Okay so hey people. I'm trying to prewrite all of these chapters, well at least as many as possible, so I can update easier and not leave you guys hanging. But this is getting hard already because the last chapter literally took me 45 minutes to write and it was only 5 pages long! Read and review and it'll make this process less annoying and more fun!

Also: Grover lives in Percy's apartment building, the one he used to live in before he moved to that house. If any of you thought that was a mistake.

Chapter 2: Flash

(Time warp. He's at home after school)

The house was dark, and quiet. Paul, my stepdad, was still at the school grading papers and stuff late and my mother was probably out talking to her agent or publisher or something. Ever since she got her book deal she's been really successfully and I am so proud of her, but she works so much and I never get to see her. And I need her the most right now.

But I guess it didn't matter, right? Because now she didn't need to marry some billionaire and my father, Poseidon, was totally irrelevant, and we didn't need his child support, but we still took it, mostly for gas money. It didn't matter because we had our own big house with Greek columns out front and we had a pool out back and I had a car, my mom had a car, Paul had a car, we had 3 extra bedrooms and 2 extra bathrooms, I got to go to a fancy private school and my mom didn't have to slave to afford it.

Everything was perfect.

My parents' life was perfect. Perfect except this ridiculous little blemish that sat in their home daily, eating their food and ruining their sofa with chocolate and cereal stains.

When I saw the pool, the water glimmering and glinting in the afternoon light, my mind left the subject of my useless existence. I focused on what bliss it would be to have the hands of water choke my heart and fill that hole for a second. I would rejoice at the feeling of the water being all… deep and unknown. I'd love the way it would make me feel normal, like I wasn't some freak with this strange obsession with silence and water.

Flashback

I am running. I am running with the sand stinging that cut on the bottom of my feet and the wind whipping at my skin, burning it a little. But I am laughing too because she's running even though I'll catch her. Even though no matter what she's mine and at the end of the day, I'm going to hold her. I'm going to hold her and hug her and taste her lips and feel her hips and listen to her heartbeat. At the end of the day she wants me as much as I need her and we're together and everything is perfect.

She looks beautiful in her white strapless sundress. It's incredible actually, how she could look like a princess, a model, and a normal New York native girl all at the same time. It's amazing how she can run all sandy and barefoot in that dress and make me feel like we're living the tackiest, cliché romance movie ever, and love it.

She giggles, yells for me to hurry up. She sounds like an angry taxi driver and it's cute because I don't think she realizes how much New York has changed her. She's from cool laid back California and she doesn't normally sound like that.

I catch her right as her feet touch that ultra soft, silky, and smooth sand right where the water barely reaches it. My arms wrap around her waist from behind and I pick her up into the air, swinging her around and loving the playful squeals and giggling noises she makes. I love her. Her hair is windblown and all out of whack and she wasn't wearing make up to begin with so she looks like a real girl.

Her lips meet mine gently, giving me a caring, sweet, innocent little closed mouth kiss. It tastes like blue cookies my mom used to make and something else sweet. I laugh a little as she comes back for more but I don't have time to full out laugh, you know, because I want her to kiss me. I want to kiss her and lie her down in the sand and make sure we both have to shower for 25 minutes to get all the sand off.

That's how we end up. Rolling around in the sand, her dress hiked up, my shirt off and getting soaked in the water. She hasn't seen the cabin yet, I wasn't sure then that I wanted her to see it.

I wasn't sure I loved her.

End Flashback

I gasped and came up from under the insistent pressing of water reluctantly for air. I'd been under for at least 7 minutes, long enough to have an extremely painful memory of me and her and it hurt. It hurt like all the molecules in my skull just decided to clench together like when you grind your teeth.

My phone was ringing.

I got out of the water, loving the way the cold bit at me as I dried.

"Hello?" I said. My voice sounded croaky and raspy form disuse. I'd barely talked all day, and I really didn't want to.

"Turn around." Nico said. It was always Nico to pull some weird shit like that, just walking into my house and stalking around me.

I turned around, of course, Nico was standing there in his all black apparel, sans the white school baseball cap, with Rachel.

"Hey." I murmured. Nico rolled his eyes and Rachel scowled at him. I didn't really want to talk to them, though I love those two like family, I wanted to just get back into the water. I wanted to drown. I wanted my lungs to be filled to the max with all that water. Maybe then I'd then someone would notice me or need me. Maybe then I'd be worth something. Because I am water and everyone needs it, right?

"'Sup?" Nico muttered. He was frowning, though he always is, this frown was different. This frown was on purpose, he was actually… disappointed?

"S'wrong?"

"Let's go inside. It's freaking frigid out here." he suggested quickly I could tell he really was cold though, because he had goosebumps and his teeth were chattering.

Rachel hadn't said a word and that was strange, but I really couldn't care. The noise of them breathing and walking and talking was this disgusting roar that was washing over my senses and I just couldn't take it because I wanted to swallow all the water in the world and I never would if they were bothering me.

I wanted take in something they needed.

"What'd you come over for? I was h-,"

"Holding your breath?" Nico sneered. I rolled my eyes and towled my hair dry. I hated this feeling. That downer right after the euphoria of water filling me up.

The two of them followed me into the kitchen where I grabbed a cup and looked in the cabinets for a good scotch. I poured it, mixed it with a little juice, and took the little white pill I had laid out for myself. It wasn't prescribed, from a doctor, but I prescribed it to myself. It helped me sleep and made me want to stay in the dark forever and freeze time a little.

Rachel looked at the cup in disgust, but said nothing, and Nico looked like he wanted a cup for himself. I took a swig and then swallowed it down, my face pinching up from the burn.

"You don't want to hang out?" Rachel asked, and I could hear the disappointment seeping into her words as she spoke. It broke my heart it half because I knew it was my fault, but I didn't know what to do.

"We could, I mean-I have- sure I guess." I stammered, and I felt my cheeks getting warmer and warmer. I didn't like the way Nico was staring at me, I didn't like the way my skin felt dry and tight and I hated the taste in my mouth, the feeling in my stomach.

"Cool, go take a shower or something, and put on something nice." Rachel said with a squeal. I was happy, or at least satisfied to see her happy. I was glad she wasn't sitting around biting her lip of and growing gray hair way too many years early because of me.

Nico walked into the living room, making himself at home, like always, and turning to ESPN. He doesn't really seem like the sporty type. He seems like he'd sit around and write poetry and stuff, but he doesn't. I wish I could be like Nico sometimes. I wish I could be me without a care, and say what I want and not need to make people feel better.

The shower was too hot. It scorched my skin and stung my eyes but I liked it because it was water. I couldn't help but notice I was taking way too long, but since we'd moved into this swanky neighborhood it wasn't like we would run out of hot water or anything. I hated this place really. I'd liked living in our cluttered little apartment with my mom and Paul and never knowing where anything was. I liked it, the memory of it because it was before Annabeth. It was before she dumped me, and left all these broken, trashy pieces that couldn't fit anywhere except in the water where everything fits.

For some strange reason, I think Nico had picked my clothes out and not Rachel. The two had gotten into the habit of making me shower and picking my clothes for the day during the summer because my mom never could and Paul didn't want to and all I wanted was to swim so clothes were stupid to me. I just needed swimming trunks and I was good.

The reason I think Nico had chosen what I wore was because, it was short sleeved. Rachel always let me wear shirts that at least came to my elbows. I don't know why, because she had to have known that it would look a little suspicious, but she did it anyway.

Nico had been paying attention.

Because, they were shallow. The small little cuts crisscrossing on my wrist. You could barely see them, they weren't really even there if you didn't care. If you didn't know me you wouldn't see them, you wouldn't see the way I always rubbed at them when I was sitting in class. If you weren't Nico you wouldn't see how dead my eyes were and you wouldn't see how much I needed water and you wouldn't know to bring me a bottle every morning. And if you weren't Nico you sure as hell wouldn't know that I'd freak it I had to wear short sleeves.

"Can I change shirts?" I called down the stairs. I was wearing the jeans and I'd sprayed the weird body spray on myself that Rachel said was "yummy".

"Why?" Rachel whined.

"I don't like it. It's too…"

"Nico?" she suggested. I laughed a little at that and nodded like she could see me.

"Well I did buy it." I heard him grumble softly. There was a twinge of smugness in his voice as he said it, like he knew on the inside I was dry as a desert and dying from thirst because I was panicking and I couldn't breathe or stop thinking or rambling to myself, and good gods I needed water!

"Could you bring me some w-water?" I stammered a little. I knew Nico had just rolled his and- and Rachel had grimaced, but nodded anyway and went to get a glass from the cabinet.

I heard the filter running and the ice maker shaking and I nearly died with happiness.

She walked up the stairs with the glass in one hand a different shirt in the other. It was black (probably a present from Nico) and it went to my elbows like I liked them. Great.

"Thanks Rache. You're the best." I sighed and chugged the water before slipping the shirt on. She rolled her eyes and tugged on my hand.

"Got your wallet? We're going out. But I gotta go home and change first, you know, because when we do go out I don't want everyone there to see me in these ratty jeans and stuff. And I called Riley over to do my hair. I guess you and Neeks can play Xbox or something, Octavion (I wonder who's made Octavion Rachel's stepbrother before!) barely plays anymore," she started babbling as she lugged me down the stairs. Nico was still watching ESPN, but he was muttering angrily under his breath about wanting to rip some guy's spleen out and shoving it down his freaking throat. That was his equivalent to yelling.

Rachel was still prattling on and Nico had turned off the T.V to grab his car keys. He drove this huge truck and he purposely played the loudest most obnoxious music on earth just to annoy his stepmom Persephone, a florist who works downtown. She's all about peace and quiet so she irks the heck out of him. His mother, Maria, had introduced him to different music, and Hades, his dad, got him in metal, but stopped playing it around the house when Persephone moved in.

We drove to Rachel's house listening to Marilynn Manson and Nico sang along animatedly the whole time, even smiling a little bit when the song Lunchbox came on. It had practically been his theme song last school year.

Rachel lived in the kind of house I used to want when we lived in our shoebox apartment. It was two stories, a light blue color and wide with a white wrap around porch. She had a porch swing in front and in back there was a huge glass table and chairs that looked good with her dad's chrome grill. During the summer they always cooked out and laughed and it used to make me feel like I was in a movie. Her house was always a little cluttered too, in her dining room her mother always had pottery lying out and in their "formal living room" there was one of Rachel's huge paintings and one of her sculptures where everyone always hung their coats, and in their actual family room there were newspapers, and two dog beds, and shoes and iPods lying around. But the best part: Huge 96 inch flat screen T.V!

"I'll see ya in a bit, Rache, I'm gonna go kill some dudes." Nico muttered, walking in a trance towards the T.V. I ground out some excuse too and went to go set up the Xbox.

It felt good to be normal.