Chapter Twelve
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
James' POV
When I had come back to the cabin the other night after the campfire, Lydia had practically dissolved into a puddle of tears while saying she was sorry over and over again. It had been three days since that night and I was still giving her the cold shoulder.
Most people would think I'm being a total jerk, but I'm not. I can tell she's not actually sorry for what she said to me, what she said about my family.
I'm honestly surprised Hades himself didn't make an army of skeletons erupt from the ground and drag her into the Underworld after she insulted him. But then, I suppose he's used to insults like that after thousands of years of it from pretty much all the gods.
Addie was still pretty angry about it though. Any time she saw Lydia, she gave her death glares. And these weren't just your regular, run of the mill, death glares. These were "I'm going to kill you in your sleep" death glares. Sometimes I worried about her.
"James!" someone calls, breaking me out my thoughts.
I turn around to see Tristan jogging over to me. He was 17 now, and he looked it. He was tall and muscular, his skin was tanned to perfection, and his dark hair gleamed in the sunlight. He definitely looked more like his mom than Uncle Will.
"Hey." I say.
"How was school this year?" he asks, sitting down next to me on the dock.
"Alright, I suppose." I say, shrugging.
"Oh, come on. Any girlfriends?" he asks, nudging my shoulder.
I smirk and say, "Well, not really. There was this one girl, but I found out she was a major slut."
"Oh really? And what was this girl's name?" he asks.
"Tabitha." I say.
"Ah. I think I dated a Tabitha a few years back. That ended badly." he says.
"Badly how?" I ask, turning to look at him.
"Found her with one of my band mates. Not fun talking out that one." he says, shaking his head.
"Man, that's awful. Ever talk to her after that?" I ask.
"Nah. She moved to Hawaii a month after all of it happened. Her dad traveled a lot with his work." he says.
"Gotcha." I say.
"So, I heard Adrienne is here now?" he asks.
"Yea." I sigh, laying down on the rough wood and looking up at the cloudless sky.
"Why a heavy sigh? Is it not working out? She annoying you?" he asks.
"Oh, no. She's great here. Awesome at training and all that. It's just that Hades claimed her and then Lydia just—ugh." I say.
"Oh boy. What did Lyd say?" he asks.
I rehash the conversation, once again. He leans back on his elbows and looks up at the sky as he listens to me. The frown on his face was growing deeper the more I talked.
When I finish, he sits there for a few minutes, looking at the glittering, wavy water. "She actually said that?" he finally asks, glancing at me.
I nod. "Yea. I sorta blew up on her and I haven't really talked to her since." I say.
"I don't blame you for blowing up on her. What she said was uncalled for. But why haven't you talked to her since? Has she not apologized?" he asked.
"No. She has." I say.
"Then why can't you just make up with her and move past it, James? It's not that hard." he says, obviously annoyed.
"She's apologized, but she didn't mean it. I could see it in her eyes. I'm not accepting her apology until it's a real one." I say, crossing my arms.
Tristan sighs and covers his sapphire blue eyes with his hand. "Alright, why don't I talk to her and see what's up. Then I'll come and talk to you and letcha know what she said." he says.
"Fine." I say.
"Okay. I'll go find her and talk to her. I want to get this resolved as soon as possible. Gods, I mean, we all have to spend the whole summer together. It'll be much easier to do that if we can all get along for five minutes." he says, getting up and dusting off his khaki cargo shorts.
He walks away in search of Lydia. I stay on the dock a little while longer. I look out at the small island in the middle of the lake with the giant olive tree on it. Mom had said that that used to be another one of her and dad's hangouts when they came to Camp. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that they had had a lot of hangouts.
Soon, the horn sounds, signaling training time, and I get onto my feet. I dust myself off and take one last look at the sparkling water. It almost looked like green and yellow flames with the rising sun beating down on it.
I give a small smile and a wave to the three naiads below me and they giggle, making a few bubbles rise to the surface of the water. They seemed to giggle a lot. I smirk and then turn away, heading back down the dock and off to the sword arena.
"Nice form, James!" Cory, this year's instructor, says. Cory was a son of Nike, 17 years old, and extremely athletic and competitive. He made an excellent teacher.
I spar with Fletcher for a few more minutes and then he suddenly just stops fighting back. I knock his sword out of his hand, but he doesn't seem to notice.
"Fletch, what are you staring at?" I ask, starting to turn around.
Before I can fully look and see what he was staring at, something smacks into my side and knocks me to the ground. My sword flies out of my hand and skitters five feet away.
"Jamie!" I hear Addie squeal.
I groan and squint open my eyes, to find her wrapped around me and her face buried into my chest.
"Addie, what are you doing?" I ask, struggling to get up with her still clinging to me.
All the other campers in the arena were staring at us, some trying to hide their snickers. I feel my cheeks grow red and I look back down at Adrienne. She mumbles something into my shirt, but I can't understand her.
"What? I can't hear you." I say.
"I saw a bug in my cabin." she says.
"Are you kidding me? I was in the middle of training and you interrupted me for that? Can't you just kill it yourself?" I ask, finally getting her off of me.
She looks up at me, giving me puppy dog eyes. That look never failed her since her eyes were such a pitiful dark brown. Those eyes could talk you into almost anything.
I sigh and roll my eyes, turning to look at Cory. "Go on, James. I'll take your place with Fletcher. Just come back later and we'll finish up, one on one." he says.
I nod and sheath my sword. Adrienne was already halfway to the exit by this point. I sigh and hurry after her as she leads the way to the Hades cabin.
When we get to the cabin, she opens the door and I walk in. I look around and under the bunk beds and behind the trunks and come up with nothing. I turn around and glare at her.
"Well, there's no bug. Can I get back to training now?" I ask, irritated with her. I mean, why couldn't she just kill the so called bug in the first place?
"No! It might come back!" she shrieks.
I sigh. "Adrienne, really. There's not a bug anywhere in this cabin. I checked." I say.
"Can I come with you then?" she asks, "Please." she whispers.
I was taken aback by the look in her eyes. It was almost pure terror. I had never known Adrienne to be this frightened over a little bug.
"Uh, we'll have to talk to Chiron and make sure it's okay for you to change your training schedule, but I'm sure it won't be a problem." I say, softening, placing a hand on her shoulder and guiding her out of the cabin.
"Thank you, Jamie." she says.
"No problem, kiddo." I say.
I close the door behind us and we start walking back to the sword arena. I had no idea what that was about, but I intended to find out.
A/N :
If you haven't noticed by now, James calls Adrienne "kiddo" a lot. Their relationship is sorta like the one I have with my brother. And yes, I'm aware that pretty much all siblings who are only four years apart usually tend to fight and bicker a lot, but some are different.
And this chapter takes place the same morning as the last chapter did, if that was confusing to anyone. I really hate timelines. That's my least favorite part of writing a story, going back and making sure the timeline matches up and all. Ugh, why does it have to be so fucking difficult?! I just finished mapping out all the chapters and what day they take place, it's such a pain.
The next chapter is so fucking long. I was going over it today and it's about 7 and a half pages in the word program I use.
It's really driving me insane at class. It's just one thing after another. As soon as one rough situation gets solved, another pops up. So I'm sure you guys remember the two brothers that I've ranted about before? Well, the younger of the two left, at least for a little while, because he's in a play and rehearsals are on Thursdays at the same time class is. So right now it's just me, three other girls, my friend, and the older brother.
Okay, so this set up was really nice because the older brother is being less idiotic and annoying. He's really not all that bad when it's just him. But now, my friend is flaking out on pretty much every class and, since we're friends, everyone always turns to me and asks me where she is. Honestly? I DON'T FUCKING KNOW.
It just gets on my nerves. I guess because it just feels like we're not as close as we used to be. I feel like she's purposefully flaking out and she doesn't want to spend time with me anymore. She'd rather be hanging out with her boyfriend all the fucking time and all her stuck up friends. And whenever we do hang out and I'm telling her about something that's bothering me, she doesn't really seem to care one way or the other, like she's barely even paying attention to what I'm saying. So most of the time, I don't tell her about my problems. 'Cause I mean, why waste the breath on someone who couldn't give less of a fuck?
It's one of those things that hurts really bad because you can just see that you're becoming strangers with the person who's supposed to be your best friend, and any time you try and fix it, it seems like it works for a couple of days and then everything goes back to barely talking and just...painful reality.
Okay, I don't want to talk about that anymore. Just needed to get it off my chest, y'know?
So yesterday I got another readjustment on my braces. My teeth are sore as fuck today. They put in my "final wire" on my bottom teeth and something called a "closing chain," also on my bottom teeth. Now all I have to do is to remember to wear my rubber bands and hopefully I'll have them off relatively soon. I go back in three weeks for another readjustment and I know that if I don't wear my rubber bands, I'll get fussed at...again.
I can't wait to get these things off, I hate them so much. I envy people who never need braces. You're lucky! They don't really hurt, they're just a pain in the ass. I mean, yea your teeth get sore, but it's not excruciatingly painful.
M/A:
"'My eyes blew out I could finally see
Warm magical tropical oceans'"
Lines to the song Tropical Oceans by D.D Dumbo. I love this song, it sounds psychedelic almost, and I think that's why I love it. It's just awesome ^.^
XOXO,
Mrs-diAngelo25