The Summer of Beauty, Brains, & Bruises

Annabeth

Act Three

We just had our first big fight.

She's really not wrong.

I mean she is, I didn't intentionally match with Percy.

But I did have a moment with him.

Every time I see him there's a moment.

Since the first time I saw him drooling in his sleep.

That's the thing about fate, every second with someone your entangled with is a moment.

I don't know why I walked away, I think I'm just trying not to face the facts.

I love Piper McLean.

I love Percy Jackson.

How can you love two people at the same time?

I convinced myself I didn't love him this summer.

It was easy when he was avoiding me. But going shopping with him being alone with him, it's hard to suppress your love when those sea green eyes are staring at you.

Oh boy and him shirtless.

But I wanted to forget that, I wanted to forget I was possibly hurting two of the people I loved most in the world.

I don't have a machine to erase my memory, but I have something close.

Alcohol.

I go to the bar and get myself a drink.

Okay, a couple drinks.

Okay, more then a couple drinks.

Okay, 2 hours in I was drunk.

It has not helped the forgetting.

"Annabeth!" Jason called to me.

"Hey!" I respond back.

"How have you been?" He asks innocently.

"Oh well you know I'm been having sex with Piper for the summer but I really like her but I really like Percy to and I feel horrible that I'm probably hurting both of them and I kinda wanna just never talk to anyone on earth again."

"Oh," He says digesting everything he just heard. "okay, well do you wanna talk to me? Technically I'm from the Underworld which is not technically Earth."

"You make a very convincing point Jason Grace."

"Yea, and you're very drunk. Come on." He laces his arm around me and guides me out of the canopy. "Sit." He says after we walked a good distance from the party so we can't hear the 5 Seconds of Summer song playing. "Talk to me Chase." He says in that voice that I heard so many times talking strategy.

I sigh, "After Tartarus I started getting, nightmares. So Sally made me and Percy go to therapy. It was helping, a lot. The nightmares are minimal now but," I never said this out loud before. "they were bad when I was with Percy. When I saw him all the time and I would fall asleep next to him. I talked to the therapist about it, by myself, they said it's this thing called 'shared trauma' since I went through the trauma with Percy he can- trigger it." I never called it trauma before either. I always just said Tartarus.

I don't know if it's cause I was drunk or if it was cause I was talking to Jason.

We always understood each other, we were pretty similar. A bit different with how we went about things, he was more careful and I was more reckless.

But we both always wanted to prove ourselves, wanted to find a place we called home, wanted to be in charge of our destiny.

"So," I say. "after I told her about that she suggested we break up at least for the summer. But he doesn't know, he doesn't know he triggers the nightmares. And since we were allowed to date other people, I got tipsy and me and Piper kissed, then did more then kiss. Then," I looked at his sky blue eyes watching me with intent. "I fell in love with her. Or rose to love with her? I don't know, I feel like I've loved her for a while but this gave me a chance to actually let myself feel that. And she's, well you know."