A/N: Chapter 4!

Hope ya like!

Enjoy!

Also, first reuse of OC!

Not to be exceedingly selfish, but for me, it is extremely depressing to go from nearly 500 hits a day to barely 100, and for there to be NO reviews on several days.

So please, when you read, review, tell your friends, spread the word! Because I am getting seriously down right now…

Please?

Riiiiiiiiiiiing. Riiiiiiiiiiiing.

That was the only thing I heard from my cell phone. Then came the repetitive, "Hello, you've reached Annabeth Chase's number. Please leave a message, and I'll do my best to get back to you."

"Annabeth! It's Anika! What the hell is going on? Why won't you answer the damn phone?"

So, as you've probably guessed, my current problem was that my best friend Annabeth wouldn't answer her damn phone.

It was really getting on my nerves, as it was causing me to alternate between incredibly pissed off and exceedingly worried.

So, unless Annabeth was in a freaking coma at that moment, there was going to be hell to pay.

Huge hell.

Burning, fiery, painful hell.

Like, scarier than Dante's Inferno hell.

You can probably tell that at that moment, I was pissed. Just wait. You'll see the worry come out.

As soon as I finished imagining the tortures I would put Miss Chase through, most of which involved spiders (oh, so many spiders!) and books being burned, I turned my attention to why in hell she wasn't answering me.

Thus, worry and fear rears its ugly head.

I began to imagine what could have been wrong.

Could she have been kidnapped?

I could see it in my mind's eye. The creepy-trench-coat-dude would stalk up behind her, take out his rag doused in chloroform, reach to put in over her mouth…

And then he would have hell unleashed on him.

Yeah, she would have kicked the ass of anyone stupid enough to sneak up on her.

She obviously wasn't kidnapped.

Car crash?

Once again, my overactive imagination played the scene out in my head. The smoking remains of the car would be only a glimpse of the horror within. The looks of desperation and sadness on every single onlooker would be enough to make anyone break down into a cascading waterfall of tears.

There was only one problem with the image.

Annabeth doesn't drive. ..

She walks everywhere. She says it's to be green.

But what with how dramatically her appearance improved ever since a certain someone returned, I could tell that she was just attempting to get into shape, trying to be as absolutely sexy as possible for him.

Of course, as much as he drooled over her, Annabeth needn't have worried about that.

Maybe a party?

Would Annabeth have gone to a party, gotten drunk, then passed out so she couldn't answer her phone?

No, she doesn't go to parties. Not Annabeth. She spends all her time with…

Oh.

Duh.

My face immediately started burning as I realized what was probably going on. I had totally forgotten that today was August 18.

Their first anniversary since his return.

Geeze.

I felt kind of stupid for forgetting.

Annabeth had been looking forward to it for weeks…

"Ok, seriously Grey, what are you so freaking happy about?" I asked my fellow blonde.

She gave me an annoyed look for the "Grey" nickname and said, "I'm excited for my anniversary in a few weeks!"

I rolled my eyes. Romance. Love. Mush. All useless ideologies to my superior intellect.

"And why, pray tell, are you so excited for it?" The enthusiasm was evident in my monotone, my rolling eyes, and my general disinterest.

Unexpectedly, I received no answer. I waited, thinking Annabeth was merely trying to find words to make the reply as scything and condescending as possible, but still no reply came.

I finally raised my eyes from inspecting my nails to see my friend turned a shade of color strikingly akin to a ripened strawberry.

My confusion had hit maximum level. "What on earth is it?"

"I'm… excited for my anniversary date."

Her blush deepened. Her skin tone was reaching the color of fruit punch.

"Geezes, Annabeth, you look like I just got you looking at pictures of Percy on your phone. What's so embarrassing about you're anniversary date?"

I knew the answer to my question the second the words left my mouth.

She managed to stammer, "Oh, u-uh, n-nothing, Anika."

I managed to not immediately hurl all over the floor my blue-colored room, as the bile would ruin so many of the beautiful pieces of sheet music I had composed over the years. The pieces that would make me famous someday. Of course, the pieces weren't the only concern. There were my white sheets, my black blanket with the words My Chemical Romance emblazoned on the front, my dozens of books, and my laptop to worry about as well.

There was an awkward silence that followed as both of us realized what had been implied and our mutual desire to not go into further detail, so as not to make being best friends extremely uncomfortable.

I decided the only way to get around this was to change the subject. "So… How's the college search going?"

Ah, memories.

Well with that cleared up, I tried to think of something to do. It was near the end of the summer, and it was New York, so of course the heat was searing.

That checked off going to the gym, which had no air conditioning. Same for some of her friends in the neighboring apartments.

That pretty much left going to the beach.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

I had no idea how wrong I was.

As I drove through the city, I marveled at the number of middle fingers I received. It was as if the powers that be had decided to take the hate of every single road-rage impassioned New Yorker and turn it onto me.

Trust me. Not a fun time.

I desperately tried not to think about what was happening between Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson. However, with my overactive imagination I was failing fantastically. I could practically hear the throaty moans and deep groans.

I tried putting on the radio to distract my disgusting consciousness.

My attempts failed again.

Mostly because the song that came on was Peacock by Katy Perry.

Change stations, you say?

Tried that. Got me moved on to Feeling This by Blink-182.

Just as bad.

Change again. Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5.

At that moment, I hated all music stations in existence.

I turned the radio off and recited and solved math problems in my head. Nerdy, but finally successful. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of completing quartic polynomial equations, I arrived at the Long Island beachfront. I suddenly regretted ever considering the usual pristine waterline filled with good friends and hot guys as a place to get away from the thought of my best friend being ravaged.

That regret happened to stem from a very familiar Prius with a hoof dent on the hood. Said Prius happened to be rocking as if there were a Californian earthquake happening on the east coast.

A/N: Wow. Finally done with that chapter. SO sorry about the wait, I just have so much stuff going on right now that I can't seem to find any time to do this.

Promise next one will come faster.