More Than Just A Little White Lie~ A Percabeth AU

Chapter 3

Ugh. School. Today is the first day and I'm already dreading it. I decide to go simple with my outfit, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Ripped skinny jeans, a plain striped t-shirt, and my trusty blue converse. I was obsessed with converse shoes when I was younger. I had a whole collection, mostly high tops. Now I only own two pairs, both blue low tops. I keep a ratty pair to wear everyday and a nicer pair to wear on dates (not that I've ever had to use them for that) and family events. I don't ever bother with makeup, too time consuming and I prefer not having to wake up an hour earlier than I have to to put it on. It's still raining, so I grab my rainbow umbrella to complete my look.

Knocking on Hazel's door to see if she's up, I peek in and find her face down on her bed, fully dressed.

"Hazel, we gotta go." I tell her and she groans in response. I have to physically go into her room and pull her off her bed to get her moving. She has quite the sour look on her face and I can't say I blame her. In the kitchen, dad is getting ready for work. He works at NYU as a professor of history. He was pretty disappointed when Thalia didn't apply there but he got over it when we found out where she was accepted. I mean, who actually goes to college in Greece?

"Ah, there's my girls. Ready for the school year? Hold up, I need to get a picture. Must document you growing up." He scrambles to find his phone and Hazel and I sigh collectively. He's such a scatterbrain. I'll admit that I inherited more of his qualities than from mom, but at least I can find my phone. I pick it up from where it's laying right in front of him.

"Right here dad." He looks up and smiles at me, taking it and opening the camera. We pose and then we have to go, or we all will be late. I grab the car keys to Thalia's car, who is trusting me to drive it while she is away. I only just got my license and while I passed with no problem, I get really nervous behind the wheel. I'll never tell anyone this but cars make me nervous in general. Ever since my mom died in a car accident, I get really jittery when in one and actually driving one makes me even more anxious. I'm convinced I have PTSD. 

"Are you sure you're OK to drive us to school?" Hazel asks, eyeing me while she hops into the front seat.

"Yes. I passed my test, didn't I?" I snap back and she lays off me. I ease out of the driveway, my knuckles white. I manage not to hit anything and start the drive to school. It doesn't help that it's drizzling and the roads are wet. Hazel is starting 8th grade and the middle school is right next to the high school, so I drop her off first. She looks relieved to be out of the car. She heads right for a group of kids collected on the sidewalk and I recognize a few of them as her friends. Deciding to have a bit of fun, I roll down my window and yell out to her as I drive away.

"Have a good first day of school, I love you!" I smile as her face goes red and she glares at me. I'm still laughing as I pull into the student parking lot of the high school and that's why I almost don't see the guy standing in front of me. I stomp on the brakes at the right moment and the car comes to a stop a mere two feet from hitting him. He looks up and catches my eye and my heart rate speeds up. I don't look at him as he walks around the car and stops at my window. I roll it down halfway and keep my eyes ahead.

"Thanks for not hitting me." I hear him say, he sounds amused? I just nod and wait until he walks away before daring to drive again. I park far away from any other cars and follow the rest of the sleep deprived teenagers into school. For a public school in New York, our school isn't actually that bad. The bathroom stalls all have doors and the library is well stocked. I spend a good amount of time in there so I thought that was an important factor in marking this school as decent.

There's a fair number of students here and in the crowd I manage to blend in. I'm short and my face is unremarkable, covered mostly by my glasses. I call them Clark Kent glasses, because when I take them off, nobody knows who I am. They hardly know who I am with them on though so if I ever needed to disappear, I'd just whip my glasses off and stumble around blindly. Speaking of stumbling, I trip over something and fall sideways into the lockers. Or I would have if the person I fall on hadn't been standing there. I steady myself and rush out an apology.

"I'm so sorry!" I say and then I realize from the disgusted look on her face who it is. Rachel Dare. Aka, my former best friend. We were inseparable until we hit 8th grade. Once high school came along, she pretended like I didn't exist. I'd like to say things are cordial between us, but she's just a straight up bitch. And not just to me. She's pretty much the Regina George of our school, though I wouldn't go as far as to say that she has her own burn book.

"Watch where you're going, you'd think those glasses would help with that." Rachel sneers. If I knew what I had done to make her so hateful towards me, I might be less terrified of her. But as far as I can figure, all I had done was not being popular enough to be called her friend. She swats at her clothes as if wiping off imaginary dirt, though I hadn't gotten her dirty at all.

"Don't step too close Rachel, you might catch a smidgen of dignity from Annabeth and then your public image would be ruined!" A voice says to the right of me and I look over to see Piper McLean standing next to me. Piper had found me crying in the library freshman year after something completely stupid and ever since then, we've been best friends. She's the queen of coming up with hot comebacks too. It also helps that she's Rachel's cousin and knows exactly what to say to piss her off. Rachel opens her mouth to spout something but then her whole demeanor changes when an arm drapes around her shoulder. I don't have to look up to know it's her boyfriend, Percy Jackson.

Remember the boys I wrote a letter too? Yeah, he's the same Percy who I kissed in the 8th grade. Also the same guy I'd almost hit in the parking lot this morning. I used to have a major crush on him in middle school, and that's why I wrote the letter. I don't really have those feelings anymore, though it doesn't help that he really grew into his looks. He's much taller than me, his dark hair never lays flat, and his eyes are a very bright green. He's the captain of the swim team too so he's pretty built. He and Rachel started dating our freshman year and have been together ever since so it's not like I'll ever have a shot even if I did still like him.

"Hello Percy. I was just telling Annabeth here how cute I think her glasses are. Don't you think they're cute?" Rachel simpers in a obviously fake voice. I sometimes wonder how such a down to earth guy like Percy Jackson ended up with such a two-faced witch. Percy looks me up and down slowly before answering.

"There's something to be said about a girl with nerd glasses. Gives off that whole 'librarian' vibe." Percy says, giving me a small smile. I feel my face flush and I avoid looking at him after that. How does a person even respond to that?