it sounds pretentious to Annabeth) with a green cap which she slathers onto her face to prevent break-outs. By now, she feels more awkwake, but her dark circles are still there, so she grabs the small bottle of concealer she keeps— Annabeth usually doesn't wear makeup, but desperate times means she has to take desperate measures— and puts it around her eyes, blending it out with the side of her thumb until she doesn't look like death warmed over.

Finally, she goes in with her hair gel until it looks slightly presentable, and then gathers it all into a big ponytail. Holding up her towel with one hand, she rushes back to her bedroom, and then goes to pick out clothes, a casual outfit— a t-shirt that reads, "let's carpe the hell out of this diem" with a blue zip of sweatshirt and cuffed jeans. She feels a bit bad about wearing the t-shirt, because if there's anything she's not doing, it's "seizing the day." Basically, the same thing that she wears everyday. It's comfortable, and yeah, sometimes Annabeth wants to explore her fashion sense but that doesn't mean she wants to do it in high school of all places. She'll try new things in college just… these days, she's just trying to avoid the prying, judgmental eyes of society by blending it, which is admittedly, basic.

She puts her clothing on and then grabs her bag, heading downstairs to get breakfast. Helen is already in the kitchen, cooking eggs, and her father is reading the news off his phone, on the counter. Annabeth sets her backpack down near the front door, and then goes to the pantry to get pop-tarts out, preferably the strawberry ones, because those are the best. She sets them in the toaster (because anyone who eats untoasted pop-tarts should have their reputation tainted) and waits for them to pop out. It's oddly silent, and she turns around to see her father and Helen staring directly at her.

"What?" She asks, taking her hand off the toaster.

Helen wrinkles her nose, "I've made eggs. Why don't you eat those, instead of that…" garbage. Annabeth knows what she's thinking, and doesn't care.

"I like pop-tarts." She feels stupid as she says it, but it's true. She likes pop-tarts. They're good.

Frederick looks at his wife sympathetically. "Well, I think Helen would prefer it if you ate her eggs."

Annabeth waits a second to reply, and her pop tart, as the name suggests, pops out of the toaster, and she grabs it and puts it on the place she has out. "Well, I prefer pop tarts." Okay, so she knows she's being rude, but she can't help it. She takes a bite of the pop tart, and kind of hates herself for it because she knows she should just eat the damn eggs.

But.

She doesn't want to. It just feels so… parently. And she's not ready to consider them her parents yet. So she finishes her pop tart, and then walks to the living room, pulling out her phone, scrolling through her Instagram. She looks through posts upon posts, scrolls through stories, but stops at one, which genuinely confuses her. It's from Luke.

He's hanging out with a bunch of different people she doesn't recognize, and not Thalia. She squints to see if she's anywhere in the background, but she isn't. Annabeth wrinkles her brow and then types a message in, responding to his story. He's probably in class right now, but Annabeth knows that both him and Thalia don't abide by the "no phones" rule, so he'll probably respond.

"Hey," she types, "where's Thalia dude? You two are hanging out, right?"

She sends it without thinking, and then stares at the message for a little bit. He hasn't seen it yet, so she goes back to her main page, scrolling through various stories of people she knows well, and also doesn't. And then she stops at Thalia's story, which is a picture of her posing with a girl. She's pretty, yes, and has long black hair and enticingly dark eyes. Thalia has tagged her, and the girls handle is rarareyna she frowns at, and then visits the girls profile. It's private, so she taps the "request to follow" button, and then scourges her bio and profile picture. Her bio reads: BAG senior, Debate Team, which is short for Brooklyn Academy of the Gifted, meaning she goes to Annabeth's old school although she's never seen the girl before in her life. She takes a screenshot of the profile, and then texts it to Thalia, writing, "whose Reyna?"

Thalia sends a rolling eye emoji back, "you're such a stalker. And I'm in the middle of class you dumbass, if I get caught again, my phone will get taken away."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take, and again— who is she?"

"A friend." Thalia writes back. "Now seriously, I have to learn I guess."

"You guess."

"Shut up loser. Bye."

"Bye." Annabeth sighs.

She's left with virtually no information about this Reyna figure, though she suspects that Reyna might have to do with the fact that Thalia and Luke aren't hanging out together that much. It's weird, they were always so tight together, it didn't matter who was hanging out with who, they were never awkward. But now, she hasn't talked to Luke in ages, and Thalia's acting weird about this Reyna person, leaving Annabeth in the dark.

She goes back to her Instagram DM's, and sees that Luke has viewed the message. It looks like he's typing back, the three dots are up, but then they disappear, and she doesn't see them again. She sighs, and leans back into the couch, stretching her arms out. What they hell is happening between them all? Most of all, why is her life going to shit now? Yeah, she has a friend, and she has Pylos, but even he'sacting weird which makes life even harder. Her new "family", Thalia, Luke and Pylos are all so confusing, all making everything harder.

Almost as the thought of that disappears, Bobby and Matthew come down the stairs, one after the other all ready. They each eat some of Helen's goddamn eggs, which makes Annabeth laugh to herself, because there's something hilarious about her calling them that. Goddamn eggs.

Her step-brothers probably think she's extremely troubled by now.

…

Frederick drives them to school, just as any other day, and they arrive right on time, ten minutes before the first bell rings. As any other day, the twins leave her— Annabeth doesn't really know where they go, but whenever she sees them, it's with the same group of people. She heads to Dr. Brunner's office to meet up with Piper, just as she does any other day.

"Hey," she says, opening the door, expecting to see Piper. "Oh," she hesitates when Piper is not there.

Dr. Brunner looks up from his computer. "I think she's a little bit late, probably talking to her father or something."

"Okay." Annabeth says, and takes the opportunity to steal the bean bag chair Piper's staken claim at. She'll get hell for it later, but she really doesn't care.

Dr. Brunner looks at her through his glasses, and smiles. "How are you adjusting?"

Annabeth's a bit thrown off at the out-of-the-blueness of the question, "I'm okay. I mean, things are hard." She remembers that he's the school psychiatrist, and because she's been through "trauma" or something like that, he's trying to see if she's coping.

"Losing a parental figure is hard and going into a new environment simultaneously makes it even harder." He says matter of factly.

Annabeth looks down at her shoes. "Yeah." She's not sure what to say. "I'm, you know, figuring things out. I haven't been trying as hard with my—" she doesn't want to call them family. "I'm having a hard time with Helen and Frederick."

"So you don't consider them your family?"

"I don't really want to be therapized right now." Annabeth replies quietly. "I'm still figuring everything out. It takes time."

Dr. Brunner stares at her for a second, assessing the situation. "Okay." He says, looking back at his papers. Annabeth pulls out her phone, and goes to a conversation with Pylos. She doesn't type anything in, just stares at it, wondering what's going to happen next. If anything, really. She could just resume her old, boring life and wonder for the rest of it why Girl in My Corner sounds so familiar.

That's a sad life. Maybe she should drop it.

…

Piper doesn't show up until lunch. For the first half of the day, she's absent, leaving Annabeth alone. Except for fourth period history, where Hazel is there to keep her company. Each class before that is hell, where she forces interactions with other people, because she no longer has a partner to work with. It's honestly one of the worst days of school so far, and she feels so alone. As Annabeth is entering Dr. Brunner's room for lunch, hoping that Piper is there, she is pleasantly surprised by someone who is indeed Piper, but with a smile on their face.

"Annabeth." Piper stands up when she sees her. She's wearing a Peppa Pig shirt which Annabeth is ninety four percent sure is ironic. Today, she has two necklaces, four rings, and even more bracelets on. They swing around her arms and neck as she stands up in greeting, and Annabeth just… stares. "I have exciting news!" Piper says, "so, obviously, my dad has a little pull in stuff, and there's this meet and greet thing with Percy Jackson and he got me tickets!"

Tickets? As in plural. "That's great." Annabeth tells her, trying to be happy for her. She gets to meet Percy Jackson. That's fucking amazing. Annabeth isn't jealous at all. "Are you and your dad going?"

"No silly!" Piper puts her hands on Annabeth's shoulder, and she's very surprised because Piper's not a touchy feely type person like. At all. "For me and you. It's in like, a week or so I think, and I figured since we're both fans and friends, we could go together."

Annabeth stares at her for a moment, absolutely gobsmacked. And also a little touched, because Piper said they were friends. "Wait, are you being serious? I swear to god Piper, if you're screwing around, I'll chop your head off. Guillotine it right off."

"I'm being serious." Piper replies, squeezing Annabeth's shoulders. She flinches, because Pipers are wearing a bunch of rings, and it kind of really hurts. But whatever. She's fucking excited, because she's going to finally figure out what Percy Jackson is in real life. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to tell him her story, and how he's impacted her.

"Thank— you." She says to Piper. "You're honestly the best." Although Annabeth is definitely having friendship issues, at least she has one solid friend. That's important.

Piper smirks at her. "Don't get all sappy on me. I'll have you gradually pay me back with coffee."

Annabeth rolls her eyes. Piper really does love her coffee.

…

She's not sure what to say, or a matter a fact, what to do. Like, it's absolutely insane. Meeting Percy Jackson? It's kind of a dream come true. Sure yeah, she's heavily criticised him, but he's also led to a lot of beautiful things in her life— acceptance, love, music and possibly the most impactful one, Pylos.

Which is why she's really taking a barter right now, if she sends this message. "Hey, I got tickets to PJ's meet and greet thing. I just wanted to ask if you wanted to meet up before it or something. I'd really like to see you in person P."

Meeting Percy Jackson is certainly going to be an interesting experience. She doesn't even know what she'll say, "I've been following you since the beginning of time, and now I write a blog that publicly trashes you." She obviously can't say that. Maybe something simple, it's not as if he'll ever remember her, out of the millions of fans he's met, even if she does say something like that. Even if she does try to stand. Percy will never know how much he's impacted her, and she's fine with that. And the truth is, the only big impact this will have on her, is one of two things. One: if she actually sends this message, she'll be meeting Pylos, who she kind of loves, and two: she'd also be meeting Percy Jackson himself, which is really crazy, because, of course, he's Percy Jackson. So even if she doesn't send this message, at least one big thing will happen.

She shuts her eyes, and sends it. She's really taking a chance here, but she knows that if he's actually some creepy perverted guy (and it certainly doesn't seem like he is) that prays on seventeen year old girls, then she'll be around Piper and a large group of people. Percy Jackson has an obviously, massive fanbase, so she'll be around possibly, hundreds of people. And hopefully, meeting Pylos won't change anything about their relationship. Maybe if they meet, they'll start talking more. And yes, the anonymity thing makes her feel safer, but she like, really really likes Pylos, and hopefully, meeting in person will just strengthen their trust for each other.

She sets her phone down— right now, she's on her bed— and leans back, looking at the ceiling. And in that position, she wonders what went wrong. Everything has changed now, most of it for the worst, but at least it isn't all bad, some good things came out of it. Sure, she would do anything to take back the life she used to live, and yeah, she fucking misses her mother, but… she's doing okay. She's not great, that's for sure, but she's coping. Annabeth Chase is okay.

~it's okay to not be okay~

…

Lots of foreshadowing here… but also like! Yay! I've been so excited to put this chapter out, because, well, of course you guys know. Anyway! I hope everything's coming together for you all, and again, try for all the support, you're all truly amazing. If you have any questions feel free to ask, whether it's about the story, my writing, whatever. Again: I'd love it if you could check out my new one-shot, outrunning hope!

Thank you all for reading, lmk what you think, leave a review! Stay safe and healthy! Until the next chapter!

TheLil'Lion