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Annabeth told me to go back to sleep, so I blew out our lantern and lay on my back.
I really tried. The boat was small, and I was crammed into a built-in cot in the cabin below deck - I’m not claustrophobic, but in that moment I could see why people were. I tossed on to my side, slamming my knee right into the solid wooden wall, biting down on my lip to silence my pain. I clearly didn’t do a good job - there was a rustle of wool blankets behind me.
“Come with me.” Annabeth said, and I wriggled to face her. She was stood up, resting her hand on the door handle of our tiny sleeping quarters. I felt terrible for keeping her up - she was exhausted from the encounter with the sirens, and even in the low light I could see the dark rings making her eyes appear sunken. There had been a deep line between her brows since I’d dragged her back on the boat.
“No, you’re tired. I’ll be fine.”
But as I said it I felt a wave of salty fresh air fill my lungs. A feeling of peace washed over me, like my dad was giving me a hug from far away.
“I want to show you something.” She insisted, clambering through the exit without even putting her boots on. I’d dried them using my powers, but I guess she felt this was urgent.
Since we were in the Sea of Monsters, I didn’t want to leave her alone out there. There could be… monsters. I switched our lantern back on, following her out into the darkness.
*
I knew New York had insane levels of light pollution, but being in the middle of one of the remotest places on Earth made me realise just how bad it was. I truly could not see a thing outside of the faint glow of our lamp.
Annabeth had ventured to the deck, blending in to the void - I had no idea how she’d made it without the light. She was facing out to sea, sat on one of the benches, head tilted back towards the sky.
“Turn the light off.” She said as I sank down next to her, and I put the flame out for the second time. “It might take a second before we can see it all.”
“See what?” I asked vaguely in the direction of her voice. I could see the faintest outline of her profile, and maybe a slight glimmer of waves behind her.
“You’ll know when it happens.”
We sat quietly for a minute or so, the only sounds our breathing and the gentle lapping of water against the hull of the boat. Just as Annabeth said, that’s when I began to see it - thousands upon thousands of glimmering stars, bursting in to view and making the sky look whiter and whiter. Some of them were clumped together in clouds, and as my eyes adjusted more, I could see they spanned across the sky in an enormous arc.
“The Milky Way.” Annabeth said. “Have you ever seen it before?”
“Never.” I whispered, almost worried if I spoke too loud I might scare the galaxy away. “I’ve lived in New York my whole life. Stars might as well not exist to me.”
Annabeth stayed quiet for a moment, her eyes searching the heavens. They settled on something directly in the middle of the Milky Way.
“There’s Leo. Your star sign, right?” She pointed up. “The brighter stars in the boxy shape, with the tail in the top right.”
I followed the line of her finger. As beautiful as it was, everything to me just looked like stars.
“I’m not sure that I see anything.”
“Come here.” She directed, then tilted my head towards her shoulder until I was basically resting on it. I watched as she traced a shape with her finger, like a dot-to-dot drawing in the skies.
“Oh! I see it now.” I put my hand out next to hers, drawing the same lines with my index finger. “I didn’t know you were into astrology.”
I turned to look at her, not expecting to be so close to her face. In all the time we’d known each other, I’m not sure if I’d seen her like that before. I obviously know how Annabeth looks, but from what I could see under the dim glow of space, I thought she was… pretty.
“It’s not really about astrology. People used to use the stars to navigate, or track the seasons and time of year. I thought it might be useful to learn about them if I ever went on a quest.” She gestured at the stars again, a stone’s throw to the right of Leo. “There’s Cancer. That’s my star sign.”
I followed once more, finding the sparks across the sky that forked out like a snake’s tongue.
“You’re so smart.” I found myself saying. With her being a daughter of Athena, maybe that was an obvious thing to say, but I hadn’t ever said it to her out loud. “You’re a genius.”
I glanced at her, and I could see a shy smile creeping up her face. She had this tell when she was really pleased about something - a little dimple at the base of her cheek. I’d only seen it a handful of times.
“Would a genius throw themselves at the sirens like I did?” Maybe it was our proximity, or the magic of being under the vastness of space, or something else entirely - but I felt strange. Like I was drawn to her more than usual, like I couldn’t sit with the fact she thought of herself so lowly, when I thought of her in the total opposite way.
“I think to be a real genius, you have to make mistakes. That’s where you learn the most.” I smiled at her. “Besides, you did decide to make friends with the guy who saved you. That’s a pretty genius move.”
Annabeth’s eyes locked with mine, as they had hundreds of times. The night had been on the edge of being a little too cool just a minute ago, but suddenly my palms were clammy.
“That’s true. That might be my smartest decision yet.”
“It was a pretty stupid smart decision.” The pair of us laughed properly for the first time in days. She grabbed my arm as she did, and seeing her that way made the entire ordeal in the bay worth it.
That was when I realised her plan had worked; the looming anxiety of the next day had shifted into something less scary. I’d always struggled with anticipation - after all, I am ADHD - but nothing had ever helped the ruminating, the racing thoughts, the executive dysfunction. But now it was like I’d found the cure.
“Can you tell me more? About the stars, I mean.” I asked.
It seemed like my eyes had completely acclimated to the dark. That, or her face lit up so much at my request that it cut through the night. She scanned the cosmos again, and I was overcome with the feeling that I could listen to her talking until the sun came up. I was so fascinated by her, her wisdom, her ability to bring me back to Earth, even as she taught me about the complete opposite.
“Do you see that orange star?” She marked out a patch of sky, and sure enough, I could see exactly what she was talking about - a twinkling amber dot standing out amongst the rest. “That’s Mars. I wonder if we’ll see people visit in our lifetime”
I wasn’t looking at the planet anymore. I was looking at the side of her face as she daydreamed about people walking on the surface of the red planet. Even though I couldn’t read minds, I could almost see the vision playing out from her eyes alone.
“I bet you could figure it out.”
She turned back to me as I said it, brows turning up at the top, and something shifted inside me - like I’d fully woken up for the first time in a long time. My stomach felt the same way I did when I was nervous, but it wasn’t registering as something negative. In fact, it felt good. Really good.
“You’re sweet, Percy.” The corners of her mouth turned upwards, and her dark eyes moved between mine, lashes fluttering the way butterfly wings do - slowly, then a few times at once. It made my heart tap against my ribcage, and I had a thought that changed everything: was this what having a crush was like?
I hadn’t had any before - I was only 13, and I hadn’t really known anyone long enough before to even consider it. Sure, I’d thought some people were cute in movies and TV shows. Maybe I saw someone cool on the street and had a fleeting daydream about them. But nothing real, nothing that manifested into physical feelings like the ones I was having.
“Do you feel better now?” Her voice cut through, and I blinked a few times.
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie, although I was now agitated over the possible realisation I’d just had.
Annabeth stood up, offering her hand to me. When I took it, I thought I might have to sit back down again from the rush it gave me.
“I think I need to sleep, but if you can’t, you can wake me up.” She let go of my hand, leaving a coldness behind. I followed as she stepped over the bench, back towards our cosy cabin.
Before we went back in, she stopped and faced me. “The stars will look different in a few hours, so we can look at them again - if you want.”
I could see the universe in her eyes, and not just the one above us. There was ours - the adventures we’d been on, the moments we’d shared, the friendship and trust we’d built over the past year. I cared about a lot of people, but I knew then that Annabeth was something special.
“Thanks.” I thought about hugging her, but worried it might reveal something I wasn’t totally certain about yet. Instead, I jumped down in to the cabin, putting out a hand to steady her entry.
I placed the lantern back on the table, igniting it as Annabeth shut the door. Before she did, I took one final glimpse at the stars that had given me an answer I didn’t know I had been looking for.