Percy Jackson & the Curse of Love

Aphrodite's Wrath Unfolds

After I finished eating, I was going to go to my cabin, but a hand touched my shoulder, causing me to jump. I turned to see who it was. It was the one and only, Jason Grace.

"Hey, bro, want to practice today?" Jason asked, holding his gladius in the hand that he didn't touch me on the shoulder with.

I got up and brushed off my pants. I pulled out my pen and spun it, removing the cap as I did. Anaklusmos, otherwise known as Riptide, appeared in my hand when I stopped spinning it. "Sure, why not. I'm free today."

"Great, let's go," Jason said, enthusiastically.

Well, I'm sure Aphrodite wasn't lying about breaking my closest relationship, but my closest one is not with Jason, by Aphrodite's standards, I thought to myself.

Jason and I walked to the arena and trained. Jason was defensive, and I was offensive. Soon, our roles swapped, with Jason being offense and me being defense. After we both started sweating was when we stopped.

"You did good with the defensive techniques I taught you from my Camp Jupiter days," Jason complimented, smiling.

"And you started learning from my fighting skills, too, Jase, so don't blow yourself under me," I chuckled, turning Riptide back into a pen.

Jason and I then split ways, me going to Annabeth, Jason going to Piper. When I approached Annabeth, she seemed unhappy to see me, which was unusual unless there was bad news. So this rubbed off on me as bad news.

"Hey wise girl! What's going on? You seem upset," I said, trying to comfort Annabeth.

"Percy, I really hope you see where I'm coming from," Annabeth started, "I'm breaking up with you. I've been losing interest in you lately and I don't want to end up hurting you from my careless actions upon my lack of love recently. I don't think we should stay together, much less stay friends, because I'm not deserving of even being friends with you for breaking your heart like this."

I was speechless. I thought my closest relationship was with my mother, Sally Jackson. Apparently not. I loved Annabeth more than I even loved my own mom. That broke me on the inside. I took a deep breath and answered Annabeth.

"It's okay, wise girl, I understand completely. I really hope we could stay friends though," I said, with my remaining spark of hope.

"I'm sorry Percy, but I disagree. I don't want to break you any further than I already have, so I'm not accepting," Annabeth said, with her voice firm, and walked away from him.

She wasn't changing her mind. Whenever Annabeth's voice was firm, she was sure of herself and wasn't going to back down until there was scientific evidence proving her claim wrong. However, I couldn't get proof, so I had to live with it. I sighed and went back to the arena to practice on the training dummies, summoning Riptide again.