viii.
ohio, us, 1986
"Mrs. Dodds, I swear I didn't cheat on the math test!"
Mrs. Dodds sticks her hand into Percy's bag and extracts a piece of paper. Percy avoids looking at her long, crusty fingernails and gawks at what's written on the paper instead: the answers to the algebra test.
A smirk spreads its way across Mrs. Dodds's face. "Care to explain this, Jackson?"
"I-I swear I didn't put that in there! Someone must've framed me."
"Who would go to the trouble of doing that? Luke told me he saw you looking mighty suspicious before and after the test, and now this cheat sheet? It's all the evidence I need."
Percy balls his fists at his sides. He's never gotten in trouble with a teacher before, especially not for cheating. How is he going to explain this to his mom? She'll ground him for weeks when she finds out.
Goddamn Castellan. That smug-faced ass has to be behind this.
"You'll have detention with Mr. Brunner after school today, Jackson. And if I catch you cheating again, trust that the punishment will be much more severe."
Percy stalks out of the classroom, still seething. Jason and Leo are waiting outside the door for him, leaning against the wall.
"Yo," Leo says, "who pissed in your breakfast this morning?"
Percy falls into step beside them as they head towards the cafeteria. "Luke somehow convinced Dodds that I cheated and she gave me a friggin' detention."
Jason jostles his shoulder. "Tough. Dodds is a class-A barf bag."
"She's a total narbo," Leo agrees. "She once took five points off my homework because I forgot to put the date. Can you even believe that?"
"I just...man, I got detention."
Leo snorts. "Don't worry about it. Detention's piece of cake. Brunner always has his nose buried in some lame ass poetry book and doesn't care if you fool around the whole time."
"Yeah, it'll be fine, Perce," Jason says, reaching out to flick Percy's neck.
Despite these assurances, Percy's still practically shaking in his boots when he walks to Brunner's classroom at the end of the day. He feels like one of the typical after-school delinquents and it makes his skin crawl. For god's sake, he's in the friggin' AV club! He plays D in his basement for fun! His mom shops for clothes for him!
But detention turns out to be nothing like he was anticipating. Brunner's classroom is empty, no scary kids in leather and studs baring their teeth at him, just a lone girl sitting in the back row of desks and a note written on the board from Brunner. My niece needed picked up from school, just do your homework and tell Principal Reynolds I'm in the bathroom if he stops by.
Percy drops his bag on the seat nearest to the door and turns around to study the girl in the back.
He's immediately intimidated. A cigarette hangs from her lips. She's got big and tousled hair like the girls in magazines do. There's black smudged around her eyes and a tattoo peeks out from underneath her turtleneck.
She is beautiful. She is absolutely terrifying.
The girl looks up at him. "Hey," she says, her voice like gravel run over by tires, "you wanna ditch with me?"
"I don't think we're supposed to do that."
She takes a drag on her cigarette, exhales, then frowns. "Brunner's not here. Nobody'll know."
"Th-that doesn't seem like a good idea."
"What, scared you'll get in trouble?"
Percy glances around anxiously. He's already in detention…so what's one broken rule? And he really doesn't want to spend another minute in this stuffy, hot school.
"Okay, fine." He slings his backpack over his shoulder and starts for the door.
The girl starts laughing at him. "We escape through the window."
"Oh."
She sticks her cigarette in between her teeth and uses both arms to slide the window open. Once there's a gap big enough to slip through, she steps aside. "After you…?"
"Percy. My name's Percy."
"Alrighty, Percy. Let's haul ass before Reynolds catches us."
Percy hoists himself through the window and lands in the bushes below with a thump. "Oof."
The girl laughs again. Her laugh is even more raspy than her voice, but it's also kind of hot.
"What's your name?" Percy asks her as he picks himself up from the ground.
She raises an eyebrow. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?"
"It's only fair, since I told you mine."
After a moment of staring at him, silver gaze like a knife, she says, "I'm Annabeth. You can call me Annie."
He rubs his arm, which is starting to hurt from how he landed on it. "Well, Annie, why couldn't we have used the door?"
"Oh, we could have. I just thought the window was more dramatic."
Percy scowls at her, and she smiles, and butterflies erupt in his stomach entirely unexpectedly.
See, the thing is, Percy's been with cute girls before. Girls who get good grades and never break their curfews and wear those skirts that only show off a bit of calf. Girls who held his hand during movies and kissed him over pizza dates and sang along to Cyndi Lauper in the passenger seat of his car.
Annie is not one of those cute girls. She's the antithesis of them, yet for whatever reason, Percy is drawn to her.
They walk around to the front of the building, where Percy's bike is chained up. He pulls it from the rack but doesn't get on it.
Annie pulls a skateboard covered in peeling band stickers and permanent marker doodles out of her backpack. "Well, this has been nice, but I'm gonna bounce."
"Wait, don't go yet!" Percy blurts out.
She pauses, one foot on her skateboard, one foot on the sidewalk. "Uh, what?"
"I was wondering if…you could teach me how to skate!"
Annie gives him a skeptical look. "Really?"
"Yes, I've always wanted to learn how, and since we just escaped together and kind of know each other now, or at the very least aren't strangers, I thought you could maybe show me—"
"Percy, you're wearing high-waisted jeans and…are those racing flames on your helmet?"
"And? Those things don't mean I can't skate."
"You're a dweeb. You don't associate with outcasts like me. I'm nothing but trouble. I smoke. I skate. I go dancing. Our paths may have intersected this one time, but that doesn't mean we can be friends."
Percy crosses his arms. "I don't believe you. You may think you're all that, Annabeth, but you're not as cool and rebellious and dangerous as you think you are. Deep down, you're just as much of a dweeb as me."
Annie sighs. She tosses her mane of curls back from her shoulders and rolls her eyes rather dramatically. Percy's beginning to get the idea she likes dramatics.
"Percy, if you really want to learn to skate, first you need to buy yourself a board."
Percy tries to hide his smile and fails.
He buckles on his helmet and nudges down his bike's kickstand. Annabeth sets off along the sidewalk. He pedals after her.
"Why aren't you wearing a helmet?" he calls as they both pick up speed.
"I like to live on the edge!" she calls back.
They're both grinning when they reach the mall, hair windswept and eyes bright. The mall parking lot is filled with cars, and inside the large shopping center is equally crowded.
Annie leads him past the splashing fountains and the neon-washed food court. Percy hums along to the catchy song playing over the mall speakers until Annie turns around to glare at him.
"This new wave stuff is bogus. You should try listening to real music."
"I happen to like Duran Duran," Percy counters.
"Barf me out. Duran Duran is hella lame."
"I'm sorry your taste in music is probably, like, Metallica. If you enjoy the sounds of ear-splitting screaming and drums like pans clanging together, be my guest."
She flips him off, and Percy laughs at her. He wonders what they look like together, Annie like a girl straight out of a punk MTV music video, him in clothes from the Gap with a haircut his mom gave him.
The atmosphere inside the store Annie corrals him into is very different from what he's used to (though, to be fair, he's used to shopping in, like, the discount clothes section of Kmart). He feels out of his element as Annabeth drags him to the back, where dozens of skateboards are mounted onto the wall.
Annie points to one of the boards on the wall and speaks to the cashier in some sort of skater-lingo that Percy can't make heads or tails of. Then Percy hands over a forkful of money and he and Annie are strolling out of the store, Percy with his new skateboard tucked beneath his arm. It cost a small fortune, but boy does he feel cool holding it.
"We might as well hit up the food court while we're here," Annie says.
"That actually sounds great. I'm starving."
They get Burger King and scarf it down in ten minutes flat. Annie insists on ducking in Walden's on their way out to browse the fiction section, then they head towards the skate park so Percy can put his new board to use.
When they get to the park, the sky is already beginning to darken. Within a few minutes, it's streaked with pink and orange, the fluffy clouds lit golden by the sun beneath.
Percy watches as Annie ties her hair up in a ponytail with a scrunchy. There's something weirdly mesmerizing about watching a girl do her hair, but especially Annie. She nibbles down on her lip and her face scrunches a bit and it's overall really cute and hot.
"I can't believe I'm about to teach a random boy I just met today how to skate." Annabeth says as Percy puts on his helmet.
"This was such a fun day," Percy says, "That I actually forgot we only met this afternoon."
"Huh. Honestly, so did I. You're pretty rad, Percy."
"Thanks."
Percy rolls his board back and forth with his foot. "So, what do I do with this?"
"How about I show you how it's done first?"
He wrings his hands. The half-pipe she's eyeing looks pretty risky, and she isn't wearing any protection. "Shouldn't you put on a helmet or something?"
"Don't be such a worrywart, Percy. I'll be fine. I've done this half-pipe a gazillion times."
He watches, heart pounding, as Annie walks up to the ramp, props up her board, mock-salutes him, and performs a sort of hoppy-jump-foot-thing that sends her sailing down the half-pipe. She jogs back to him, grinning.
"See? Told you I'd be fine."
Percy smiles. He follows Annabeth's gaze to where a group of boys are fooling around on another half-pipe. One of the boys grabs his board in midair as he goes down the ramp, his feet flying underneath him, and somehow manages to land smoothly. His friends all clap him on the back.
"Can you do that?" Percy asks Annie.
She rolls her eyes. "Do fish swim? Of course. That's just the Ollie grab."
"Wicked."
"You want to see it?"
He shrugs. "Sure."
"Watch and be shocked."
Percy is shocked after her trick. But not in the way she thought he would be.
He should've yelled to her when he saw her grip falter. Instead he watched, horrorstruck, as she landed on the concrete ramp with a sickening crack. Her skull. Cracked.
"Annie!" All too late, he surges forward, face already wet with tears. "Someone call 911!"
Annie looks up at him blearily through her eyelashes. A puddle of blood is forming around the back of her head, turning those glorious curls scarlet. Percy seizes her hand and squeezes it tightly. It's stupid. No matter how hard he grips her, the life is going to keep seeping out of her.
"Why didn't you wear your helmet?" he asks her, voice breaking.
"What can I say? I live on the edge."
He laughs weakly.
"I feel really light-headed, Percy. I think I'm dying."
No shit, he thinks, but doesn't have in him to say. He doesn't get a chance to. EMTs race onto the scene, shoving Percy aside. They wheel out a stretcher, but it's useless. The wound in her skull is too deep.
Percy gets a glimpse of Annie through the legs of the EMTs. God, how did he end up on the ground? He can't remember falling. It doesn't matter, just look at Annie. Face slick with sweat and deathly pale. Eyelids fluttering.
One of the EMTs comes over to Percy. "Do you know her?"
"Her name is Annabeth. I...I don't know her last name."
The woman puts a hand to his forehead, then touches her fingers to his neck to feel his pulse. "You better drink some fluids. You're looking faint, which is completely normal, considering what you just witnessed."
Percy somehow manages to ask, "Are…are you going to be able to save her?"
He isn't at all surprised by the EMT's answer.
It's impossible, but he has the strangest feeling that this isn't the first time he's lost Annie.