AN: not proofread **cringe** sorry for the delay. I'm just going to be honest - I'm not good with commitment so most realistically I'm going to update sporadically, few and far between and stuff. Sorryyyyy. Mild swearing, but I think that'll keep going on just to preserve and capture what reality is like.

Little weird with the tone change in between, but I want this to go in that more casual direction because it's tiring to write like 'angsty'.

...

The social statuses of each individual student at my school depended on a huge range of characteristics. In real life, people will appreciate your intelligence, and they will also appreciate your attractiveness. Maybe in other schools, people will judge you for how hot you are, but here, we've all known each other throughout puberty - from the start of elementary and up. The movie rules don't apply.

Too much.

In a school like mine, with one-hundred-and-fifty-seven people per grade, you can go by without much notice if you're not anything special. If you are, then you're popular. It's not a huge deal if you are, but it certainly helps get you a first kiss or a special hook up point.

I go to some random school in the middle-of-nowhere town in Colorado. The only school here is called Van Buren High, named after some random president that no one's heard about.

The town made its money off the silver mining industry in the late eighteenth-century, but makes its money off of tourists now. Not a lot of people come here, but honestly, who wouldn't be attracted to a small town where everyone knows each other, with nice suburban streets and red-brick shops.

Its romance scene is also one of the most vibrant. Summer flings, teen pregnancy - anything you've wanted, or demeaned is old news at Van Buren High. With that said, it's not unsurprising that among those one-hundred-and-fifty-seven students is someone who's dated at least half the girls in their grade, drooled at by those who are still un-played. The one person out of the one-hundred-and-fifty-seven who is charming, attractive, athletic and smart, the only one who can get away with leaving every person broken.

Every girl thinks that she can fix him, but they never can.

Rachel tells me that Percy was a great boyfriend, but distant. Piper tells me that he always lets you fall in love with him, but never lets himself.

With all the crap that comes with being the most talked about person, all the girls ever say about him is how good he was at making out, which is an achievement in itself.

When you talk about Percy, you always mention that he never dates anyone for longer than two months, no matter how exceptional they are.

He dated me for two and a half, so they definitely need to change their rules.

…

Metal slams against metal, and the scuffling of shoes and scattered conversations fill the hallway. I just got to school, and already I hated it.

"What class do you have first period?" Rachel asks.

"Biology with Ms Hendricks." Piper replies.

I remain silent.

As we part our ways and head towards our classes, I see a flash of blue and a grey T-shirt, then I look away quickly. English is just a whole hour of my teacher introducing herself to my class.

Travis flicks old pieces of eraser at my hair, but one glare makes him stop. I give up on listening to the lecture and think about the texts, soft black hair and mesmerizing eyes.

He broke up with me over eighteen words, and I never replied.

I'm sorry but we're not going to work out.

It was a bet.

It was just a game.

I miss you.

…

Out of the one-hundred-and-fifty-seven people, I fit in well to the school scene. 4.0 GPA, newspaper club, I'm well known in my own right, but I don't draw people in. Some people have the uncanny ability to do so, and I envy them, I really do. They don't need to do anything and it's like they have their own gravitational field. Honestly, Einstein should write a law on that, title it 'Law of people-gravity'.

A lot of people say I'm smart but sometimes I doubt it.

Normally I'm a normal, rational person. A rational person with moments of irrationality.

...

In all fairness, he did hurt me a lot. The blunt force of it hit me a while back, but it's been a month and I'm just so confused and angry and sad all the time. All that's left with questions, unanswered indefinitely because I'm such a chicken. Our relationship ended on a note that left too many things unsaid.

Did you love me?

I thought we were so happy?

Why me?

Why did you do this to me?

And lastly, the winning goal of all games:

"What the fuck?" The most eloquent response out of all.

And, ladies and gentlemen, that's what I mean by my irrationality, or rather my teenage angst. But that was what I was moping about as I swirled my ice cream around.

"Annabeth! Get your mind off Mr. Player and start gossiping with us."

Rachel glares at me from the other side of the table, arms folded and hair a firetruck red.

"Yeah Annabeth, we need to talk about how cute Gigi and Zayn are!"

"We were talking about The Donald and global warming dipshit, not Gigi and Zayn."

"Who cares! We need to live our lives and squeal over things while we can Rachel. I bet if you did this more often then you wouldn't be as gross as you are now."

"Did you just say I was gross? What kind of person are you, aren't you supposed to be smarter than that tweedle-dee?"

And they keep going on and on while I look on towards the brighter horizon that promises me riches, success, love.

Ha, as if.

Rachel is… very vocal. It takes a lot to get used to, her bluntness, and a lot of people say she's a bitch, which I do get. She swears enough to make Reyna blush, and she's the ice queen. Her mouth spits words like one of those guns from the video games that my brothers play, the ones that keep going on-and-on. Sometimes I admire her because she always confronts things head-on. I for one, am strictly non-confrontational, which gets in the way a lot. Her hair matches her personality very well, which is to say, very bold. She's also what a lot of guys would say, hot. She has the tiniest waist known to man, a figure to die for, face symmetrical and unblemished. Guys trip over her feet to help her in any way possible, but they definitely don't stand a chance against her wit and sharp remarks. Her relationships are short, but passionate. Her arguments are similar, and she does conform to the many connotations of red very well. My guess is that she throws herself into feelings so much that she comes out of things with so much passion she needs to paint, so there's an outlet. Basically, she's the opposite of me.

Piper is the sweetest out of all of us. If we were sugar, Piper would be the lab-enhanced, genetically modified kind. Remember the gravitational field I was talking about before? It definitely applies to her. Her hair is Kate-Middleton worthy, but her greatest assets by far are her eyes. They sparkle and shine under the sun, sure, but they have this thing where they change color and mesmerize you. She pulls boys in with her sweet exterior and alluring eyes only to be disappointed with her rejection, no matter how nice she is. She's like those sirens from the greek myths, but instead of their voices it's her eyes, although she has an ability to convince anyone to bend to her will. Only, her brain struggles to catch up, so she finds adjectives kinder-gardeners use to make up for words she doesn't have the patience to find through her extremely complex mind. She's not dumb by far, but she doesn't match up to Rachel in terms of vocabulary. She does make that up in the section for kindness though. She does everything so sincerely it's so hard to hate her. She slips under the radar, but everyone agrees that she's not hot, she's sweet and beautiful, the girl next door. Which makes sense, since her boyfriend is Jason Grace, the boy next door, the all american boy.

All in all, they're great friends, and they're smart to boot. Even though they both dated Percy.

Because Rachel throws herself into things so fully, she got hurt a great deal more than Piper did, who dated him for a few days as a fad. They both got hurt, but I'm jealous of them, because they don't have to deal with the eye-contact, awkward glances. Their respective break ups were clear and concise, practiced to perfection. Percy and I's were different. I don't know what happened. Honestly.

I'm quiet compared to them. I think it's partially the way I was raised. My dad and my step-mom were never emotionally attached to me. Granted, Rachel and Piper had the same issues, but I dealt with it differently. I shut off all my feelings, lock them in a drawer. It scared me sometimes, how I didn't feel happy or sad anymore, just put on a smile. The only time I feel anything is with Percy. He made me feel alive again, heighten my emotions. That's why I fell so hard.

I just want someone to love me. Is it that hard to get?