snowfall // percy jackson x OC

chapter 1

The slow, steady beeping of her alarm clock had Eira throwing herself out of bed at 6am. This morning, she had a test scheduled to put her into the gifted program in her new school. Eira has been trying for years to get ahead of her classmates academically. She is extremely clever and picks up material quickly, but she has trouble articulating her thoughts through her schoolwork, so she often gets bad grades. She spends late nights reading until the words start to float off of the paper, just so she can feel as accomplished as the rest of her peers.

    She thinks about this deeply as she sluggishly tugs a sweater over her body to cover her sleep ridden arms; how the other kids her age don't have trouble with the things that take her so long to accomplish. Sure, she can comfortably wear this same hefty wool sweater in the smoldering New York heat or choose to wear a thin tank top in today's biting wind without breaking out in goosebumps, but reading 6 chapters in the book her English class was assigned by the end of the week? That was a real challenge.

    This week is the final stretch before her winter break. Although excited for the time she can spend in her room and away from the loud voices of her peers and the burning judgement of strangers, winter break doesn't exactly hold the same value to her as to others. Eira rarely celebrates the holidays; her mom never really goes out of her way to pay attention to what Eira likes. Most years she receives some money to buy herself gifts, which is more than enough for her. Though, she often wonders what the holidays would be like in the families she sees in the movies. Enough she tells herself in her head, no thinking about that today. She shakes her head and walks out of her cold room.

    Ever since she was a kid, Eira never really showed her emotions- to anyone. Yes, Eira has had friends in the schools she's gone to, but none that she's ever truly connected with. None that seem to understand her feelings, or those she would share, anyway. She likes to think the person she presents herself as is the best version of her. The version that fits in. The Eira Galanis she hides behind the walls in her head is the version of herself she'd never like to see again.

If she doesn't think about her emotions, she won't have to feel them.

    The test she is taking today will place Eira into classes for her second semester of her sixth grade year, and will determine the pathway she takes throughout middle school- so, she couldn't mess this up. Eira bounds out of her room in an uncoordinated heap to find the lights in the living room off. This shouldn't be a surprise to her, but she hopes with whatever energy she has for the morning that her mom at least thought to set aside a lunch for her big day as she flicks the switches on in her apartment.

She didn't.

     Eira's mom works strict hours at her job. It's not like she is doing it out of the necessity of providing for her kid, Eira has basically been parenting herself for the past 5 years. She slowly starts to pull the stale ingredients out of the dark wooden cabinets to make a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich and gets lost in thought about the kind of questions she may run into in her upcoming test. Eira doesn't hate her mom, but she doesn't really love her either. Its hard to have love for her mother when one normal day when Eira was a kid, she woke up and decided to stop loving her. From that day since, she hasn't known the other person in her apartment. Her mom only sticking around to bid her fleeting greetings in the afternoon and leaving her alone for the rest of the days. Throwing the ingredients in her worn lunchbox with a frown at the memory, she grabs her backpack and heads to the front door- not without forgetting a few things on the way and having to turn back and retrieve them.

     The December air fills Eira's senses as she exits the lobby of her building. She takes a deep inhale and appreciates the weather for allowing her a moment of peace before the nerves hit. She has always had an affinity for the cold. Where her classmates adore the tan lines and warm glow of the sun that comes with the summer months, Eira has always found the winter to be her comfort, her escape. She feels more alive when each breath burns the back of her sinuses and turns the tip of her nose a rosy pink.