Part VIII. Full Circle

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December 28, 2022

It all comes racing back.

Annabeth opens her mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. Instead, his words repeat in her mind, echoing over and over, cutting deep.

Did you break up because you weren't ready to be a wife, or because you weren't ready to be his wife?

The reality is she already knows the answer. But she can't say it out loud. Not when she's looking into his eyes, green, curious as ever, but also with a hint of omniscience, like he knows the answer too. It would be too close to admitting she's the one who tore them apart. She feels an influx of emotions: miserable, guilty, and somewhere deep inside, relief, because he gets it, even if he doesn't really.

She can't admit to any of it, so she admits to the next best thing: rage.

"Excuse me?"

Percy says nothing. He doesn't have the decency to look embarrassed, but then again, he's not really the one in the wrong.

They stay silent after that for about ten seconds, but it's tense, able to be cut through with a knife. The last time she felt like this was the day she last saw him, Percy unable to look her in the eyes. She had known how bad she hurt him, but she still walked away, leaving him stuck there cursing her name.

It feels like it lasts a lot longer than it does.

"You left to get something better," Percy says. "It seems to me like you found it, yet here you are in front of me. You can't expect me not to question—"

"I can, actually." Annabeth's eyes are burned to his. "And I do. You have no right."

He takes a deep breath, and he's looking anywhere but her. She can see the gears turning in his head, juggling his words before he says them, not that it'll matter. Annabeth's lost, and there are a lot of things she doesn't know, but what she does know is that no matter what he says, it'll be the wrong thing.

She'll say anything to avoid admitting she was wrong.

"I'm not trying to start a fight," he tries, rubbing his palm over his face. "I just…what are we doing?"

"I got locked out. That's it."

"We both know it's not."

"Percy, please."

Annabeth doesn't know what she's pleading for. She doesn't know what they're doing here. She had a life and things were good until they weren't.

"I don't getit," Percy says, and she can hear him forcing patience into his voice. He was always better at this kind of thing, always giving her two minutes more than he should. "You could've called anyone, and yet you called me. I'm not mad or annoyed or anything, but I don't get it. Why are you here?"

"I came to see my family."

The pained look he gives her hurts more than anything. What is she doing? What is she doing?

"I'm trying so hard, Annabeth, but you've got to give me something to work with. Are you being serious when you say there's nothing going on, or did you just miss home, or are you running…"

She's running, but she's not sure why.

Is she running away from Connor? From the life she was so close to having but didn't want because there was always the whisper of a name from six years ago in the back of her mind? Reminding her that as great as Connor was, he was never enough because he had everything except one tiny thing.

(That tiny thing is that he wasn't Percy).

Maybe she wasn't running from anything after all. Maybe she was running to something.

(To someone).

It turns out that years and thousands of miles doesn't erase feelings like what they had. It might dull it a little bit, but returning home, returning to that person unveils what once was, leaving you wondering how you'd missed it all those years in the first place. She should've known better than to think she could come back here, like she wouldn't fall right back into Percy's arms, finding comfort in his lips against her own, or against her neck, his laugh low in her ear. All those Christmas movie cliches should've clued her in.

She can never admit any of it, though, because she has to go back, and Percy has to stay. None of it matters.

"What do you want from me, Percy?"

"I want you to talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about?"

"Yes, there is!" He places his palms on the dark wooden table, rocking back and forth. "You've been gone six years and the second that the idea of something new pops up, you come running back. You call me. Why?"

"Would you have liked me to call someone else?"

"Jesus…no, Annabeth. That's not what I'm saying. I'm asking you what you want."

"What do you want?" Annabeth says it bitingly, an attempt to scare him off. To get him to back down before she admits something that it seems he knows anyway.

"I want you."

There he goes.

Annabeth can't help it when she starts to cry. It doesn't matter who wants who because her life is in California, far far away from New York. She loves him, wonders what life would be like if she had taken the other road, or if he had followed her down the first one. She wants him too, but how? There is no fixing the mess she created.

"I'll ask again. Why are you here?"

Annabeth doesn't know, so she does the only thing she knows how. She fights.

"It's none of your fucking business!"

"It is! You come here, you let me kiss you, and you tell me it means nothing? I'm not an idiot, so please stop treating me like one!"

Annabeth sucks her teeth with a shaky breath. "It did. It meant nothing."

Percy looks at her, disappointment evident in his eyes. She knows she shouldn't, but she can't help but focus on how attractive he looks right now in the dark of the bookstore. He's frustrated, kind, beautiful, and she wants to run into his arms and apologize, but that was never her strong suit.

She hates that it's come to this. She hates that because of her, she'd lost him. She hates that he isn't hers anymore, that he's been with other people, that above everything she's forced him through, he's here trying to fix what she's broken.

He laughs in her face. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

She is trying to convince herself, so she doesn't say anything at all.

"Answer me."

"I have a life, Percy!" The tears come faster, and she stares to her left as though she's going to find the figure of her old self back in high school, playing with a stray cat between the shelves with Percy working somewhere else in the store, both of them blissfully unaware of the things to come. "I have a life. It doesn't matter why I'm here, or if…if I'm running, or whatever else you think I'm doing. This isn't my home, and I have to go back in two days."

"I'm not asking you to give any of that up!"

"Then what are you saying?"

"I'm saying you can have me!"

The world comes to a halt.

"I wish I could read your mind," he tells her, rushed, "but I can't. All I know is that you've been fine for six years, and then Connor proposed, and you were on my doorstep kissing me as though nothing changed."

"Stop!" Annabeth wipes furiously at her eyes. "It doesn't matter!"

"It does matter because I'm right here, and you're pushing me away!"

"Why are you making it so difficult for me to walk away?" It comes out wobbly, pleading. "You don't think I know the heart I'm breaking is my own?"

Annabeth has always known Percy well. She's always been able to predict his actions and his words, to know what he's thinking before even he knows. It was for that reason that it was never easy for him to surprise her back when they were together. She'd always prided herself on finding someone so perfect, a twin flame, but now, things are different.

For the first time, he surprises her.

"Your own?" His words send chills down her spine. "Are you fucking kidding me? Your own?"

"Percy–"

"I know you think that the world revolves around you, but it doesn't! Believe it or not, there are other people around you who feel the consequences of your actions! You are not perfect! You hurt other people! You are selfish and stubborn and can't admit when you're wrong! You run from everyone who actually cares about you!"

Annabeth sobs. "Stop it!"

"You are not the only person here, Annabeth! God, how do you think I felt when you left? Did you ever once stop to think about me?"

There's nothing for her to say.

"You are not the only person who got hurt here. Did you know I've spent six years wishing you'd come home so I could scream at you? You hurt me. I've been stuck here in this…this limbo, somewhere nothing ever happens except the same high school drama from people who were never given the opportunity to grow up. I'd wished you would come back, or that I hadn't stayed in the first place, but you came back, I tried so hard to be mad. I told myself I would never forgive you, but then I saw you in my bookstore petting the stupid cat and everything changed because I knew that even if I was hurt, you were too. I love you and I can't be mad at you no matter how much I should be, and I cannot let you leave without saying what I should've said the first time."

Annabeth squeezes her eyes shut. When they open again, Percy's gaze is softer, but his hands stay placed on the counter. She thinks it's because if he moves, it'll be to take her in his arms, and even he knows better than to do that. So instead, he watches her with soft, understanding eyes because he loves her and he knows why she's back, even if she can't admit it to herself.

"In a few days, you are going back to California," he says. "But right now, you've here with me."

"Right now won't last forever."

"You're right," he says. "Not unless you let it."

Annabeth is seven years old again, and she knows nothing about the world. There had been times in her life where she thought she figured things out, but then she really grew up and she was back to seven years old.

"You need to go back to California, but this isn't the same as six years ago." Percy looks around the bookstore. "There's nothing for me here anymore. This place…it doesn't make me happy in the way it used to, but you do."

Her heart pounds in her chest. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I love you." Percy lifts his hand, and his fingers twitch. "Now I'm asking you to let me."

Annabeth knows nothing about the world. Maybe that's okay.

She doesn't think that coming home for the holidays is supposed to hurt this much. She shouldn't ache the way she does, and she shouldn't take the step towards Percy that she does, just like Percy shouldn't be so fast to open himself to her, pulling her in, letting her dig her face into his neck, ignoring the tears that dampen his skin.

Nothing is as it should be, and for once, she's thankful. She breathes him in, wonders if he can feel her pulse over the sobs she lets out into her chest.

"I'm sorry," she chokes out, but he only holds her tighter. "I'm so sorry."

"I know," he breathes, lips pressed to the top of her head. She thinks he's crying too. "It's okay. I'm right here. I'm not going to lose you again. I can't."

And so it goes unsaid what's going to happen after this.

Annabeth is going to leave because East Aurora, New York was never really her home. She's going to follow the first path she took, but this time, she's going to uncover what lies behind the road not taken.

She lifts her head, and the next thing she knows, his lips are pressed to hers. It's not enough–it's never enough when it comes to them–but that's okay, because they have time. The kiss is salty, either her tears or his, but she leans into it. He grabs her face, surrounds her, forgives her.

"I know you can't stay," he breathes into her. "Let me go with you."

Annabeth can see how this is going to end.

It'll be an adjustment. It'll take a while, but in a few months, she'll be in California again. He'll be by her side. She'll have to reconstruct her life, reconcile with old friends if they'll have her. They might not, because she hurt their friend when she chose Percy (even if she didn't know that's what she was doing at the time). It doesn't matter because he'll be with her every step. They get a do-over, a chance to travel an old dusty road, to live the way she thought was gone forever. There is a lot to fix and a lot to figure out, but she knows that more than anything, she has him.

For the first time in six years, everything is okay.