Archive of Our Own ^beta

February

The first time Annabeth sees the boy, she’s contemplating jumping from the tall pier into the deep, surely freezing, water below and thinking to end her life once and for all.

There is no rhyme or reason to her action, no logic. She’d woken up from fitful sleep feeling as if one more second in her empty, single dorm would choke her more than her life already was, as if one more second alive would break her mind and never let it heal again. So she’d worn the first piece of clothing she could see (a thin windbreaker that did nothing to shield her from the piercing February chill) and shoved her feet into the first footwear she came across at her door (fuzzy pink bunny slippers where said bunny was smiling).

It’s so, so cold. She feels as if she breathed anymore, thin icicles could form in the warmth of her lungs inside. The windbreaker does nothing to break the wind; it’s all lies, the advertising of it as if it serves any purpose. Nothing does, not even the lies she tells herself every morning when she wakes up to go through yet another mind numbingly boring day, trying to keep up, sometimes failing to keep up, and battling her mind as it goes into a spiral of self-hatred and disappointment at how she can’t do this, again.

It’s been fifteen minutes since she sneaked out and ran to this pier, where it’s silent, as silent as it can be in New York City, and another ten since she thought of giving up and getting the freedom that she needs. Except there’s a flaw in her plan, and it’s that today, it’s Tuesday. It doesn’t make sense. Things like taking your own life should happen on Fridays, where it means you tried. That you survived an entire week and then you couldn’t.

Annabeth likes Fridays. It was the day she was born, true, and it only makes sense to have it come full cycle and end it on one too. That is how she’s lived for 19 years now. Make it till Friday. Then decide. Except Friday comes and something gets her out of that morbid thinking, something pushes her to try again, to open her textbooks and feel a surge of wanting, something as mundane as going to her tiny kitchen to get pills and seeing the sunrise outside the window. And so Fridays, in her mind, are synonymous with both birth and death, and second chances. Lots and lots of second chances. The irony is not lost on her.

But tonight, it got too much. Tonight, she woke up from her sleep, and felt as if all her failures, all her fears had compressed into one tiny person, invisible to anyone, and had sat on her chest, choking her and her brain. Hot tears had leaked from her eyes and she wanted out. She wanted to be free from this vicious cycle once and for all, damn it. She needed a break.

And yet when she’s made it to the pier (her mind doesn’t miss that she’s chosen drowning as the way to go, one of the most painful ways to die), all she can think about is that it’s fucking Tuesday and how it interferes with a pattern and she should instead do this on a Friday. For the sake of normality.

Annabeth laughs at herself. Truly, she’s a joke waiting to explode and happen. Look at her, she can’t even kill herself right without her obsession with maintaining structure tainting her decisions. How controlled she is by her own self-

She bites the inside of her cheek, to ground herself. Enough. She’s going to do this now, Fridays be damned. She’s going to take her final breathe, and then take a leap into the darkness below. She’s going to hold her breathe because she likes pain, and then her lungs will fight for air, but duped because only freezing water will fill them. And then, she will die.

So she turns around to see her city one last time, it’s never ending, never sleeping light polluting the night sky, making sure stars are not visible at all. Pity, but whatever. She takes her deep breath, and then-

That’s when she sees him.

There, at the opposite end of the pier, is a lone figure, standing in a similar positon that she is, i.e. facing the water below. He’s tall and he’s wearing a hoodie, and he’s rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, as if preparing to jump. As Annabeth observes, she sees a rope with a heavy rock tied around one of his ankles, rattling and rubbing against the wood of the pier. It is clear that this boy has the same idea as her.

Only unlike her, he’s thought about this long and hard, because there is no hope for a second chance in him. He’s made sure he’s going to be dragged down to his death, even if his lungs fight.

Something like panic (for another person; when was the last time she felt this way?) makes its way through her heart and Annabeth, impulsive and scared, almost runs to this boy, to stop him from ending it all.

She doesn’t startle him or call out in fear of hastening his decision. If he jumps she doesn’t know what she’ll do, because Annabeth hasn’t ever swum in her life and would be utterly useless to save him. The pier is out of the way and the boy would be a floating carcass by the time the ambulance showed up.

So she stands next to him and does something she, as a certified socially awkward person, would never ever do in other circumstances; she grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him back.

The boy lets out a strangled curse of surprise, almost giving her a black eye from his elbow as he instinctively reacts to the stranger who’s touched him. The rock attached to his ankle rattles along and in the deafening silence, it feels too loud, too symbolic of what it was meant to do. A harsh reminder.

“What the fuck?” He says again, turning around.

The first thing Annabeth notices is his glare. It is full of such hostility that something inside her wants to shrivel up and die, if only to never ever be at the receiving end of it, ever again. The second thing she notices is just how brokenly…beautiful he is.

His eyes are sunken low, but they’re still prominent on his face, framed by thick lashes, as much as she can see in the weak light of the 3AM moon. There are a variety of cuts and scratches all over his face, as if he were dragged through the floor; his lip is cut at the corner and swollen. Most of it is covered by the hoodie he is wearing, allowing for only one lock of hair to fall through them.

Everything about him screams pain, and yet Annabeth can’t help but feel that as much as he is marred by such violence, these seem like art on him. Something in her feels sick as this, because violence is never beautiful.

The third thing she notices is how violently he’s shaking; his lips are bleeding a little from them and his hands, bunched up into fists in his hoodie sleeves, are shaking as well. He’s angry, and Annabeth should feel terrified, but she’s not, because…he was going to die and she saved him. Didn’t she?

“Don’t.” She whispers, in response to his exclamation. Her voice feels so hoarse in the aftermath of waking up, screaming from her nightmare, and also this exposure to the cold night air. So unused, because it feels like ages since she’s actually spoken anything to anyone, so lost in her head and herself and her mind, so alone. Except she isn’t because, because this broken boy is also there.

“What?”

“Don’t kill yourself.”

The boy gives her an incredulous look. “And why the fuck not?”

His question is so harsh, yet so dead. He’s annoyed that she stopped him but at the same time he doesn’t even care as he speaks. Before he can tell her to fuck off and leave him alone, Annabeth tries again.

“Because…it’s a Tuesday.”

She almost slaps a hand over her mouth. She did not. She did not just give her reasoning for survival.

God, why is she so dumb-

Maybe the dumb blonde stereotype has some truth to it after all.

The stranger looks confused, and Annabeth takes a silent breath because yesss he isn’t glaring anymore, but now there’s the matter of explaining her dumb reason.

Damn her and the foot in the mouth disease she has sometimes.

“So what?” He asks, confused yet simultaneously looking at her with something akin to disgust.

“It’s the middle of the week. I think…I think such decisions should be taken on Fridays. It’s the last day before weekend and let’s face it, we don’t go around doing sad things like suicide on the weekend, right? So Fridays are good.”

The boy’s facial expressions become more and more varied, going from confusion to one of assessing Annabeth’s mental condition. Annabeth tries not to blush because she sounds so stupid; if some random person had come to stop her claiming that Fridays were good days for suicide and giving up, she would have jumped into the water right there and then so really, his expression was justified. It didn’t mean that she was any less mortified with how the explanation that sounded good in her head sounded like utter neuro-typical trash when said aloud.

The boy shuffles back a little and then says,

“What the fuck?”

How eloquently he reacted to her. The blush overrides her control system and Annabeth is thankful that its night and he can’t really see her turn into a yellow headed tomato.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so stupid but, like, um, it’s helped me before, and uh, this is not my business, of course it isn’t, but, um, like seriously Fridays are good and Tuesday, doesn’t have the same ring- oh my god, please ignore that.” Her filler words increase as she tries to rectify and she really needs to stop talking, fuck. She also can’t believe she actually said that.

She tries again. “Look. Just. Wait till Friday, I guess. Today isn’t good enough.”

The boy remains silent, and Annabeth wants to die- but for very different reasons.

“So, um. Just. Think over it, yeah. Cut that rock, don’t hit rock bottom hahaha- oh my god please ignore that I didn’t mean to make a pun out of your suffering, shit,” Annabeth fumbles. This is horrible. She can’t trust herself around this person, or anyone else.

“I’ll…just go. Be on my way. Also, water is a horrible way to die. Really. Ok then. Goodnight.”

And then she bolts out of there like there’s no tomorrow.

Except there is. Because this stranger, this painted boy had somehow saved her and let her have that tomorrow and Annabeth doesn’t really know what to think anymore.

She sleeps on her bed and all she can think of is, thank god today wasn’t Friday.

||

March

The second time she sees the boy is right in the middle of the hustle of a crowded café, her favourite, and her looking for a spare table that she can work on her assignments for the day.

It happens by chance, of course it does, but something in Annabeth jumps when she sees that familiar tall figure- now clad in the uniform of the café- carefully making the orders he has received, designing the coffees with some form of latte art. A wild part of her feels like this is a coincidence, something that was planned by the universe, but the logical part takes over, chastising her day dreaming silliness. She looks away, and her eyes land on an empty table in the far corner, removed from the noisy environment. She quickly grabs it before someone else can, and she’s glad that it effectively hides her from the boy.

Why she wants to be hidden, she does not know.

But though she tries not looking at him, her eyes keep going over to where he is stationed. Without the hoodie, Annabeth can see that he’s even more beautiful than what the moonlight was telling her. She hasn’t forgotten his face, not really (though she prays he’s forgotten hers); it seems impossible to. In the brightness of the café, she can see the way his hair falls a little over his eyes, the way his tan hands work on a glass, the way he sometimes gives a weak smile to a customer. She looks away again because she feels like a creep, but it’s not even five minutes later that she looks again and finds herself looking into his eyes.

She squeaks and looks down. She hopes, honest to god or any other higher force, that he didn’t notice her (especially when she’d been actively ogling him), that he wouldn’t recognise her-

“Hey, excuse me?”

Annabeth closes her eyes. It doesn’t matter that it had been a month since that incident happened, that she had only heard him speak two sentences; she’d never forget his voice.

She opens them again when she hears something being kept on the table; it’s a cup of coffee, warm and steaming, with simple latte art on the foam. It smells so good. Her eyes then travel to the hand kept near it, then up the arm to finally the owner of the hand: the boy from the pier.

She tries not to wilt under his focused gaze or the fact that in daytime, his eyes are the most gorgeous shade of green, a cross between emerald and the sea, framed by thick, dark lashes that seem to brush his high cheekbones with every blink. Said cheekbone also has some marks (still) and like last time, they look like art on him. His hair is midnight black and a little unruly, as if he can’t make them sit anymore and has given up trying. His nose is aquiline, and his mouth a Cupid’s bow.

The boy is gorgeous. Annabeth for the life of her can’t understand how such a boy looked so broken on that pier. How ruined. She can’t understand how someone could hurt that face.

A superficial part of her doesn’t understand why he’d want to end things so finally.

But more importantly, she finally realises after making eye contact for a good 5 minutes, that this boy, who she tried to convince with her dumb as fuck reason, is alive. He’s breathing in front of her, which means…which means he didn’t jump then. That somehow, maybe her dumb reason worked.

“Yes?” She whispers. Her voice is still hoarse, still unused. After all, she doesn’t have a roommate to talk to, she doesn’t speak in her lectures, hasn’t made any friends. Her parents have drilled into her that these are all distractions and she can’t afford to mess up her education (and really, their reputation) by engaging in things that will take her away from her books.

She feels awkward looking at him. Not a month ago she’d been looking at him scared, and he’d been looking at her with anger and disgust. Now he’s looking at her curiously and she’s sure she looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

He clears his throat. “This is for you.” He indicates towards the coffee.

Annabeth frowns. She’s sure she never made an order. “I didn’t order this?”

“I know. It’s on the house.” His voice is low, rough sort off, as if he too doesn’t talk much. Or maybe he walks around in empty alleyways and screams out his frustration.

Annabeth is confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why-”

“It’s a thank you. From me. For the pier.”

Annabeth tries not to blush, because of course he recognised her. If Annabeth could remember one boy she talked to for barely ten minutes even after a month, of course that boy would remember the girl who made a fool of herself, yes, but also provided a reason to stay alive.

“I…it was no issue. I think everyone deserves that chance.”

The boy gives her a faint smile (his smile might be gorgeous too, she thinks). “But not many get it. I thought your reason was a little stupid, no offence, but I decided to follow it and somehow the next day was easier. So here I am. It felt like a good opportunity to meet mystery girl and thank her. I didn’t know I’d actually meet you again, to be very honest.”

Her try not to blush challenge fails; she can feel her cheeks growing warm. Unlike him, she isn’t really tan, so she knows that if she were to look at a mirror right now, her face would have two twin spots of bright red.

She is mortified but also, underneath it all, pleased. He did follow her structure. And he’s alive in front of her now, he’s giving her coffee as a thank you. Something in her heart seems to feel light again.

She did something worthwhile, and she hasn’t felt that way in so long.

Doesn’t tell him that she should also be giving him a treat, because you saved me too.

Because the thought only comes as soon as she hears him and she realises, finally, that the reason he stuck around in her head was because they’d found each other. That she had seen him and something inside her didn’t want this boy to die and leave her alone on the pier.

But maybe he doesn’t know that, hasn’t questioned why she was there at a godforsaken time, and Annabeth is fine with him not knowing or asking. Because then she would be a hypocrite, wouldn’t she? How lame it would be- I was actually there to kill myself too, but I saw you and I decided not to, to save you. Ha-ha.

He would definitely hate her and probably pour the coffee all over her rather than give it to her so nicely.

“Thanks, uh, I didn’t think I’d see you again, either.” She says instead, wrapping her cold hands around the warm mug and slowly sipping at it. Looking down, because those eyes have already won her heart.

The boy hums. “Funny, right? I just started working here, what a chance of fate that was.”

“Oh? Yeah, maybe that’s why I didn’t see you. I’m, uh, a regular here.” What is she doing?

“Really? That’s so cool. It means you’ll be coming here daily, then, right?”

His question catches her off guard. Does he sound hopeful? That’s not what she expected. She thought the boy would want things cut off nice and clean, because isn’t she a reminder of what he was about to do? Especially when he felt better the next day; what if seeing her reminded him of his weakest point? Annabeth would hate that, because if she was in his place she would want to do nothing with this mess of a girl who reminded her of when she wanted to be dragged down into the Hudson River.

She’s not going to give into this hope. She’s learnt early on that hope is for fools and not for her, for such a mess of a person who can’t even talk much, who can’t even look people in the eye because she’s so scared of the judgement they will have there when she looks up. The truth of how they see her. No thank you.

She’s going to play it cool.

“Yeah? I come here to study, it’s nice here.”

She sounds so nerdy. No one would want to be friends with, least of all Green Eyes.

The boy only gives her one of his faint smiles before getting up to leave; Annabeth tries not to sigh in disappointment. She knew it was too good to be true.

“Well, it was nice running into you. I’ll be off now.” He said with a wave, turning around and pushing his hair back and wow, she did NOT need that visual, really, but this was Annabeth and her luck sucked. Period.

She studies for an hour and a half before packing her architecture books and rushing for her dorm before the fading winter chill really settles in, before she gets trapped in the darkness of the oncoming night. And it’s as she’s crossing a particular alley that she sees a couple of people fighting amongst themselves, which she really wants to avoid. But she looks at the last second and sees the boy throwing a punch that throws the other man into the next wall.

He looks over and their eyes meet, and she knows he’s seen her but Annabeth doesn’t question it, she just runs. She doesn’t want one more secret of this boy on her mind and yet, here she is. The image is already getting committed to her memory by the time she reaches her dorm, struggling to gather up enough air in her lungs and she locks it. Not that he would follow her but something about the lock makes her feel safe.

She’s back in her own little world and yet, Annabeth has a feeling of foreboding that someone has intruded, and she doesn’t want him out.

It’s a few days later when she goes to the café, she prays, she really does, that he isn’t there. She even goes way earlier than she normally does, to avoid his shift but no. He’s there. Tall and gorgeous, whipping up cream to lather people’s coffee with and-

And knuckles that look bruised and an ugly shade of red, definitely split at the skin.

She refuses to make any eye contact and takes up another hidden table, and she gets down to it. No coffee, no interaction.

Although, she asks herself, if she wanted to avoid things so badly, why did she come in the first place?

Maybe Annabeth is on her way to masochism, and she likes hurting herself.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how hidden she’s trying to be, how she’s wrapped in layers of clothes that people can’t really recognise her, because as she’s flipping the pages of her workbook in comes a new drink on her table, and then the unmistakable sound of someone shuffling back a chair, before he sits down.

“Hey,” he starts casually. As if they both hadn’t met each other in freezing conditions in a weird way, as if she hadn’t seen him punch the shit out of a random guy and he’d seen that she’d seen.

“Hi?”

“What’s up?”

The normality of his tone throws her off. Isn’t he pissed off? She intruded onto something that was definitely not legal, why isn’t he glaring at her like he did at the pier?

Maybe he forgot.

“Uh, to study as usual? Also, what’s this?” She points towards the coffee.

The boy actually rolls his eyes (no, Annabeth doesn’t pay attention the fact that he looks good doing so). “Duh, for the pier.”

“I thought that coffee some days ago was for that.”

“I think as long as I keep running into you, I’d like to get you coffee. You deserve that. It’s not harming me anyway, since it’s on the house.”

“I’m sure the owner would notice.”

“The owner’s this chick who’s totally whipped for me. She won’t yell, especially when I rake in half the female customers in here and a couple of the boys too.” He smirks at that.

And Annabeth dies.

Figuratively, because she had no idea that smirks could be hot. Or that the boy knew he looked beautiful, that he had noticed how the girls coming in would take a longer time to order just to hang around a little more. Annabeth had seen as much, what with her creepy staring she’d done that day rather than focus on making her notes.

Wait. Did that mean he’d seen her watching him-

She tries not to let the strangled sound come out as the thought crosses her mind. This was a train wreck and she didn’t know what to do. Would he take it in the same way he talked about the others? She wanted to tell him, to express that no, she wasn’t looking at him like that. She was looking for other reasons. But wasn’t that a part of the lie? She’d called him beautiful in her mind multiple times; maybe she was just as bad as all of the others.

“I see that you are self-aware.” Her mouth. God.

“Hard not to be when every third person in the queue is a giggling mess and leaves their fucking number and a flirty comment with every order. It’s annoying, frankly.”

His tone, that’s what makes her laugh. A little. And he looks at her, something like fondness shining in his too green eyes. But it couldn’t be, could it? This is a false sense of security, when reality is that he has that hand on the table with the marks on his knuckles for everyone to see (for her to see, really), and that is when Annabeth allows herself to really look at him and…is that faint black eye?

It would have been an ugly colour if it was from that fight, wouldn’t it? This is old. It’s pale yellow. Is it by the same someone who gave him all those cuts and swollen lips?

She pushes away the discomfort she gets when that thought comes, that someone is getting personal with this boy. Maybe that is the reason he wanted to quit. It’s not her story to ponder over.

(But ponder she will, because that’s all Annabeth can really do in her lonely, pathetic excuse for a life.)

“So you’re going to be giving me coffee for free every time I come over, is it?”

“Now, now, is that the tone of exploitation I hear in your voice?” The boy says teasingly and he needs to stop because they don’t even know each other that well, how is he so comfortable with her all of a sudden? And why isn’t he mad?

“I’m kidding. I mean, yes, but also this is for…not asking questions. About the alley the other day.”

Oh. So he hadn’t forgotten. Which means he’d deliberately shown his hand, to see if she would ask, to see if she would be nosy. And unwittingly, she’d somehow passed that test.

She didn’t miss that undertone of something else though, when he said for not asking questions.

For not asking why he was at the pier so broken, so desperate, that night.

And he didn’t ask her, so they were both clueless. And there was comfort in that, she realised. A camaraderie formed in such bleak circumstances, yet neither of them asking why they were bleak in the first place.

So Annabeth smiled, and took the sip of her second free coffee. And this time, the boy didn’t really leave.

The table, or her mind.

||

April

It’s another month later, a month full of twenty minute interactions over a cup of free coffee with nothing substantial really happening, with neither of them knowing the other’s name- or not wanting to, really- that Annabeth realises how royally screwed she is.

More specifically, how the only human interaction of any importance she’s had in forever might be tunnelling into hard crash of a crush.

It happens in subtle ways, ways to which she pays no need to, because at first it’s comfortable. It’s routine. It’s going to this discrete little café, making eye contact with Emerald (she can’t get over his eyes, god damn it) and having a different variety of coffee with silly art on it. They don’t talk long enough. They haven’t even asked names.

But Annabeth has a crush. She realises this when she’s trying to mind her own business while Emerald sits across her, very pointedly playing a game on his phone with as many dramatic effects as he can, and when she looks up to glare at him, he raises one eyebrow while giving a smirk, as if challenging her to say anything.

It’s just a facial expression but it’s so important because it finally puts a name to this crushing feeling she’s been having since she saw him, finally opening her eyes to just how good looking and hot he is.

She blushes before dropping eye contact because this is the first time she’s thought of him like…that. Hot. Like he, basically a walking art installation, belongs to the world of informal teen lingo. Hot doesn’t cover it. But at that moment, it does.

“Why do you do that?” He asks suddenly, locking his phone and putting it aside.

“Do what?” She asks back, flipping another page as she compares the floor plan structure she’s been creating for her latest project with another one. Honestly, if Annabeth didn’t have the passion she does for architecture, she would have killed herself for sure.

“Look away when we look at each other.”

Annabeth tries not to show how his simple question affects her, how her heart races at the fact that if, right now, they were to look at each other, he’d somehow know. He’d know that this organised mess of a girl who did him a favour two months ago is hopelessly crushing on him and has wonderful fantasies of confessions and tooth rotting fluff while she studies, or while she attends her lectures.

He’d probably laugh at her. Tell her to get over herself. How lame she sounds in her head. The boy in front of her wanted to die barely two months ago; the paint of violence hasn’t really left his face or his hands. Even now, there’s a cut above his eyebrow that’s newly healed, that she knows will scar. Several of his knuckles are a sore pink, thankfully not split this time.

She really wants to know who hurts him, or who receives his anger, but she never asks. Because it’s their thing now. They don’t ask each other stuff that matters, because if they do, it would shatter this protective bubble of being strangers that they’re both living in. It’s their only escape from this world each day.

She doesn’t ask him why he’s rough around the edges; and he doesn’t ask her why she was at the pier. He doesn’t ask her why there are some days she comes with deep circles under her eyes so dark that almost looked bruised, because she pulled several all-nighters in a row. He doesn’t ask why there have been many times now that she’s come to the café with red rimmed eyes, the aftermath of the tears she shed after a talk with her mother that had none of the warmth she craved deep inside.

Maybe that’s why they’re both scared to know names.

In response to his question, Annabeth further buries her nose into her notes.

“I get a little nervous about eye contact.” She answers a little truthfully. What if he thinks she’s a freak for not having normal human social behaviours? Not that it matters. She’s always been seen as the freak, anyway.

Ok, so maybe she omits the part about how looking into his beautiful sea-green eyes makes her want to serenade a self-made soliloquy in ode to them. He would definitely run away then.

He only huffs. Annabeth looks at the clock. Only five minutes left before his break time is over and he leaves.

“Well, I don’t think you should be. You have beautiful eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen grey ones before.” He remarks casually as if he just didn’t end her heartbeat right there and then.

“I…I’m…wait, what?” She splutters because she’s smart like that.

Emerald only gives her a very passive look, his face having settled back from the mischievous expression he had barely a minute ago to his normal brooding one. The whiplash this boy gives her.

“You have nice eyes. You shouldn’t be nervous about looking people in the eye. They seem like the kind that could make people think twice before fucking you up.”

The five minutes are over before Annabeth can think through the haze of the compliment and thank him, because he gets up and waves at her before taking off his work apron and leaving.

Leaving Annabeth with a very overactive mind, heart and everything in between.

She can’t believe him, she thinks, as she walks back to her dorm. She’s somehow always hated her grey eyes because they just seemed to lack life. There was even a time in middle school when she was bullied because of them. So it’s nothing but a confusing mess that for the first time in her life that someone’s appreciated them, crush notwithstanding.

The confusion goes down a little when she really looks at herself in the mirror that night. Her eyes stare right back and…Annabeth realises that she never really learned to make eye contact with herself either. Never could look at herself in the eye.

And now that she does, she realises, for herself, that grey might not be so bad, after all.

Someone moves into the empty dorm room in front of Annabeth’s for the first time in her two years there, and Annabeth screams when she sees them after she locks her door.

Well, when she sees the girl that’s moved in.

She’s much, much shorter than Annabeth’s lanky 5’9, but there’s something about her personality that makes her appear taller than everyone, more dominant.

That being said, both are looking at each other across the hallway with wary eyes because who screams at a new neighbour like Annabeth. Answer: no one.

“Hi. I’m Piper.”

This new girl’s voice is clear but low. And she’s pretty. Really pretty, with thick, chocolate brown hair cut very choppily, as if she took scissors and had a field day in front of her mirror, and skin the shade of warm coffee. Her most striking features are obviously her eyes, because there isn’t really a shade they sit on. With every second they seem to shift colours, jumping at a fast pace from green to blue to brown, and sometimes violet. A kaleidoscope of colours.

Why is attracting people with beautiful eyes a memo in Annabeth’s life?

“Hello. I’m Annabeth.”

“Oh, that’s such a pretty name!” Piper automatically replies. There’s a Californian tinge to the way she speaks, maybe she’s from LA, and Annabeth feels a little homesick, homesick for her pretty home in San Francisco, where the vision of watching the sun from the Golden Gate Bridge had greeted her every single morning. Where watching said bridge had inspired her love for building things and one day making a monument with her work on it.

She hasn’t been there for almost three years now. Her parents live there in their perfect little home, without Annabeth to burden them, having insisted that she move out to New York, so far away, to study. To explore herself, they said.

Sometimes Annabeth really wishes people, including parents, weren’t so full of shit. They could have simply said, hey you’re 18 now get out so we can only brag about your academics to people but not have to talk to you, really.

“Thank you. Yours is, as well.”

Her voice is no longer hoarse. Daily talks with Emerald have ensured improvement in that, though no improvements for her heart condition.

Annabeth thinks that’s all there is to this, having never really interacted beyond sharing class notes, but Piper has other ideas.

Piper is a people person. She couldn’t have been anymore different from Annabeth, but she barges into Annabeth’s life with her loud, colourful personality (and vocabulary), and Annabeth suddenly has a friend.

Within a week.

The time frame scares her. Do people even become friends this fast? Is Piper maybe too eager and stuck to the first person she saw? How long before she realises how boring and uninteresting Annabeth is before she leaves (like everyone else) and moves on to better, more cool people?

Annabeth doesn’t want to do this, but she has a countdown of days leading to doomsday in her head constantly running, even as Piper simply melds herself into Annabeth’s life. Even as Annabeth finds herself warming up to her, even as she sees Piper making friends in a flash but also sees how a façade falls as she plops herself onto Annabeth’s bed every single day, talking about her day with the utmost honesty.

Annabeth is weak and even if the countdown continues, she allows herself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Enough to tell Piper about her life a little. Then slowly tell her about how her depression hits her sometimes out of nowhere and makes her feel like shit. Even tells her survival method of Wait Till Fridays (Piper doesn’t think it’s weird). And finally tells her about The Night at the pier (Piper sheds an actual tear). And then (oh god), then she tells Piper about the boy.

And she regrets it a little, only because Piper loses it over the fact that Annabeth and Emerald have been talking for a whole good month and they don’t know names, haven’t exchanged numbers and are just dancing around each other.

“I cannot believe this. How do you talk to someone every day without knowing their name?” She exclaims.

“I just feel like if we knew this, it would just break this agreement we have, you know? We’re strangers. It’s a nice feeling.”

Annabeth stops talking because it looks like Piper could chuck her entire mountain of books on her without blinking an eye.

“Do you hear yourself? You don’t even sound convincing.”

“What?”

“You’re kidding yourself, Chase. You want to know so badly, it’s written all over your face. You love having answers. You hate having questions, and if I’ve read this right, which I probably have because I’m a genius with perception, this boy’s been your biggest question for straight up two months. C’mon.”

Annabeth wants to deny it, but also, Annabeth doesn’t lie well. To herself, or others. And as soon as she hears them, sees the thought exposed to light and matter, she realises it’s the truth.

The boy has been her biggest why, what, how, when and where since she saw him and now she wants to know.

She wants to know everything.

Annabeth is a nervous wreck the next time she comes to the café.

This time, Piper tails behind her a few feet away to ensure that she doesn’t chicken out, and to make sure she doesn’t leave the café tonight without Emerald’s number sitting comfortably in her phone.

The phone that, Annabeth realises, doesn’t really have that many contacts. It’s almost as new as the day she got it. She knows this is weird because she looks at Piper’s phone and it seems to have survived through cars running over it or something, it’s so bruised and battered, and it’s constantly pinging with messages.

Hers looks pitiful in her hand as she walks over to where Emerald is working. Piper is sitting in another corner, looking casual but definitely keeping an eye on her. Normally, Annabeth would be sitting on a closed off table and he would join her five minutes later, sit for some time and then leave.

She has two tasks tonight: get his name and get his number.

It feels wrong and yet it feels like it needs to be done. The boy who found her and saved her has to be something more than Green Eyes or Emerald; it frankly gets a little too weird when she’s thinking it out loud, alone in her dorm room.

But also, more than that, she wants him to know her name. She wonders if he thinks about her, and if he does, what pseudo name he’s given her. If he has friends who he may have mentioned her about to. Does he call her Grey Eyes? Blondie? Friday Enthusiast?

The only way to know is by establishing contact and so, here she is.

He obviously notices something is off, because Annabeth doesn’t come to his workstation. She doesn’t usually stand on the side watching him work (though that is an amazing view), and she definitely does not start a little dance of nervousness when she does. He raises his eyebrow (god, why), a quizzical look on his face. He finishes off his order, then asks for five minutes break.

“Hey,” he begins. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and Annabeth tries to keep her breathing issues silent. This is bad. She’s spiralling too fast; she needs to get a grip, god damn it. Why does every little thing that he does affect her so much?

“Hi.”

“You okay?” He sounds concerned, and it’s perhaps the first time he doesn’t sound teasing, or curious, or just plain bored. It’s a surprise, if she’s being a little honest here. It’s also thrilling, because, does he care for her, just as she does for him?

It sounds too good to be true, really.

“Yeah, I just…I have a favour…wait, no. I have something to ask, and I hope you won’t be mad about this.” Annabeth decides that she’s going to stop tip toeing around him.

“Uh, ok?”

“So I was thinking, because I do that a lot, and, you know we clearly walk around the issue but I’m a little frustrated right now.”

Emerald looks alarmed a little; he probably thinks she’s going to ask him, all of a sudden, about why he was at the pier, or who he punches with so much anger. She will, but not now.

“And?”

“And I think we’re familiar with each other enough that we can at least know each other’s names, don’t you think?”

Annabeth has never felt bolder before, except for maybe when she saw him and ran towards him to save his life. Emerald’s expression changes from alarm, to confusion, and then to straight up curiosity.

“Oh, is that all?”

Is that all? Is that all? She’d spent weeks trying to find out a way to get to know his name and now she finds out that it wasn’t actually as much a cause of concern as she kept thinking she was?

These are the times when she really dislikes her brain for making things bigger than they are.

“Well, yeah, and that I think we should talk more.”

Emerald’s stance changes from curiosity to a teasing sort of laziness, as he leans against the counter. Not laidback per se, but like a waiting panther, ready to strike when she least expects it.

The thing is, she never expected any of this.

“So you’re not as shy as you make everyone think, are you, Grey?” He teases, one eyebrow raised, mirth swimming in his green eyes.

Grey. He calls her Grey. Simply that, nothing attached to it. Is it because she’s drab, a colour that blends and vanishes without catching attention for more than a few fleeting seconds?

Why does it sound so good when he says it, then?

“I…I was under the impression that, well, we were going for that mysterious stranger at the coffee shop thing, not letting it be mundane.”

“Romantic, too. This is interesting.”

Annabeth was positive that unlike the nickname he’d given her, she was bright red, because he sounded like he was enjoying this. She knew if she looked up, she’d see laughing eyes, she’d see how they’d crinkle at the corners. She’d see his lips pulled up in a halfway smile. And she’d fall deeper.

“Shut up. I just…I think too much sometimes. I didn’t want to offend you or anything.”

“If people got offended by shit like this, the world would be shittier that it already is.” He shrugs. “Although I will admit, I thought when it came to us, names didn’t really matter, but you’re right, I guess. Not that I have an issue with Grey, but it can be a little confusing.”

“Right. Uh. So…”

“Yeah. OK, my name…OK, don’t laugh, but my mom was going through this Greek mythology craze when she was having me, right, and she gave me this really pretentious name.” Emerald gives a small smile. “It’s Perseus. But everyone calls me Percy.”

Of course that’s his name. Of course his name means something like The Destroyer (Annabeth isn’t far behind on her Greek knowledge either, though she won’t tell him that she’s just as obsessed with it as his mom was). And of course he shortens it to something easy that hides how complex his name sounds. How out of this world. Because Emerald (Percy now) sounds and looks easy but on the front of it, he looks so out of this world, sometimes sticking out like a sore thumb, but in the most beautiful of ways. Destroying the way Annabeth saw life as she knew it.

It suits him and Annabeth does fall a little bit deeper, more.

Percy waits for her to reciprocate, and she picks at her fingernails as she mumbles, “Annabeth.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Annabeth. My name is Annabeth Chase.” She says again, a little clearer, finally making eye contact.

Percy stares at her impassively before giving her a full, wide, blown out grin; the suddenness and the brightness of it strikes Annabeth with a force she didn’t know smiles were capable of. She’s seen his smirks and his half smiles, but this…this is a grin.

“Holy shit, that’s a beautiful name. It just goes with you, man!”

No one has ever reacted to Annabeth’s name like this, so it’s a given that she’s a little confused by his joy.

“Like, seriously, I kept wondering what name you’d have, like something like royalty because you look like a total princess sometimes, you know? I’ve never even heard of a name like Annabeth, and it fits you so well. It’s lovely to know your name now, Annabeth.” He puts out his hand, as if they’re formally introducing themselves again. How Annabeth manages, she doesn’t really know, because she’s reeling over the princess comment.

Deeper and deeper. Maybe it’s a little too late.

Percy seems excited that they now know each other like that, like friends, and without her having to ask, he reaches for her phone and feeds his number in, gives himself a missed call so he can save hers, because they’re friends now. And Annabeth is overjoyed, she really is, because it wasn’t as awkward as she thought it would be, but a part of her misses that stranger part of the equation.

Because she knows deep inside that he’s going to make his way all over into her heart. He already had, just a little bit, but she knew that as strangers if he’d left for good, it wouldn’t have hurt as much. Because if he leaves now…

She’d be destroyed. She knows that.

The congruency with his name doesn’t really seem that funny anymore.

But despite knowing this, a larger part of her sings, and she gives in, just a little more. Just a little while longer.

A second countdown follows the one already existing in her head.

||

May

Annabeth thought she would regret being Percy’s friend, that she would regret knowing him a little more than those short interactions she had treasured for two months before everything happened.

She’s long forgotten to guard her heart, or to keep track of the countdown in her head. It’s only been a month since they exchanged numbers, but that one month has been the best month of her entire (soon to be 20) years on this planet.

She’s fallen deeper into the black hole of crushes and something more, as he took it upon himself to meet her more often because “that’s what friends do, Annabeth, jeez, what do you mean ‘why do you want to meet’?”

Percy calls her at odd times of the 24 hour cycle. He texts the most random things, and he demands meetings. These calls last a good two hours at times, sometimes three, and Annabeth is amazed. She can’t recall the last time she even talked to someone this much.

She knows for a fact that her voice is no longer hoarse, no longer unused. It’s refreshing, really, to speak in a clear manner. With no hesitations.

She’s happy, true, but she’s scared. One human should not have this much of an impact on her entire being. Should not like her so much, and yet Percy hasn’t complained.

A sinister voice in her head says that it’s only been a month. Maybe Percy was just as lonely as she was, maybe he needed a friend too and stuck with her. He’ll leave. And she does, she tries so hard to protect herself, to be careful, and then she decides she doesn’t care.

Let him destroy her, because she’d rather be ruined with happiness for a short time than that crushing loneliness, that constant need to feel warm again, to feel worth it again and wonder when it would be her turn.

Piper is ecstatic, but for entirely different reasons. Piper is still her friend, another thing she didn’t expect really. She still comes to her dorm, she still talks about all her adventures, the new ‘twin’ she’s found in the college cafeteria by the name of Leo Valdez (Annabeth’s heard of him, only because he was in her elective Organic Chemistry class and he was insanely good). There’s a different sort of warmth she gets from Piper that is pleasant in its own way, different from the blood rushing to her face when Percy looks a little too long, or when he sits close to her sometimes.

Friendship has its own magic and Annabeth can’t believe that both these feelings happened to her in such a short span of time. Not with her luck.

Piper is ecstatic because of a reason Annabeth vehemently denies one evening as she slaves over her last project for the semester before the finals, and Piper lounges on her bed, scrolling through her phone and sucking on a lollipop.

Annabeth is sure she’s straight, no doubt, but she’s not blind. Piper is weirdly attractive even when she does the most basic of things with hardly a care in the world. Annabeth sometimes wishes she was as effortlessly beautiful as her friend was. Maybe then Percy might like her as more than a friend.

“Percy totally likes you.”

Annabeth’s come to fear statements like this, because no matter how many variations she might have heard Piper hint at, and how she immediately denies it, her heart rate spikes up and there’s an overwhelming sense of hope echoing in her brain. And she doesn’t need that.

“Piper. C’mon. Not again.”

“Nope, I won’t give up on this with you two dumb fuckers just being oblivious while already engaging in some weird mating dance around each other. How can you not see?” Piper sits up, exasperation clear in her voice and her face.

“Because it’s ridiculous. Why would he like me?”

“Uh, because you’re totally a bomb? What?”

“Good talk, Pipes-”

“No, what the fuck. Are you seriously insulting my bi-dar? Dude if I wasn’t into that cute guy in my socio class I would totally have dated you three times already.”

Annabeth is blushing because what the heck. Piper flusters everyone, including people who’re not attracted to her. How does she easily say things like this?

Scratch beauty, Annabeth wanted some of that confidence and self-assurance.

“OK, maybe he’s not into the whole beauty thing, maybe he cares about personality more, and you know I don’t have-”

“You will die one day by my hand and then you will realise how stupid you sound for someone who’s so fucking brilliant. Did he not call your eyes pretty? He called you a princess. Boy probably isn’t saying it directly because he thinks you won’t go for him.”

Annabeth opens her mouth to state an argument but Piper holds up her hand. “Don’t. If it’s more negative self-evaluation then nope, rejected. Did you see the way he looks at you, Beth? I saw him for the first time that day in the café and it was so obvious. He’s been flirting with you all along. Why is it so difficult to even consider it?”

Annabeth is silent, but she knows the answer. Because Percy is a mess and he doesn’t need her mess to be a part of him too. He deserves someone who is stable and perfect and who doesn’t have panic attacks in the middle of the nights, or days when she’s depressive; he doesn’t need anything other than perfection. And Annabeth is far from it. So she won’t be a burden to him like that, and she won’t give herself hope. All she can do, is be content with what she has now.

“What do you think about Coney Island?”

The question comes out of the blue, a distraction from her heavy notes and the crushing sense of Finals Week that’s right next week. Annabeth is a little confused that she’s suddenly thinking of Coney Island instead of structural supports.

She hates finals week. It doesn’t matter how good she is academically or that she has consistently maintained her position as the top of her class for close to three years now; she hates that it all comes down to her grades and her theoretical knowledge when people wish to assess her worth.

She hates that everyone just…expects so much from her. She hates that her professors expect her to be the best. She hates that her parents only call her during the finals weeks under the pretence of good luck wishes but really, always reminding her how she has to make them proud. She hates that people only talk to her to get notes from her hard work.

She hates how much she expects herself to not fall.

And she hates that despite knowing, she simply can’t say ‘fuck it’ and leave it to the world to see what it has to do about her not working.

The knowledge that at the end she herself contributes to her misery grates at her very core, like a restless monster under her skin, hissing in her ear and reminding her that she can blame people all she wants but it’s her who’s the fool, who gives in every. Single. Time.

“Coney Island? I guess it’s cool, although I haven’t been there. Why?”

Percy, who is trying to study himself (emphasis on trying), but is actually super engrossed in a game of Flappy Bird, looks up with a horrified expression on his face.

“You haven’t been to Coney Island?”

Annabeth picks nervously at her palms. She’d moved to New York alone and she’d engrossed herself in her academic life. Somehow, the question makes her look so sad.

“Um, no. Is that bad?”

Percy, meanwhile, is in the process of shoving all his notes in the most horrific manner into his book bag. “It is. You’ve been here, what, three years and you haven’t been there? That’s unthinkable. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Wait. What? Right now?”

Percy rolls his eyes. It’s a habit for him, and it’s one that Annabeth used to find annoying but also at the same time incredibly attractive. She hates that there is a dual response to this.

“Yes. Now. It would be a crime to wait otherwise.”

“Are you kidding me? Percy, the finals are next week-”

“Yeah. Yada yada and you’ve managed to ace all three years, relax. It is one day. Live a little, c’mon, Chase.”

It’s ironic how he uses that so easily. As if three months ago they both would definitely not have been “living a little”. No, they’d be rotting corpses floating in the Hudson, decomposed beyond recognition.

Annabeth considers herself strong in some ways. Her strength comes out in ways like surviving three years of a major in architecture, or waking up to an unknown feeling crushing her, lounging like an unwelcome guest on her chest, or even when she counters Piper’s arguments. But she’s weak when it comes to him. She was weak when she saw him for the first time, and she was weak in all subsequent meetings when she’d let him treat her, let him avoid the topic of the pier or the alleyways or the new bruises that mark his face every week.

And she’s weak now when he takes her hand (she tries so hard not to sigh at how cool his palm is despite the summer heat), and packs her bag for her, before they leave.

Weak. He’s already destroyed a resolve of hers and she can’t bring herself to be scared.

It’s the explosion of colour and noise that greets her when they make their way through the amusement park.

And while the Annabeth Before would have run away from the stimulation, the Annabeth After has her hand firmly wrapped in Percy’s palm and is actively trying to not get overwhelmed.

Is it a little sad that her focal point of calmness is the contact between them?

Oh well, too bad.

Percy is thriving. He’s excited, his green eyes are shining. He’s like a kid on sugar except he hasn’t had anything, and so he promptly goes to fix that. He orders two huge wands of bright pink candy floss and presents it to her.

Annabeth learns a lot about Percy that day.

He has an insane appetite. He loves cheeseburgers and coke, and he can eat three in one go before slowing down. He loves the colour blue because it reminds him of his mom and how strong she is. He thinks loyalty is the best trait anyone can have. He loves the White Stripes. He likes all animals but he is fascinated by horses. He loves New York and is extremely passionate about the state.

Annabeth would have been ok if it had remained a crush. But she realises that she never really had a chance. Because as she hears him speak, she can see another part of her being exposed.

She doesn’t mind if she’s quite possibly in love with this boy, and it’s downright ridiculous how fast it is. If she was infatuated with him first, she now has little pieces of him to prove just how deep she’s fallen.

She tells him a little about herself. There’s not a lot to say without sounding like the most boring person on this earth. She was born in Boston (Percy gives her the look of betrayal) but raised in San Francisco. She came to New York to study architecture because she wanted to explore the East Coast but also because her parents wanted her to be far. She loves reading, she loves riddles, and she’s a sucker for Italian- the classic Panini, she tells Percy, not greasy pizza, to his dismay.

It’s nearing dusk by the time either realise how late it is and how neither of them are making a move to leave. The sky is a vibrant shade of purple hues mixed with the dark yellows of the setting sun. The sundown brings with it some relief from the heat of the day. They’re sitting side by side in a secluded part of the park, a little away from everyone else, trapped happily in their own bubble.

It’s so easy to forget everything when she’s with him. So easy to forget her miserable life as Annabeth Chase and just live as Annabeth. She wonders if it’s the same for him. Easy to forget that he wanted to die, that he doesn’t punch someone every week.

It’s been fifteen minutes and he hasn’t looked away from her. Uncharacteristic of him, because Percy doesn’t shut up for more than a few minutes at times. And if not talking, he’s definitely moving here and there, some trapped energy making him flutter.

But he’s been silent and still and Annabeth is a little nervous. She also can’t get herself to be the first one to break eye contact, because it feels like a crime to look away from those green eyes. He’d asked her favourite colour earlier and she’d just shrugged.

He doesn’t need to know that it’s been sea green for quite some time. Maybe since three months’ time.

“Annabeth, can I ask you something?” He suddenly whispers. This does nothing to quell the butterflies wreaking havoc in her stomach. She only hums because she doesn’t trust her voice to not give away how nervous yet hopeful she’s feeling.

“Why…why were you at the pier that night?” He asks softly, eyes never leaving her face. Here it is finally. The topic they have been dancing around for months, pretending that they hadn’t met each other at the very edge of life.

Annabeth is weak when it comes to him, she admits it to herself. But with that weakness comes a strength that’s only reserved for him. She’s nervous but she also won’t back down.

“I could ask you the same.” She replies just as softly.

She wonders if he’s going to shut down again, maybe realise she’s not worth the emotional investment. But instead he sighs, finally breaks eye contact briefly before looking back, his face stony but his eyes…his eyes expressive and vulnerable.

“My step-dad was being a bit of an asshole more than usual and I guess I just lost direction for some time. I thought death would be easier. But then you stopped me and I hated you for a day before I saw my mom and she sobbed and I realised how reckless I was being. I wondered if I would feel the same until Friday, but Friday came and I didn’t feel as bad. I forgot that feeling but I…I didn’t forget you.”

Something in Annabeth feels broken, but in a good way. Like some mouldy shield she’s had around her has finally decayed and something new is coming out.

“And I wondered if I’d ever see you again. For the longest time you were just Friday Girl in my head. And then I saw you at the café and I couldn’t believe my luck. I had to thank you, you know. I felt loyal to you even if I didn’t know you.”

Percy’s looking away now, out at the horizon. A bit of a breeze starts up and plays with his black locks. Annabeth has the strangest desire to push them away from his eyes gently, and she has to fist her hands in order to stop the itch.

“But all throughout all I could think about was why someone has good and pure as you, who had such a fucked up logic of living that totally worked, why you of all people would want to end your life?” He looked at her again.

Any feeling of warmth was snatched away at that. Annabeth tries not to panic at the fact that he knew she was there to die too. She wondered if there was a hint of disgust in his voice as he asked her but no, try as she might, it sounded like a genuinely curious question.

“What makes you think I was there for the same purpose?” She all but squeaks.

“Chase, c’mon. Look at you, you’re not spontaneous at all. You wouldn’t be simply chilling at an out of the way pier at three A.M for the heck of it.”

As distracted as Percy looked, Annabeth was amazed by how perceptive he could really be.

“Well, if you already know, why are you asking?”

“I didn’t ask what you were doing there. I’m asking why you were there.”

“I don’t know. I woke up from a bad nightmare and everything felt like too much and I just…wanted an out I guess.” It sounds so stupid when she says it out loud. Who tries to kill themselves from a nightmare?

“God, it sounds so stupid when I say it now.” She chuckles in a self-deprecating way.

“It’s not. I’m sure it wasn’t any other nightmare and even if it was, it doesn’t matter. Our minds keep trying to test us and sometimes it wins. Why did you stop?”

This was just embarrassing now. Would he run away if he found out?

“I saw you.”

She blushes as she says this, unable to look at him anymore. She decides to finish it all in a rush.

“I saw you and I felt so sad. I didn’t know why but I thought it was wrong that you were there all alone. So I thought I should at least give you a chance to reconsider and then…you looked so broken you know? I don’t mean that in a pity way. You were so young and it felt like a crime to see you do this to yourself so I got into your business and…I’m glad I did.”

There is nothing in response and Annabeth closes her eyes, waiting for the sharp sound of rejection, waiting for the words of anger. She’s done it now, she’s ruined her one good thing and it’s going to be so hard to be alone again-

“Chase, will you look at me?” Percy says instead.

Annabeth struggles. She notices that tears are blurring her vision and she hastily tries to wipe them away. She looks at his emerald eyes, looking for anger and reproach and finding only fondness and warmth.

“Did I ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?” He says, slowly wiping an escaping tear. His thumb is rough with callouses but it feels good, like home, a grounding she didn’t know she needed. “It’s all I could think about for days. I’d never seen grey eyes like that. I thought grey would be such a boring colour, but when I saw yours it’s the only thing that screamed ‘life’ at me. And your eyes, they take on the colours of the things around them and it’s wonderful to look at them to kill time, did I ever tell you that?”

Annabeth is frozen. What is going on?

“It’s so funny how we saved each other, isn’t it? You found me. I found you. Looking forward to seeing you every day is sometimes the only thing that makes me feel alive, you know? And then I realise, of course, you’re the reason I got a second chance. Of course you’d make me feel alive. I’m glad I met you when I did, Annabeth Chase.”

If Annabeth is crying more freely, if Percy doesn’t take that as an excuse to wipe her tears away, no one points it out.

“You…you aren’t mad at me?” She croaks out. Her voice sounds thick with unshed tears.

Percy gives her a look between fond and incredulousness. “Why?”

“I thought you’d hate me, call me a hypocrite because I was there at the pier for the same purpose but I’d given you that Friday logic and I don’t know.”

“Did I ever tell you that you think a lot?”

“Multiple times.”

“Well, stop if you can. Because you have it all wrong.” He turns towards her, really turns towards her, and he’s so close she can smell him, his fragrance of pine wood and sea, which is an interesting combination that shouldn’t be possible. He’s tucking a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. “We saved each other. Things would have been different if we hadn’t been there at that time. It’s OK if you were there too. It’s OK because we would have missed a lot of opportunities, and I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

And then Percy kisses her.

Annabeth is not new to kissing; she’s not completely hopeless but she might as well as have been twelve, or a giggling teen having her first kiss because Percy’s kiss, his lips, makes her rethink everything.

It’s soft and slow and yet it makes mental fireworks override her sensory system. He tastes like the chocolate ice-cream they shared right now and something like salt but in a very pleasant way. His hand gently holds her face at her jaw while the thumb of the other strokes her cheek in slow circles. And if the last of Annabeth’s tears refresh again and spill down, they both ignore it again.

He pulls away, and there’s a deep red marring his cheeks, though his eyes looks happy. Annabeth is sure she doesn’t look any better.

“God, that feels so good to finally have it happen.” He says, still rubbing circles. “You have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming, been wondering what it would feel like. I probably wouldn’t have today but then your eyes had to do that thing.”

“What thing?” She manages, still recovering from a life changing moment.

“That thing where they shine and right now, they looked like the gold of the sun and I’m thinking, your eyes are going to be testing me a lot from now on, won’t they?” He teases, the fond look increasing.

“From now on?” Annabeth is so smart, look at her progress! So many words!

“Yeah, Grey. We’re dating now…unless you don’t want to.”

That jars Annabeth out of her kiss driven stupor. “No! I totally want to. I’ve been dreaming about your eyes for ever too, you know, oh my god this is actually happening-”

“It is.”

“And I can’t believe you called me a nickname too, you’ve been Emerald for ages in my head-”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“And I can’t believe you’d want to date me, of all people.” She finishes.

Percy loses his offended expression over his nickname to return back to that fond look. “Of course I do. Anyone who doesn’t want to clearly does not know what they’re missing.” He holds her hand and they stay for a bit, before they leave to look forward to another day…as something new. Something alive, together.

||

June

“I only spill facts here, Jackson, Los Angeles is better than your New York City any fucking day.”

Annabeth tries not to groan. She’s an expert in blocking out things that stop her from focusing for years now, but all her skills are failing now.

She can’t believe she’s hearing the NYC versus LA argument, again, for what might be the hundredth time now.

It was quite possibly a mistake to formally introduce Percy and Piper to each other because the two just do not shut up.

“Guys. Please. Not again. Let’s just enjoy the day and talk about non-controversial stuff, I’m begging you.”

Percy and Piper look up from their heated debate; Percy looks like he was right in the middle of a reply back, while Piper had her aloof “I’m always right” expression. Both looked a little sheepish.

It had been a month since Percy and she had had their first date at Coney Island, which had been subsequently followed by more dates. For the first time in three years, Annabeth had chosen not to go back home, because being here, with Percy and Piper (and the occasionally smattering of Jason Grace and Leo Valdez), had felt more like a home than San Francisco ever had. She’d made up a bullshit excuse about scouring for architecture internships in the city, and of course her parents expressed their doubts about it but she’d also may be heard something like relief that she wouldn’t be coming back to lounge around like a depressed ghost and ruining their summer.

And Annabeth decided, if they did find out that there was in fact no internship at all, she didn’t care. She’d get to that bridge when it came by, but she would no longer worry, worry, and worry until she was a panicky mess waking up from bad nightmares. She’d had enough of giving in to fear.

It was fascinating how sometimes meeting the right sort of people could set you on the right track no matter how long you’d given up on changing yourself. Annabeth Now was eternally grateful for meeting Percy when she did, in their bleak (but now, not so bleak in hindsight) circumstances, grateful that Piper had moved in to the opposite dorm and liked Annabeth immediately. They’d both been so incredibly patient with her, had reassured her no matter how many times she’d brought up her fears and insecurities, and now loved her to bits.

The nightmares have gone away. The panicky creature that sat on her chest hasn’t come to visit in months. The thoughts of wanting to die are practically (and ironically) dead. The way she looked at herself, with hate and disappointment, with doubt and distrust, have reduced.

And it’s easy to say it’s because she met him, met Piper, but the truth is that they were only crutches she used to get herself back on her feet after being disabled for so long, after being pushed down rows and rows of stairs throughout her life, holding herself together with a multitude of bandages that tore much too easily, too often. The truth is that she picked herself up again and again.

She’s never felt so light, so right, in so long, and now she feels like a feather. She’s grateful to Percy and Piper, but most of all, she’s grateful to herself for waiting for a Friday, and for choosing to involve herself in a stranger’s life. Grateful to not push away Piper’s offer of ready warmth in fear of losing it.

That the stranger found her too, helped her out gently out the pits she didn’t even know she’d dug and thrown herself into, and then proceeded to heal those deep cuts she’d made, that oozed sadness and despair every minute, hour and day, with appreciation, with a little bit of flirtation and a lot of warm free coffee for twenty minutes every day.

That Piper had read her so easily, had been so patient, and yet had challenged her to push, to break through her mouldy shield, to become.

The truth is that she gave herself a chance to become, again. That she didn’t let the whisperings of toxic fears, the hissing disappointment in her brain get to her and that she tried. She tried and they helped and now Annabeth can’t remember, really, the last time she didn’t smile. Her jaws always hurt when she’s sleeping at night, and there are laughter lines around her mouth and her eyes.

This summer truly is as warm as she always wished for years and years. And she’s happy.

So even though she complains about them arguing again, even though she is perplexed by how much energy people can have, even though there are days when the bad thoughts seem a little stronger, she goes through it again and again, and she wouldn’t change it for the world.

It’s only four months later, but Annabeth had become something new and alive.

||

July

It’s her birthday today and coincidently, it falls on a Friday.

Fridays: the day she’s associated with birth and death, and a lot of second chances.

Only now it’s changed to birth and hope. The morbid thoughts that were always staining the day are gone.

It’s 3 A.M. on her birthday night and she’s at the place she last expected to be.

The pier.

In the warm, almost humid, July air, it’s different from the cold, unwanted place that it was back in February. For so long she was scared of going back to this place because of the memory it held, the fear of the What If of her life: What If you’d never looked around, never seen Percy, never thought about your Friday logic?

The thought had become a foundation for a new sort of nightmare, as if her brain needed something to suck her out of her summer happiness, to remind her that the darkness never went.

So it wasn’t a surprise that she woke up not screaming but almost sobbing, two hours after Piper and Percy had dropped by her dorm room to celebrate a mini birthday at midnight (a novice thing for her), and Percy staying back to cuddle and sleep by her side.

It wasn’t a surprise that Percy, usually a deep sleeper, was so attuned to her that he woke up immediately, calming her down. Annabeth felt bad for a bit for disturbing him but she didn’t dare voice it out; Percy was almost ferocious about being there for his friends and hated people apologising for basic friendship duty.

(Side note: she loved that he maintained their friendship just as important as their relationship)

When Annabeth told him why she was crying, he didn’t look concerned, didn’t look sad. Only a determined expression had come on his face, before he got up, shoved his feet into his shoes, gave Annabeth one of his thin jackets, before dragging her off to- somewhere.

“Why are we here, Perce?” She asked, avoiding looking into the waters below (what they had meant), looking into the horizon, which was worse in a way because that faced the opposite end, where Percy had been standing then.

“Because I felt the same way.”

“What?”

“I was scared to come back here too. It wasn’t for your reason, really, but more like I’d be tempted again, you know? How easy it would be to just jump. How easy for the brain to override logic and just say, to hell with it.”

Annabeth keeps silent. Percy isn’t looking at her; his hands are in his pocket and he’s looking at the city lights too, lost deep in thought, contemplative.

“And yet all I could think was that even if I was tempted, a total stranger was here as well, for perhaps the same reason, and if she could manage getting out of her thoughts and coming to me, then I’d very well respect that effort and stop the temptation. So one day after a bad night, I came here. This was after we’d started talking but we didn’t really know each other really. I came here, I was in a bad place, and I wanted an out. It should have been the worst decision but it wasn’t.”

Percy sat down and Annabeth followed. It was peaceful like this.

“I sat down and I thought and I thought. I was so tired of being scared of this place you know? Especially when it was so important to me. I wanted it to be mine again without this stain. And I realised I myself was keeping that stain alive. I stood here for so long, and I kept thinking of you and how you’d made it, I wondered if you’d come back here too. There was so much courage in you that day, you know? I borrowed that.

I came back here every night for a week until it became a good habit and not a bad memory. It became my place again. So what I’m saying is, I get you. You can’t let it control you, Annabeth. You always have to face what scares you. Sometimes all at once. Sometimes step by step. So stop running.”

Reason number infinite on why she loved this boy so dearly. Annabeth couldn’t help herself; she leaned forward and gave him a simple, chaste kiss.

“Thank you. For always setting my mind on the right track.” He only nodded, rubbing soothing circles on her hand with his thumb.

His face was no longer a violent canvas. His knuckles were skin and nothing more.

She was healing, but so was he.

I found you. You found me.

She repeated that until the burning What If was squashed into her brain. She would not run anymore.

“Some birthday this is, huh? Talking about our existential crisis.” He said sarcastically. Annabeth only chuckled.

Then Percy moved and fished something out of his pocket.

“I wanted to wait until the morning but this is perfect, you know. We’re going to make a new memory tonight in this place. No more symbols of escape or death or fear; this pier is our place, ok?”

He opens his palm and in it lies a simple chain with a beautiful red garret stone.

“My dad gave this to my mom, it was the only good thing he gave her to make up for how shitty he was to her. I was pressed on what to give you and, well, my mom came through, again, and told me she wanted you to have this. It would mean a lot if you’d wear it.”

Annabeth doesn’t speak because she has no words. This gesture is too much and she wants to deny and yet…his eyes, his green eyes that she has explored so much in the past two months, are so fond, open and expressive, so hopeful and lastly, so full of love. Percy’s rarely ever shy about things like this. So she nods. She lets him put the chain around her neck and she sees the way it rests against the hollow of her throat.

“Pretty.” He breathes. His eyes seem a little wet but she doesn’t comment.

She knows how much everything about this moment means to him. Where Annabeth is more expressive about her feelings, Percy takes time. She knows what a terrible romantic he is at heart and how he struggles to do it justice. She knows how symbolic the meaning of the pier now is.

So she’s going to honour it.

“Happy birthday, Chase. This is our place now. You found me here, so never think about the What Ifs anymore. It didn’t happen. So we leave it behind, ok?”

“I love you.”

It’s the best she can say to the boy who’s come to mean everything to her in such a short time. To the boy who was so broken but has healed again, to the boy who she found and saved, who saved her, to the boy who stayed. It rings so true now, it vibrates throughout the air, as if it’s sealing the deal they made at the pier. There’s something else now. The fear is gone, because now she’s got one more thing to be grateful for.

The pier.

Percy’s eyes widen but then settle, his smile turning into something soft.

“I love you, too.”

And everything, for now, is right again.