The List | PERCABETH AU [REVISED VERSION]

Chapter 2

(8/29/22) I randomly decided to edit this book again. So here I am lol.

PERCY

It was seven in the morning, and I already needed a break. It wasn't the physically demanding laps around the pool or the fact that it was, indeed, seven in the morning. No, it was the fact that I was somehow stuck in a school-wide group chat. I despised group chats.

Leo Valdez always had something to say. I really liked the guy, I swear. But, wow, did he have a lot of free time. Who created their own memes out of random candids and spy shots of people around the school? Leo, apparently.

As soon as swim practice ended, I scrolled through pages of random memes (supplied by Leo) and caught glimpses of an actual conversation. Jason was apparently throwing a party, Frank was apparently crushing on a girl two years younger than him, and I was apparently annoying for not replying to any of them.

I rolled my eyes. I really couldn't help my aversion to group chats.

"You going to Jason's tonight?" Connor Stoll asked as he entered the locker room. His halfway-dried brown hair stuck up in random areas, making his crooked smile appear even more mischievous than usual. "I heard it's gonna be wild."

"I'd be disappointed if you'd heard otherwise," I said, matching his wicked grin.

Truthfully, I wasn't too excited for the party, but I sure as hell wasn't staying in to study for finals that I would fail either way. Warning bells began signaling in the back of my head as I tried to rationalize making bad decisions. I couldn't afford another failing grade, and I couldn't stand the look on my mom's face when I inevitably had to drop multiple classes at the end of every semester. But my life policy was that if you didn't know it the day before, you wouldn't know it for the exam. Even if you did somehow manage to cram all that information in your brain, it would only stay in there for a single day.

And after the final, all that hard-earned knowledge would disappear immediately. There was no point in knowing something for a day.

-

I really hated my Greek class. I signed up for it under the impression that we would learn about the Gods, or the wars, or the Heroes. So you could imagine my surprise when we started learning about the Greek alphabet and the philosophers of that age. Instead of delving into Hercules and his tasks, I was pouring over textbooks about Socrates and his weird-ass virtues.

What made the class truly unbearable was the fact that Annabeth Chase was there. Besides the fact that she was an annoying kiss-up, I had despised her for a few years for different reasons.

Brunner wouldn't be able to finish asking a question before her arm shot like a dagger straight through the air. She sat in the front, sucking up to every possible teacher to get letters of recommendation and "networking opportunities."

I couldn't stand her. Too eager. Too annoying. Too much. I was one of the people who sat in the back and scribbled frantic notes to try to soak up as much as possible. As much as I tried, I couldn't learn like everyone else. Reading through my textbook was about as useful as drinking caffeine when you're trying to fall asleep. There was no point. It just didn't work for me, so I tried learning as much as possible from listening to what the teacher was talking about. It wasn't much better, but it was better than nothing. But I'd long-ago accepted that school just wasn't my thing and would never be.