That Night, 11:30

I couldn't sleep. Knowing Percy was out with Annabeth, and knowing that I may just be losing my window of opportunity, was making me paranoid and nauseous. Not to mention crabby.

I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling and trying desperately not to think about what had almost happened last time I was in my bed. I started counting spots on my ceiling; the little plaster balls leered down at me and taunted me. They pressured me to jump out my window with the terrifying voices of singing children.

Come to think of it, I might have been losing my mind.

I had managed to count one hundred and thirty four spots when my phone rang loudly beside me. I rolled over and reached for the receiver.

"Please be Percy, please be Percy, please be Percy." I held my breath for thirty seconds before answering, "Hello?"

"Hey, Sophia? It's Luke."

I frowned, "Who?"

"Luke Castellan, ya know, from the party?"

I probed my mind for any tiny recollection of someone named "Luke" from a party. I discovered a very foggy image of a boy in a letterman's jacket with a tongue stud.

"Do you play football, Luke?" I asked slowly.

"Yea, starting quarter back. You don't remember. Well, fuck me, this is kinda embarrassing."

"No, no, I remember. The party. We met...on the couch." I slapped myself on the forehead.

"Yeah." He laughed, "So I hope it's not too late for me to call you."

I sighed again and rolled onto my back, obviously it wasn't Percy, but I figured the guy managed to find my number I had given him and remember me enough to have the decency to call. So I'd give him a conversation.

"No. I'm used to late night phone calls. Perverts only call at night, they feel less dirty."

"Perverts?"

"Yea my number is in the book under 'Ultimate Phone Whore'."

"You don't say."

"Well...no." There was a slight pause, "Why did you call me?" Then I rolled my eyes at myself for being so fucking dumb. But Luke laughed on the other side.

"Sorry, I got distracted by your rambling. It's cute."

Cute?

"But I called to ask you if you wanna go to the Homecoming dance with me."

My jaw hit the floor. Mr. All-Star Football player wanted to go to the Homecoming dance with me? How cliché.

"And don't go thinking it's just because I like you or something. It's mostly just because I got nominated and I think you'd look hot on my arm when I win." He chuckled.

Another jaw drop. And he thinks he's clever too.

"Sophia?"

"Uhhh...I don't know...I was going to go with someone else."

"So tell them you changed your mind."

"Aren't we the cocky one." I smiled. He was persistent.

"Come on, it'll be fun, I promise."

"I don't know."

"Okay, well just think it over and let me know at school on Monday."

"I can do that."

"Great. I'll see you Monday, Sophia."

"Yes Monday, Luke."

I hung up the phone and stared back up at my ceiling. For crying out fucking loud.

Monday

I didn't see or hear from Percy for the rest of the weekend.

I think it goes without saying that I may have surpassed what qualifies as "freaking out".

I wasn't sure why Percy never touched base with me, at least I pretended to be unsure. The truth was obvious...but sometimes living in denial is necessary to stabilize one's sanity. But it still wasn't like Percy to just fall off the face of the earth like that. I tried to convince myself he was behaving strangely entirely on account of his feelings for me, that his prolonged absence was all because he was sitting alone trying to come up with the most poetic way to profess his love to me. Percy always had a way with words.

I knew I was being exceptionally delusional. I mean, I've had my fair share of delusional moments. Okay my fair share and then some. But this was going far, far, far and beyond my usual capacity.

I called him numerous times, always met with the same silly voicemail message Percy had put on his phone the day he got it and never changed. I heard it so many times over those two days that I had it not only memorized but stuck in my head, repeating, like a bad song on the radio, all morning on Monday.

I got to school five minutes before the bell was supposed to ring, and only made it to my locker with thirty seconds to spare. I had barely gotten it open when some unbelievably uncoordinated walking fish-stick of a freshman came hurtling down the hallway, tripped over her own fucking feet, and collided with my locker door. It slammed shut, narrowly missing my fingertips.

I stared after the girl in complete shock. She hadn't even paused to apologize. She just continued flying along, totally oblivious to the fact that she nearly amputated my phalanges.

"What a fucking cretin." I mumbled in awe as I watched her thunder her way toward her class.

"You've been reading the Thesaurus for fun again, haven't you?"

I turned around slowly to face Percy. My initial reaction was to pummel him and berate him for not calling me back. For just disappearing. For lying when he said he didn't want to go see Ashley. For saying he was going to kiss me, and then not following through. For being as cowardly as I was.

Instead, I blinked quickly and gestured to the Furiously Fleeting Freshman.

"Did you see that mental defective? She almost fucking disabled me."

Percy leaned sideways against the locker beside mine, "Soph, what did your mom tell you about being mean to the defectives?"

"I'm not mean to their faces." I turned back to my locker and reopened it, "I mean, I'm standing here with you, right? In plain view of the public eye."

"God, Sophizzle, your sense of humanity is awe-inspiring." Percy joked as my locker popped open. He stepped around me to avoid being hit in the face and leaned on the other side.

"So you came over here to praise the softness of my heart and make my ego nearly as inflated as yours without saying hello first?" I smiled sarcastically and tossed a notebook into the chasm that is my locker.

A cheeky smile spread itself across Percy's face as he reached onto the shelf in my locker to grab a yellow hacky-sack Alex had left there.

"Hi, Sophia." His tone was rank with the mocking sweetness of a child.

"Hi, Percy." I imitated his tone almost flawlessly.

"What no hug?" He laughed. I paused in my rummaging through my locker and peered at him out of the corner of my eye. The smile on his face faltered briefly as I turned toward him, tossing my bangs out my vision, and set my bag on the ground.

I opened my arms and stepped up to him. Our hug was short, but tight. My arms looped diagonally across his chest; one over the shoulder, one under the other. And instinctively I shut my eyes and breathed him in. I think I felt his chest expand as he did the same.

When we separated we shared an uncomfortable look of "not knowing what to do next".

"Sorry, I thought we were past awkward hellos." I mumbled quietly, breaking the discomfited silence with something even more discomfiting.

Thankfully, Percy laughed, "Ha, me too."

I gave a short smile and resumed my charade of a fervent locker search for the right text book. Carefully I glanced at Percy who was bouncing the hacky-sack on his knee. I waited until he had caught it on the toe of his sneaker before clearing my throat and speaking slowly; trying with very little conviction, to sounds casual.

"So are you going to the dance?"

Percy's face showed no loss of concentration as he balanced the bag of beans on his shoe. His eyes were fixed on it, but I could sense in his extended silence, that he wasn't what one might call "euphoric" that the subject found it's way into our conversation.

He jerked his foot, sending the hacky-sack into the air, and caught it effortlessly on the other foot. There was a three second hiatus before he finally answered me, "Yeah..."

I looked away, into my locker again to hide the contorting of my face, "Oh...with Annabeth?"

Percy tossed the ball again as I spoke, this time letting it hit the floor with a soft plastic tap, and took a step closer to me, "...yeah. Look, Soph, she brought it up. I really wasn't going to a-"

I cut him off abruptly, "Percy, it's a stupid High School dance. Don't worry about it."

I didn't want to hear some haphazardly thrown out apology for something I should have expected all along. I said it was a stupid dance, what I meant was; it was a stupid idea.

I held my breath as I tugged a book out of my locker and tucked it between my arm and my chest, cradling it close in a lame attempt at protecting my fragile feelings from anymore stomping. Percy stooped down to pick up the hacky-sack. He held it in his hand, turning it over, just watching as his fingers moved the beans, changing its shape. Deforming it. His eyes never left his distraction as he spoke to me, so soft that his words didn't even echo in the empty hallway.

"It's just...I was thinking..." He trailed off, becoming lost in the disfigurement of the yellow hacky. My head swung to look at him, and I tried desperately to send him a telepathic message to keep talking. Finish the thought! Say it! Ask me!

"What?" I stared at him, "What, Percy?"

Percy's mouth hung open, suspended mid-word. He glanced up at me then back to his hands, "I...I don't know. Never mind."

Inside I crumbled again. I closed my eyes briefly then shifted my weight and submitted my disheartened gaze to the movement of his hands, "Oh...alright then."

"I mean, you're right it's just a stupid dance." Percy said hastily as he looked up and tossed the hacky-sack from one hand to the other. I shrugged noncommittally.

"It's not that stupid." I mumbled to the floor.

"What?"

"Nothing." I shook my head and decided on a slight change of topic, "Does she know about...your dad?" I asked carefully.

Percy's eyes drifted to the floor and stayed there for a moment. Then he shrugged and answered softly, "Uh..uhm..no. But I figure...she doesn't really need to, yah know? I told you." Percy smiled like the fact that she knew something I didn't. That smile faded as quickly as it had appeared and he shrugged again, "And when the year ends, I guess...I mean, I don't think anybody else needs to know." His eyes flitted slowly up to meet mine. They were wide and nervous. He was asking for some kind of approval of his decision to keep his family trauma a secret. I just smiled softly and nodded. Percy broke the eye contact immediately, because the nod was all he wanted. He turned around and tossed the hacky-sack back into my locker.

"And, who knows. Maybe this dance thing is exactly what I need."

I looked away from him, into the depths of my locker. I sniffed and closed it, leaving any hope of being more than what we were inside. When I turned back Percy was already beginning the walk to class, backwards, looking at me. Again waiting for some kind of validation of his thought. I just blinked and stepped alongside him.

"It's just a stupid dance." I said calmly, hoping the emotionless nonchalance hid the hurt and uncertainty. A few steps more and I saw Percy nod out of the corner of my eye.

"Yeah." He agreed.

It eludes me to this day, how we managed to fool each other.