"She doesn't love him?"
"She used to, but now she doesn't."
"But, you can't forget how you used to love someone, can you?"
"Probably not."
"Look, she doesn't love him anymore. The guy's a jerk-"
"Who ,just as you have seen, never does anything without a reason."
"Yeah, a fucked up reason."
"Which resulted in Thalia being alive."
"Yeah but-"
"Oh, come on. You know she's thinking about it too. Look at her, today you saw a side of Percy that no one had ever seen. He still cares about some people , and your girlfriend isn't one of them. The question isn't how you feel about it, it's how she feels about it."
This had been going on inside Will's head for the past one hour. And endless banter between him and his consciousness about the affairs of his heart and his girlfriend. He turned and looked at her. She was staring out the window, her eyes wide open and unblinking. She was deep in thought, again.
"You know what, or who exactly she's thinking about."
He grit his teeth. He was overthinking things. She hated him, absolutely. She hated him more than anyone else at camp, that he could bet his life on.
But if what they, Thalia and Zoe said about Percy was true, and he did have a logical reason behind everything he did then -
"Would you forgive him?"
"Hmmm" Thalia hummed, turning to look at him. Crap. He'd said that out loud. He shouldn't have. His eyes stared at the train's floor and while deeply exhaling, he raised his head and said
"If there was a logical reason behind what he did that day, would you forgive him?" He asked.
"Forgive who?"
"Stop acting dumb with me Thalia. Who else would I be talking about?"
"Whoa, what's up with you?"
"You're the one who's constantly thinking about him!" The boy growled.
"About who? Percy?"
He raised his eyebrows. She huffed and looked back outside, arms folded and a frown forming.
"So you're not gonna answer me."
"What do you want me to say, Will?"
" A simple yes or no would suffice."
"That question doesn't make any sense." She said.
"You sure, cause I asked it in the simplest way I could." He replied.
"Watch it solace!" She growled " you're starting to sound more and more like him."
"For some reason you sound surprised." He replied, tone low and unwavering" isn't it normal for one to be amazed at the deeds of a person whose workings never failed?"
"Are....are you jealous?" She asked.
"No. No, being Jealous would imply that you are actually attracted to him and the reason why you haven't said anything to Bianca ever since our run in with Percy was that you were envious of her because he admitted to caring for her, which I am sure you're not, right?"
He wasn't being accusatory. He was simply being inquisitive, thorough. A man needs to protect himself after all. Even as the words poured out of his mouth, his will too weak to stop them, he kept hoping in his heart that the response would be in his favour, a negative.
......
Hesitation. He gulped.
"Right, Thalia?"
"Right, of course." She growled.
"Okay, so, back to my earlier question, if there was a logical reason as to why he killed his brother, would you forgive him?"
"Why do you want to know that?"
"Curiosity."
"Why now?"
"Because I just found out that you were actually in love with him once, and I realized after a whole lot of thinking that, Percy has never really been a jerk towards us."
"What!"
"No, really, if I remember correctly, everything he had been doing, the snark replies, the threats, the insults, have all been responses to our own hostility in the first place."
"Will, he threatened to blow your head!"
"After I shot an arrow at him." He replied" now, if you really fell in love with someone like him, then you must have been stupidly blind, which I doubt since you're too smart for that, or he was never a jerk."
She was silent.
"So, answer me Thalia, if there was some logical fucked up reason that he did what he did, would you forgive him."
"No."
He felt it, a cringing twist in the mid of his chest cavity that almost made him cry out. It did succeed in making his facial features fold. Even though this had never happened before, he knew exactly what it meant. His father was the god of truth after all.
"Right." He said" excuse me." He stood up and walked all the way down the aisle to the washrooms. He needed to be alone, and he needed to somewhere she wasn't.
He chuckled as he looked at himself in the mirror. " So this is what I look like when I'm angry, huh. Almost as bad as I feel. And to think we were rock solid just yesterday. No, maybe we've never been rock solid before. Crap. I'm overthinking this."
He wasn't. Deep down, he knew he wasn't. He was sure, all this time he had been boyfriend in name only.
This was the worst.
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