Chapter 6

Percy.

So, Grover's back. And, he's not mad about me hanging out with Annabeth anymore. I think he was just jealous. I guess imaginary friends get jealous too.

Once (a long time ago) I'd had feelings for Rachel, and she had feelings for me (or maybe she'd just felt sorry for me). So, like any normal hormonal teenage boy would do, I kissed her. The problem is, I'm not a normal teenage boy. Long story short, Grover flipped out on me. The next day I went to group therapy with several injuries. Now, Rachel's afraid to even touch me. And that's the story of my first failed romance.

Right now it's group therapy time. I haven't seen Annabeth since last night, and as I walk into the room she clearly avoids my gaze. Plus, instead of sitting in her usual spot, she's sitting at the opposite end of the badly formed circle. I pretend not to notice and walk to my usual spot, beside Thalia.

Thalia glances at my unusual long sleeved shirt, but doesn't say anything about it. I glance at her hastily bandaged knuckles, but don't say anything. That's are group. We never call anyone out on anything. Anything at all.

Luke steps into the centre of the circle to start group therapy. Everything goes as normal as usual until Luke says this, "So, yesterday was visiting day, right? Let's talk about that."

The room of minors that don't normally listen to Luke, and instead tend to whisper and giggle to friends, falls eerily silent. Luke, pretending not to notice the change, continues. "Who wants to start?"

No one speaks up. Who would? Luke still perseveres through the quiet. "Thalia, what about you? Your mom came, and you were nowhere in sight! What's that about?" He sounds unnaturally cheery. I bury my head in my hands at his stupidity. Yes Luke, call out the girl with the anger issues.

Thalia though, keeps an indifferent face. "Yes, Chiron told me she was looking for me. I'd went to the bathroom at that time. Unfortunate timing."

"For thirty minutes?" He asks, suspiciously.

"Yes." That's all she said. She seemed to be taking on a defensive tone in her voice now. Any minute she might snap.

Luke tries again, but this time with a different topic. "What happened to your hand, Thalia?"

"Nothing." She was trying to contain her anger now. The class is watching tensely.

"Are you sure, because it looks..." He trails off when he sees Thalia's expression.

She looks like she's still going to snap so I grab her hand. "Don't do anything you'll regret," I whisper, "count to ten."

She closes her eyes and does just that. Luke pretends nothing happened and moves on.

...

After group therapy I go to the rec room. As always, armed with my sketchpad and pencil, I draw. Annabeth comes in soon after. She looks distressed. Now that I'm sure I won't get in trouble for it, I try to make conversation.

"So...Annabeth." I start.

She looks at me and raises one eyebrow. "Yes?" She speaks, smirking.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm not sure. Depression isn't a real illness, right?" She phrases it as a joke, but I could hear some bitterness in her voice.

I wince. "Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes I'm a jerk." I trail off.

"Sometimes?" I wince again. After a short pause, she says, "It's okay though, you're forgiven. We're friends now, remember?"

We fall into a comfortable silence. Me, drawing. Her, reading. Subconsciously, I start to sketch Annabeth.

"Percy?" I raise an eyebrow up at her in question. Though we haven't even talked much, I still feel a connection.

"What's up with your...arm?'

I bit my lip and just shrugged.

Annabeth.

I don't know what came over me after Percy shrugged. Maybe it was just my infuriating personality of wanting to know everything. Maybe I was frustrated that Percy had never given me straight answers. Maybe that's why I marched up to the scrawny boy and pushed his right sleeve up.

Surprisingly, he didn't resist. What I saw on his arm almost made me want to throw up. Unbandaged scars littered his forearm. Apparently he's used his artistic ability to draw on himself, with a knife. I wasn't sure what the picture was exactly, but that's only because i looked away from him immediately.

Percy.

Is she mad at me? Was my initial thought. My next thought was that she probably thought Grocer was a monster. I spoke quickly to set her straight. "Grover didn't do this to me. I did this to myself."

She sat, and calmed herself before speaking. "Why?"

I shrugged again. Excuse me if I didn't want to tell her my whole life story just yet.

I think that she's mad at me, like genuinely mad, when she gives me a weird smile.

"Hey." She grabs my arm again, but this time softly. I look up at her. She starts to laugh a little as she pushes up the sleeves to her shirt.

I see cuts, straight and hard across her wrists. Not shaky like mine. Uniform. Discipline. They'd all become scabs, though there was evident signs that she was picking at them. It makes me laugh. I don't know why. It should be disgusting. We should be disgusted.

Though the relief that I wasn't the only one, that it was maybe even normal, made me cackle. Annabeth gave me a weird look before joining in with small giggles.

"We're crazy." She admonishes, but she's still grinning. Still holding on to the fact that we were bonding over something so sick.

"We can be crazy together." Is my simple reply. And her smile lessens, but it's still there. When we calm down enough, she asks me another question.

"How did you even get a knife?"

" You pick up tricks when you're here for a while?"

"Wanna see yourself?" I ask her, ultimately changing the topic of discussion, and showing her my half-finished sketch.

She leaned in to see my sketch pad. "I look...sad." She mutters, sobered up.

"Is that a way of insulting my work?" I ask.

"No," she replies, "I mean the way you drew my eyes, it's like I've had years of turmoil and suffering."

"Hate to break it to ya kid, but that's how you usually look. Like life personally has a vendetta against you."

"But the rest of me looks really beautiful?"

"I can only draw what I see. You're like a dull, sullen beauty."

"That's either a horrible compliment, or a horrible insult." She smirks.

"Neither, it's just an observation." I muse over the picture, "Maybe if you smile more?" I tease her.

Yes. Done. Finally. Kinda short, sorry. Please review!