"Sorry. That meeting wasn't too long, was it?"
"Not at all," Annabeth smiles brightly. She's starting to block out the sting. "What did you need to talk to us about?"
"It was…nothing very big. Really, I'm sorry to have kept you but I saw—I saw the video that you two made."
She locks eyes with Percy instinctively, and neither of their expressions hold any surprise. "Oh, you did? It's gotten pretty big, we weren't expecting you to ever find it."
Ms. Aella gives a smile. "Well, I—I did, and I thought it was…it was fantastic."
"Thank you!" She gives her best 'receiving-praise-from-teachers' beam. "We worked really hard on it."
Annabeth's conducting their entire half of the conversation; Percy is (a bit concerningly) silent.
"I—I could tell!" The teacher's face is genuinely bright. "It's the most e-effort any of my s-students have ever put into…any of my assignments, really. Would you—you two mind if I showed it to the class tomorrow?"
"Not at all!" She says before she can think about it, her mind too occupied by Good Student mode to consider the request.
"Great!" Ms. Aella said. "I—I'm going to give you two extra credit for this, by the way. I l-love how much you two clearly…care about mythology!"
"Oh, um, Piper was a big help with the video," Annabeth speaks up at the mention of extra credit. Her friend could probably use it. "She helped us make the story into a script, do all of the costumes, directing…"
The mousy woman nods, still smiling. "I'll—I'll be sure her hard work is r-recognized as well."
The three of them are static for a moment—Ms. Aella still standing, Percy and Annabeth still sitting in desks.
"Are we…was that all?" Percy has to clear his throat as he speaks; his voice is strangely rusty.
"Oh, yes!" She nods. "Thank you…thank you both for waiting. And for doing the video. You—you're both very good students."
Annabeth is pretty sure she hears Percy hold back a laugh behind her. The sting behind her smile isn't entirely lost on her as she gathers her things.
.
Once they're in the hallway, he calls out behind her, no longer hiding his laughter. "I think that's the first time I've ever been called a 'very good student'."
She laughs to herself, almost involuntarily, but keeps walking.
Annabeth can't keep…surrounding herself with him. It's not intentional, but she's noticed the way he's been behind every corner for months now, ready to say something stupid and do something sweet and make her face boil, and it needs to stop. Percy's the reason that it hurts to smile.
(That stops her train of thought in a heartbeat. Don't blame this on him.)
"Annabeth?"
She keeps walking.
"Okay, is this where we're at right now? It's usually pretty hard for me to pick out, so thanks for making it obvious."
She slows down.
"Is it always gonna be like this?" He calls out after her. Annabeth can't tell if he sounds angry, sad, frustrated, bitter, confused…it's all getting mixed up. "I'm asking for a friend."
She stops. "Do you have any better ideas, Percy? If you do, I'm all ears, because I don't."
"Better ideas for what?" The confusion in his voice begs her to turn around, to face him, and she knows it's a bad idea even as she does it. Her eyes start stinging.
"Things have been fucked up ever since I kissed you."
Percy's clearly caught off-guard by this, and Annabeth hates how pretty his eyes are as they widen. (Has she ever said those words out loud to him before? She can't remember, but it doesn't feel like anything less awful.)
"I've been trying to deal with it for a while, but it's just…too much by now, Percy. Luke and I never fought this badly before you happened! Shit was never this confusing before you happened!"
"Before I 'happened'?" He air-quotes, furrowing his brows.
"I don't know how else to put it. You happened to me. You're like a natural fucking disaster, okay? You came into my life and you threw a wrench in things that I didn't even know could have wrenches thrown into, and now I feel like everything in my life is completely out of my goddamned control!"
"I'm a natural disaster?" Percy asks incredulously.
"Yes, you are!" It registers in the back of her mind that she's yelling, but she can't do anything about it.
"How can you call me a natural disaster? That's not…that's not true! It's not fair!"
Annabeth grabs her hair, letting her fingers get caught in the curls. "What are you then?"
"I'm a fucking person, Annabeth." He shakes his head. "This hasn't exactly been a fantastic time for me either."
That's all it takes for Annabeth to lose all of her steam.
She looks down at the dirty linoleum tiles, biting her lip. "You're right. That's…I shouldn't have said that."
He doesn't say anything; it makes her feel worse.
"We're both…people." She says instead.
"I just," Percy looks down, frustrated but holding it back as best as he can. (She hates seeing him upset. She hates seeing him anything other than happy. She used to think his smile was irritating—enough to throw a book at his face, even—but when it isn't on his face, Percy looks…wrong. Sad. Like he's missing something.)
There's so much earnestness in his face, and Annabeth's used to it by now, but it doesn't sting any less. "I just don't understand, Annabeth, and—and I want to, so much. I know that this is all fucked up, and I know that it's…it's not all my business, and…I know that we aren't even friends, really—"
"Don't say that." She says automatically, without even thinking about it. (Why does that strike such a chord with her?)
"Why not? Can you really say we're friends?" There's doubt in Percy's face, an eyebrow arched but the smile still absent, something like resentment laced through his features.
"I mean…" Annabeth didn't think this far ahead. There's no real answer. "No."
The word lays between them, heavy and awkward. It's true, but it doesn't sound right.
"But what else is there?" She blurts, trying to push the obstacle out of the way. "We aren't strangers. We aren't…enemies. What else could we be?"
This sticks in the air between them even more than the no did. Maybe she shouldn't have said it. At the very least, maybe she shouldn't have asked the question.
"I know you don't want the answer," Percy runs a hand through his hair, and the edges of a smile appear, but they aren't right, he's still not right. "I don't really want it, either."
"What do you—what do you mean?" She stumbles over her words; ironically, she's never been the best actress.
"Rachel broke up with me because of you."
This is the last thing Annabeth could've expected him to say, but through her shock she manages to go on the defensive. "What?"
"Shit, no, that…" He sighs. "That came out harsh. She broke up with me because of…us, I guess."
"That makes no sense, Percy." She shakes her head, and maybe she sounds a bit meaner than she should. "Why the hell would Rachel break up with you because of us? There isn't an us."
"That's what I told her," His tone indicates that he isn't here to argue. (Is that what this is? Arguing?) "But she was convinced, and honestly, I felt like such an asshole of a boyfriend that I couldn't argue."
"How could you ever be an asshole of a boyfriend?" Annabeth said. "You're probably the sweetest fucking idiot I've ever met."
Percy his eyes with his palms, avoiding her eyes for a moment. "Thanks?"
She didn't mean to say it. It was stupid. Everything she says to him is fucking stupid. "Sorry."
"We're never going to have a single normal interaction, are we?" He says suddenly, something almost bitter in the energy of his tone. "It used to be simple. I just," Percy laughs to himself and even though it shouldn't, it makes Annabeth so relieved she almost wants to grin back. "I would just piss you off in class because I thought you were pretty and smart, and you would turn all red, and I would get my Wise Girl fix for the day. Middle-school style. Easy shit."
"I threw a book at your head."
His eyebrow arches again and he doesn't say it, but they both understand.
(That was, quite possibly, the easiest part of everything.)
She bites her lip and feels herself flush. It's starting to spread to her ears, the mixture of embarrassment and confusion and frustration filling her face to the brim. "It's not black and white, though. It's not all bad."
"I wish it didn't have to be bad at all."
"Is that even possible?" Annabeth manages a weak smile.
"Why shouldn't it be?"
(That question is so unfair, so disarmingly simple, that she wonders if Percy is trying to prove a point.)
Annabeth doesn't know why she just can't leave the silence in peace. "Life can't always be easy, Percy."
"I know that," He says. "But it feels like…like sometimes we all make it harder for ourselves."
Most of the time, it seems like Annabeth can only make things harder for herself. Like there's no other option but for everything to be a fight. (But not…not all of the time.)
"I don't know how to say what I'm about to say, because I'm an expert at complicating things, and making things harder for myself, and just generally just fucking everything up," She takes a breath like it's the only thing she can handle.
"Things are only messy with you when I make it messy. About ninety percent of the reason nothing's gone right between us is because…because I can't let it be simple."
Percy's clearly hesitant to interrupt, but it's taking Annabeth a bit too long to gather her thoughts. "What do you mean?"
The sigh she gives is so heavy that it makes the air in the hallway feel denser. "When I'm with you, I feel…" Annabeth pauses again. The words leaving her mouth are already unfamiliar on her tongue, difficult to get out. "Unrestrained. Like I'm running with weights all the time, but they slip off when you're around."
He nods, but says nothing, wetting his lips. They're very pink, but the rest of him seems a bit paler.
"It's just natural, and I think that freaks me the fuck out. I overcompensate. I choke up, I panic, I—I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me that anything can be as easy as it is to be around you."
"So in response, we've made it the hardest thing in the goddamned universe." He supplies.
"Exactly," She says, feeling relief flood her head, and she takes a step towards him without thinking. (Of course he understands.)
"So…where do we go from here?"
Annabeth furrows her brows. "What do you mean?"
"We can't keep going on like this," Percy says, running a hand through his hair. "It doesn't make sense...it—it won't last…it's…"
"It's unsustainable?" She comes a bit closer.
He blushes a bit. "Yeah. That's a good word."
Silence has taken on a thousand shades between them in these past months. It's been filled with a thousand different things—tension, apprehension, confusion, yearning—and all the time it's heavy. Right now, the silence is impossible to read.
"I don't know what to do," Annabeth says softly. "I really, really don't."
Percy takes a step towards her. "I don't, either. You're supposed to be the smart one here, Wise Girl."
"Maybe you should've picked a better nickname," She breathes. They're face to face, inches apart. When did they get this close?
"Maybe you don't need one," He says back softly. "I like Annabeth."
Kissing him without a camera around is an odd feeling. Kissing him is an odd feeling, really. Like she's underwater, a bit, but also like she's breathing cleaner air than she could ever find in the city. Like she's drowning, but she's more alive than ever.
Annabeth doesn't really have time to think about this, though, because his lips are just as nice as she remembers and his hair is just as soft and he's so warm and—
She pulls herself away. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights with a pretty flush in his cheeks, and she probably looks the exact same way. (Who even started the kiss?)
"I can't…" She shakes her head. Percy grabs her hand, and Annabeth hadn't realized how cold her hand was until she felt the warmth of his own, but she can't focus on that. A tear starts slipping down her cheek; hopefully her makeup holds up. "This is—this is way too much right now, Percy, I—"
Saying his name takes something from him. "I need to get home."
"Annabeth—"
She pulls her hand from his before his grip can get any tighter, takes off down the hallway.
"Annabeth, wait!"
She does her best to tune out how sad his voice sounds, and she doesn't breathe again until she's in the driver's seat of her car, crying every bit as hard as she had been last night.
The last few chapters have been so dramatic, guys. This is particularly roller-coaster-y. Thoughts?