The night after the dance-induced incident, Marissa called to see why I had abandoned the aforementioned event. What happened? Where did I go? Who was I with?

My response was a gush of tears, sputtered excuses, and a well placed hiccup.

She rushed over, armed with Kleenex, Jackass The Movie, and a box of Twinkies.

"I don't get it, Riss." I muttered pitifully into a tissue following the "Whole Story". Marissa rubbed my back sympathetically and handed me a Twinkie. I held it in my hand for a long time, just staring at it, remembering lamely the last Twinkie I had tasted.

I swallowed the tears loudly and pressed my fingers into the pastry through the cellophane wrapper, "I just don't. . .fucking get it." I tossed the treat aside and shook my head, "What happened?"

Despite the obvious rhetorical theme of my question, Marissa felt obligated to give me an answer, "He's an asshole."

"What?" I looked up at her, a mixture of anger and love bubbling up inside of me. I felt the urge to defend him, but did he deserve defense?

She shook her head and muttered a curse at the box of Twinkies as she pushed it to the floor, "He should just fucking rot in hell for what he did to you." She growled.

There was no confusion about her current feelings for Percy.

I sighed loudly and reached for my discarded, mutilated Twinkie, "It's. . ." I opened the wrapper and picked a piece off, ". . .not his fault."

Marissa turned to me sharply, so sharply that I flinched and missed my mouth with the cream covered cake, smearing white across my jaw.

As I wiped my face with the sleeve of my sweater, Marissa blinked her eyes rapidly, giving me the most incredulous look I had ever seen.

"How can you say that?" She hissed, complete shock and utter disgust dripping off her tongue.

"I don't know." I shrugged sadly and licked frosting from my knuckle.

"What he did was fucked up, Soph."

"I know but. . ."

"But what?" She pressed angrily, clinging to my arm as if any more distance between us would suck me away from her into some black hole, never to be seen again.

And with all this trauma in my life. Go figure.

"Sophia." Marissa shifted herself in front of me, her voice calmed down; much like one would speak to an injured animal, "Soph. . .but what?"

I turned my face away from her, fumbling with the snack in my lap as I whispered, "He was under a lot of stress."

Marissa's jaw dropped to the mattress as she sat back and stared disbelievingly at me, "Under a lot of stress?" She spat, "That is no excuse."

"But you don't understand." I squeaked out as the sting of tears crept up the back of my throat.

"Understand?" Marissa shouted, leaping from the bed and standing in front of me, arms wide open as if she were trying to show me the error of my ways, "He's a creep, Soph, he tried to force himself on you! You trusted him, and he totally flipped on you!" She stared down at me as I wiped my dripping nose on my sleeve and stifled tears with every ounce of strength I had left in me. I stared down at the Twinkie in my hands, distressed and almost ashamed. Marissa sighed exasperatedly and lifted a hand to her forehead, "What don't I understand?" She asked quietly.

I looked up at her, imploring her not to ask. Not to make me talk anymore. Not to blame him, even if blame had to fall somewhere, I couldn't let it all lay on Percy.

Marissa sat down next to me carefully, "Sophia?"

I met her eyes and instantaneously they began to well with tears at seeing the immense heartbreak in my own. She wrapped me in a tight embrace, tight enough to bruise, but I fell right into it; clinging to my friend as if she could absorb the pain away. Just take it all away.

I lifted my face from its place buried in Marissa's shoulder, "I can't tell you." I whispered into her hair, wrapping my arms tighter when she tried to sit back and protest, "But I need you to understand that he didn't just flip on me."

Marissa broke free from the hug somehow and sat back to meet my eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks, but she didn't speak.

I wiped at my own cheeks then gripped her shoulders, "Believe me, I'm not excusing what he did at all, because he. . .you're right. There isn't one." I sucked my lip into my mouth to bite back more tears, "But I can't hate him-" my words were interrupted by a gasping sob that I tried to stifle by slapping a hand over my mouth, but after a minute I couldn't hold it in any longer. I let out a few small hiccupping gasps and squeezed my eyes shut. With the tiniest shrug I could muster, I finished, "He's Percy."

I stayed home from school for the rest of the week. During those four days, Marissa called twice, Alex called three times and stopped by twice; during none of which did the topic of fleeing the dance in the rain without my jacket even come up in the slightest. But Percy, well Percy was completely M.I.A.

Not from the world in its entirety, but from my small, unhappy, disillusioned corner of it at least.

I expected no less. No more either for that matter.

Despite how past encounters with the darker side of Percy Jackson had proven his loyalty and friendship to me over the years through numerous and sometimes flamboyant apologies in the aftermath, I knew deep down, and swimming on the surface, that this particular entanglement was very, very different.

So I stayed in bed those four days. Buried deep in my blankets and even deeper in my slef pity. No matter how many times I replayed the evening in my head I couldn't put together a valid reason for what had happened. I couldn't understand or even fathom the incentive behind any of it.

I tried to stop thinking about it, tried to stop thinking in general. Tried to recount thousands of long lost Billy Idol lyrics in my head, switching songs every time a phrase or word or syllable reminded me of Percy.

Everything reminded me of Percy. There wasn't a thing in my room, or world for that matter, that he hadn't touched or affected somehow. There wasn't a single thing I knew that we hadn't learned together. Not one idea that he hadn't helped to create.

Including the bottomless pit of helplessness and fear that I now found myself engulfed in.

Come noon on Saturday, I was curled in a ball on the floor trying to decide whether the dust bunny under my bed looked more like David Caruso with his sunglasses or without, when there came a sharp knock on my door.

I didn't say anything as the door creaked open unbeckoned. I listened to the vibrations in the floorboards as whoever it was entered the room and stopped short upon seeing me strewn across the rug.

"Hi." They said.

I rolled over and peered up at the intruder. Alex hovered above me, his blonde hair sticking out from under an unfamiliar trucker hat, and his all-too familiar, hole ridden sneakers just inches from my face.

I sighed and returned my focus to the crime scene investigating accumulation of dirt under the bed, "Hi."

I felt Alex's leg brush against my hip as he seated himself clumsily on the bed, shadowing the object of my intensive observation. So I closed my eyes and waited for him to speak.

Finally, with an unpleasantly loud squeak from the springs beneath him, he did, "I brought you something." He taunted softly.

In spite of my melancholy, the true-blue girl in me couldn't deny the perk of curiosity and anticipation caused by the mere notion of a surprise present.

Without moving a single muscle besides the necessary, I responded vacantly, "What?"

"Get off the floor and I'll show you." Alex chuckled.

I managed to shoot him a very awkward and slightly painful look, "forget it."

He groaned, "Come on, Soph."

"It can't be all that good anyway." I mumbled dejectedly.

"Sophia, you have to fucking get out of here. You can't fester like this."

Despite the humor in his choice of words, I choked back a sob and busied my fingers picking at the edges of varnish on my floorboards. Alex let me continue to fester for a moment longer before sighing again and shifting onto the floor near my head.

"Please?"

I forced myself to turn my head and meet his eyes but turned away almost immediately, "I don't want to, Alex."

"Why not?"

I rolled onto my back and let out a feeble cough from the inhalation of various members of the CSI Junk Pile team all day, "It's dangerous out there."

"Dangerous how?" Alex scoffed gently, knowing very well what I meant but wanting me to say it all the same.

Instead of spewing my guts all over his knee, I covered my face with my arm and mumbled, "Sidewalk cracks."

"Sidewalk cracks." Alex repeated mockingly. I uncovered my face to stare up at him.

"Sidewalk cracks."

Alex shook his head slowly, "You're a real piece of work, Soph, you know that?"

"Yeah." I sighed, "A fucking finger painting. And all the colors run outside the lines."

Alex reached forward and gently pushed my dirty hair behind my ear, "No." He whispered, "A Picasso. No one quite gets it, but they all know you're beautiful."

Immediately tears began rolling down my cheeks. I focused my eyes on the small dark marks as they appeared on the wood beneath me, and as they grew in size and quantity, I rubbed them into the floor with my index finger, ". . .why not you?" I asked miserably.

Alex leaned down and kissed my temple, "Because I'm not Percy."

I shut my eyes tightly and fought against more tears. Sucking in a deep Pinesol flavored breath I managed an ultimately sad and detached, "Yeah."

We sat in silence for only a moment before Alex nudged my shoulder, "Come on, I'll buy you a muffin."

I shook my head, "I can't."

"Sophia-"

"Alex, I can't!" I said forcefully as I heaved myself into a sitting position, "If I go out there I run the risk of seeing him. I-" I paused to choke back a sob, "I can't see him." I finished softly. Alex stared directly into my eyes until I looked away. Then he scooted backwards to lean against my bedside table and gave his hat a thoughtful flick to the brim.

"I don't know if it helps. . ." He said quietly, his eyes fixed on his hands as they toyed with a tear in his jeans, ". . .but he's a wreck."

My own eyes shifted to the closet where I had stashed all of my Percy paraphernalia, and then back to my unpainted toenails as I let out a small, sadistic laugh, "I'm glad." I admitted, and then something inside of me gave a sharp twinge and the sick little smile melted from my face, "I hate that I'm glad."

Alex looked up but didn't say a word.

I shook my head slowly and bit down on my tongue to avoid another salty outburst, but I couldn't stop them as I voiced my next emotion, "I hate that he did this to me. I hate that for some fucked up reason, I feel guilty about it." I paused to take in a long, quivering breath, "I hate blaming him. I hate that everything came so close, and turned out like this. . .most of all I hate that." I laughed. A small, self-pitying laugh through small, self-pitying tears, "Everything's changed. I've lost him completely, my best fucking friend."

"You didn't lose anything." Alex insisted gently, not even giving my speech time to reverberate off the walls, "He hasn't gone anywhere."

"Hasn't he?" I asked scornfully, "I couldn't just. . .be happy with our friendship."

Alex laughed, "Neither could he."

I closed my eyes tightly to pinch back the tears as well as deny the memories of the past month or so to surface. They came anyway. Quick flashes of heartbreaking moments, unbelievable bonding, shy hand-holding, and passionate but tender kisses. I forced them out of focus, but the black and white fuzzy pictures still clung to the backs of my eyelids even as Alex sighed compassionately and continued speaking.

"Look, Soph. . ." He waited for me to open my eyes and meet his before giving a small shrug, "It's just another snag. Percy fucked up. Again."

I bit my lip and looked down, thinking unhappily of the birthday fiasco. But this was different. This time, he wasn't begging my forgiveness. He wasn't even trying.

Alex leaned forward and grabbed my hand, "But you said it yourself, he's your best friend. Isn't that enough to earn him another chance?"

I stared at our hands as Alex stared at me, waiting for some kind of response. I wasn't sure I could give him one. At least not a straight one.

"I think I'll take you up on that muffin."

Alex broke out into a grin as he stood; pulling me with him, "Fuck the muffin. I have Snack Packs in the car."

I pulled a sweatshirt over my tangled hair and dirty t-shirt, "Vanilla or chocolate?"

"Both." Alex answered as we walked through my door. I stopped him at the top of the stairs and turned him around to give him a hug.

"I love you, Alex." I whispered into his soft chest.

Alex tightened his arms around me for a moment before releasing me and directed me down the stairs, an arm securely around my shoulders, "Love you too, kid. Let's get outta here."