Percy

Why do I hate the New York subway? Well for starters it smells like a fermented shark, i.e. piss. There are never any truly clean seats. And people in New York decide to have all their personal conversations on it. I don't want to hear about some old guy's fungus toe while coming home from school.

But here I am, forced to hear about a fungus toe on a Monday.

It is the second week of December, and I am craving winter break. Finals are this Wednesday through Friday. All my grades are teetering on the edge of the grade scale abyss, I haven't slept well since last week, and my Mom and Paul are on my ass about school.

Now I like Paul. He is a great guy. He treats my mom well and drives me to school some days. But am I happy that he is my English teacher? No. Is happy that I have a D- in English. Gods no. He understands the whole dyslexia thing, probably better than I do. If that were the reason I had a D- he wouldn't be upset. But that's not the reason.

The reason is Annabeth.

'Why?' You may ask. 'Are you two in the same class and are such good friends that you can't stop talking?'

Yes and No.

Yes, we are in the same class—6th hour English with Mr. Paul Blofis. No, we are NOT friends. Annabeth is the most stuck-up, rude, and attractive girl I have ever met.

At first, all was good. We had Biology and I made her laugh. She was cool... I was a little less cool, but I doubt she noticed. I thought, 'Maybe Annabeth and I could be really good friends. She seemed cool, and I'm sure we have things in common.'

That was until about 1:00 pm in Paul's English class.

I had sat down at my normal table, and Annabeth sat across from me. Paul was a progressive type of teacher. He didn't do seating charts, he had 6 big tables in various locations in his room. Desks weren't really his style, and we did a lot of work together as students, so I guess he didn't want anything to mess up the creative Feng Shui. I liked Paul's class because some of my friends were in it. Jason, the Stoll brothers, Beckendorf, Silena, and Clarisse ( who was more of a frenemy, but that's beside the point). Jason, the Stoll brothers, and I usually sat at the same table. There was room for more, but everyone in the class had kind of gravitated towards their friends and there were more than enough spots to go around.

Annabeth turned out to have the class too. I thought 'Sick, another class with the new cute girl.'

She sat down across from me and smiled. That was the last smile of Annabeth's that gave me butterflies.

She looked at Jason and me and started to say something, but before she could get anything out a tall, blonde, and utterly annoying guy plopped himself down in the seat next to her.

"Hey, are you the new girl from California I've heard so much about?"

Annabeth turned to look over at him and immediately blushed. I didn't know someone's cheeks could get that shade of red.

"Yeah, Hi! My name's Annabeth."

Luke dropped his bookbag on the table and looked at Jason and me like we were some annoying kids who were touring Goode High from the middle school.

"Hey Percy, Jason. You guys don't mind if I sit here today? I feel like changing it up."

Before I could say, 'No Luke, you're a bum.' or 'This table has a no creepy super senior policy.' Annabeth went right ahead.

"Oh, it's totally fine, right guys?"

Excuse me, what? Who are you? Girl who has been in this class for all but 2 minutes making decisions for the gang? Hell no. I was thinking about some sick comeback like, ' It's fine if you want to contract herpes.'

I didn't say that. Instead, I half grunted and half said yes. Gods, why am I so stupid?

For the rest of the hour, I got to discuss How to Kill a Mockingbird with Jason and the Stolls. Our conversations centered around how the Stolls would probably just shoot the bird, and they didn't understand why there needed to be a whole book about how to kill a bird. Usually, I would call them stupid, and try to explain what little I knew about the book. Instead, all I could do was get mad. Annabeth played a game of 'How much can I giggle at Luke's dumbass jokes' and Luke kept touching her arm or asking how she got her hair to look 'Like a princess'.

Barf, I know. I should have known this would happen.

Now, sitting here on this smelly subway it makes perfect sense. Luke Castellan is a renowned douchebag.

Okay, maybe he's the most popular guy at Goode. And maybe every single girl in our school would love for Luke to touch their arm while they talked. Or ask how they get their hair to 'look like a Princess'.

But that doesn't make him a good guy, or a cool person to sit next to in English class.

Luke left a trail of tears as he walked.

I was quickly lurched from all this introspective thinking by a swift tap to the foot. The seat in the subway directly in front of me was no longer occupied by Mr. Fungus Toe. Now a mop of red hair occupied his spot.

"If it isn't Percy Jackson, on my Subway. Aren't I lucky?" The girl smiled back at me.

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare?"

Author's note:

Hey Guys! I know this chapter is a little shorter, so sorry about that. I promise the next will be longer. First week of school as been killing me! I hope you like the story and thank you so much for reading. Please comment if you would like to see more of any specific characters.

I'm going to try and stay true to each characters original personality, but for stories sake some actions may seem a little farfetched.

As always thank you so much, and I love you all!

Ciao