Love
"Do you love me?" Percy asks into the phone.
There is no answer.
"I love you. And I'm sorry. I can't look at anything without thinking of you. Everything that isn't you…well, it actually is."
He stares at the phone, willing it to answer. Just to say something, one thing, anything!
"Please, Annabeth. If I look at the bookshelf, I think of you. If I glance at the clock, I remember that one time you had a deadline at work and hid the clock so it couldn't distract you. Seriously, I can't stop thinking about you."
The phone in his hand doesn't utter a sound.
"Annabeth," Percy moans, and the sound echoes through his empty apartment.
"The tree outside our window – remember Christmas last year? We didn't have enough money to buy a Christmas tree, so we decorated the oak instead. And we put the presents underneath the tree too."
Percy's walking now, out the door, and down the stairs of the building. His footsteps remind him of the day Annabeth chased him out their door.
He passes a bakery, and sighs.
"Annabeth, the bakery, where we met for the first time, do you remember? I was working there and-"
Suddenly, his phone slips out of his hand and drops to the ground. Percy stops talking, picks up his phone silently, and stares at it for a few seconds. Then, he sits down in the middle of the sidewalk and curls into a ball.
After a few minutes of people kicking him, he feels a hand on his shoulder.
"Annabeth?" Percy asks, looking up.
"No, it's me, Jason," a blonde boy who Percy recognizes as his cousin says. "But I can take you to Annabeth."
Percy nods eagerly, and stands up. "I was on the phone with her, and I dropped it. I don't think she loves me anymore, Jason."
Jason raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything as he leads Percy down the road and across the street. Percy is smiling, ready to see his wife, until…
"Why are we in a graveyard, Jason?" Percy questions. "Where's Annabeth?"
Jason points to a gravestone, and Percy gasps, the events of the past week coming back to him quickly.
"I'm sorry," Jason whispers, but Percy just cries. Because Percy loves that girl, and he isn't ready to let her go just yet.