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I can’t pinpoint the moment I started falling in love with Annabeth. The moment where I was more than just friendship, when I started realising how utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful she is.
Maybe it was when I first saw her on the porch with Chiron when I arrived at camp, beat up and dragging a hundred and ten pounds of goat. Or when she told me I drooled in my sleep.
Or maybe when she first started calling me Seaweed Brain.
Maybe it was when she volunteered to come on my first quest, or when she piggyback-rode a Fury for me. There was the time on the ‘Thrill Ride of Love’ when she got all embarrassed at being seen with me on a love ride.
Perhaps it was when she swore to fight beside me no matter who her mom sided with.
Or during the endless teasing and taunting that came as we grew up together every summer, going on new adventures.
Maybe when I saw her after her makeover on Circe’s island (okay, so I was a guinea pig at the time, so what?) or when she cried on my shoulder at the bottom of Siren Bay when I rescued her from the Siren’s song.
It could have been when we danced at Westover Hall, or when she was captured by Thorn and I thought she was gone forever.
Or even when I saw Aphrodite for the first time and she looked, just for a moment, like Annabeth.
It could have been when I gladly held up the sky for her, and she held it up for me, or when I thought she was going to become a Hunter and leave me forever, just when I had gotten her back.
It may have been when we were trapped in the Labyrinth together, not knowing what was happening, or when she stood up to the sphinx because the test was an insult to her intelligence.
It might even have been as simple as when I hugged her and her hair smelt like lemon soap and she was shivering in my arms.
Maybe it was when she kissed me for good luck outside Hephaestus’ forges or when she kept me alive, becoming my lifeline after my little dip in the Styx.
It could have been when she took that knife for me without even knowing where my weak spot was, or when I showed her where it was, and the contact of our skin sent shivers up my spine.
It could have been any one of the countless times when I saw her with all defences down, terrified of small spiders, helpless and vulnerable until I killed it.
Or most probably when she baked me a blue birthday cake and broke the rules to come and sit next to me and kissed me. Her lips tasted like frosting, and it was perfect until the other campers threw us in the canoe lake. And then it was pretty much the best underwater kiss of all time.
But the first moment doesn’t matter. All that matter is that I love her. With all my heart, forever. She will always be my Wise Girl.