"I can't stay here anymore," he tells Annabeth one day, as they lay at the bottom of the lake.
She looks at him, gray eyes still so piercing, even with the green wavy light refracting through the water above obscuring the rest of her face.
"You could, if you wanted to," she whispers softly. There was resignation there- she knew this was coming, probably for a long time. She knows him better than anyone, has seen him at his lowest lows and highest highs and everything in between.
"I…" He starts, and stops. He couldn't make the sounds come out. It would hurt them both, but the damage had already been done, and it was clear what his next words would've been. He changes track. "I'm sorry," he says instead. "I love you."
"I love you too, Seaweed Brain."
Mom buys him a car once he gets his license. Just a used Nissan Altima, with a dent in the side that they take to the repair shop to get hammered out. Nothing fancy. With his luck, it'd be totalled by the end of the month, gone the way of Gabe's Camaro. Until then, though, it would get him far.
Would it be far enough?
He crosses state lines like it's hopscotch. He drives through the morning, drives through the night, drives until the tank runs empty and he has to ask a passing car for help or call a tow truck.
No GPS, no map, no destination. He takes exits impulsively, even if they turn him around until he's hopelessly lost and going backwards. He doesn't ask for directions- he wouldn't follow them anyways.
Camping under the stars, sleep comes for him quickly. The Curse saps his stamina, even when all he's doing is sitting behind a steering wheel, jittering like a livewire. Occasionally, a monster finds him, giving him a chance to work off some steam, but the encounters are rare and he's left full of frantic energy more often than not. Still, he gets tired, he sleeps- but he doesn't feel much better when he wakes.
Two weeks; it's a miracle he hasn't crashed yet with how often he starts daydreaming while driving. Dreams of better days. Younger, more innocent days, when it didn't feel like he had to lift the weight of the sky off his chest just to get out of bed. He chases those dreams, chases them like a high as he speeds down the freeway- maybe that's why it's called the highway.
Further from home. Further from everything he's ever known. He's so far from New York he doesn't feel like his mother's son anymore. He's so far from the ocean he doesn't feel like his father's son, either. Neither god nor mortal. He wonders if he's still human, sometimes.
He bleeds now. Found that out when he scraped his hand while gathering firewood one night. Strange, how he didn't notice when he lost his mortal anchor. What would it have felt like? Like a rope snapping, he imagines. Or maybe it was gradual, unraveling with every mile he traveled, until it was hanging on by a thread- until he lost his last tether.
He goes further.
The Golden Coast. He spends a day on the beach, but doesn't go into the water. It doesn't call to him anymore. Maybe he just can't hear it.
Is this far enough? It doesn't feel like it. Where else? Back home?
He can't remember what that means anymore.
Tunnel vision haunts him. It's only been three months, but it's like the road is all he knows now. Landscapes blurring past his unfocused eyes so quickly he can only really make out colors. Broken yellow blending together into one continuous line, like the yellow brick road urging him to follow, follow, follow.
He followed it, and now he's reached the end of the line. He takes a nap on a stretch of the beach far from any cities, and wakes to the stars. So bright overhead, unobscured by light pollution and smog. He spends the night gazing up at those beautiful lights until the moon is swallowed by the horizon, and he wonders if this is why people used to think that the Earth was flat, that there was an edge to the world they could fall off.
If he went far enough, could he fall too?
He's struck by the sudden feeling that he shouldn't be here. That he was wrong to go. Looking back, he almost thought he heard Annabeth say something else. Almost heard her say stay.
The moon is gone, but the sunrise hasn't reached California yet. He stands up in the darkness, brushes the sand off his ruffled clothes, and trudges back to his car.
He knows where he needs to go, now. Wonders how he forgot.
Home.
Was listening to Wake Up by Eden on loop while writing this.