Chapter 7

Lady’s and gentlemen, boys and girls, satyrs and nymphs… It’s official… Annabeth Chase is my new groupie (Don’t tell her I said that. She’ll judo flip me again), she follows me to every band practice. She once threw a book at me the because I went without her. Annabeth Chase is Nobody’s number one fan.

We were sat in Thalia’s basement on Sunday. Everyone was doing what they usually do. I was lying on the sofa, my head on Annabeth’s lap, while I watched Frank and Hazel. They’re so awkward. They’re sat next to each other, every few minutes they’ll look at each other, blush and look away with big goofy grins. I don’t like it.

I don’t care if Franks one of my best friends, If he hurts my Hazel. I’ll hurt him.

I must of been frowning at them because Annabeth nudged me.

“Stop it” she whispered in my ear

“What?” I ask turning to lay on my back so I was looking up at her. “I’m just thinking”

“Sure.” she said sarcastically “Anyway I told Grover we’d go round his house later.”

“Oh, do we have to” I whine while sitting up. I mean, I love Grover, and his parents. It’s just, they live on this street, Half-Blood Hill, and my whole school practically lives there or a few streets away. “Why doesn’t Grover come to ours?”

“Percy, we’re going. You never spend anytime with him.” she says quietly, she reaches for my hand and starts playing around with it.

“Ok” I sigh, I turn to look at her properly. She looks up at me, our faces are so close. I’m about to lean in, when I get hit on the head with a cushion. I turn to glare in the direction it came from.

“Hey, cut it out” Thalia moans. I slump back in my chair and move a bit further away from Annabeth. I still keep hold of her hand. I look at Annabeth, she looks angry. Her and Thalia are doing some sort of telepathy thing with their eyes. Thalia’s giving Annabeth this weird smug-ish look and Annabeth does not look impressed. How can they understand what the others saying? Girls. All of a sudden Annabeth stands up.

“Come on we’re going to Grovers” She says walking out of the room. I get up and follow her. Just before I closed the door I hear Thalia.

“Have fun kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn't do.”

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The silence in the car was awkward to say the least. Annabeth was sat in the passenger seat, her head facing away from me as she stared out of the window, not wearing a seatbelt. I really wanted to make things less awkward by turning up the volume on the radio, but that would mean taking a hand of the steering wheel, that could endanger both of our lives. Annabeth was endangered enough without her seatbelt.

She’s obviously upset about Thalia bringing up our ‘relationship’ but she’s just curious. They all are. I am.

“Annabeth…” I sigh “If your going to brood… At least put your seatbelt on.”

Annabeth huffed, put on her seat belt and when back to her brooding. We drove for another few minutes in complete silence. I decided to take a risk… I reached over and turned up the volume on the radio. The soft voice of Calypso Atlas filled the car.

“and that was Sweater Weather by a new local band called… The Titans. They came in last years Apollo talent competition. The lead singer Luke Castellan…”

I turned the volume back down. I can’t get away from him! Luke’s name must have sparked Annabeth’s interest because she looked away from the window (I repeat, She looked away from the window!),turned the volume back up and looked away again when she realised she’d missed whatever Calypso was saying about Luke.

“Now, this next song is from one of my favourite shows of all time… It’s ‘I’ll be there for You’ by The Rembrandts. Enjoy.”

Yes! There’s no way Annabeth can sit through this song awkwardly… Friends is one of our favourites.

‘So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.’

I started to sing along while drumming my hands lightly on the steering wheel.

‘It's like you're always stuck in second gear
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but’

I look at Annabeth but she’s still looking out of the window.

‘I'll be there for you
(When the rain starts to pour)
I'll be there for you
(Like I've been there before)
I'll be there for you
('Cause you're there for me too)’

I look at her again, still not singing. This whole thing must of really annoyed her.

I turn down the music and pull the car over. I put on the brakes and turn to look at her.

“Does it really bother you that much?” I ask. Annabeth still didn't turn to look at me. “They’re just confused Annabeth. I mean, I’m confused”

“Confused about what?” she asked wearily as she turned in her seat. “We’ve been over this Percy, I we can’t date each other…”

“But I don’t understand why?” I nearly yell. “We are practically dating anyway! You sleep in my bed, we watch movies together, we cuddle, we kiss (sometimes) and You tell me you love me! I don’t understand!…”

I was breathing heavy. Annabeth was looking at me shocked, I don’t think we’ve ever had a full conversation about this. Annabeth seemed lost for words, until I said

“Is it Luke?”

This seemed to awaken something inside of her. Her brilliant grey eyes started to storm, her jaw clenched and she curled her fists into balls. Oh, crap. Maybe I shouldn’t of said that.

“Luke has nothing to do with this! Nothing! Luke’s just my friend, Percy! Nothing more!” She nearly screamed at me. Her eyes softened a little bit as she spoke the next part “I’ve told you before, Us dating, It may seem great now but… what if we get sick of each other. Then we have to break up and, I can’t lose you as a friend. I’m happy the way we are.”

“Fine” I sigh and give her a small smile. What else can I say? I’m not happy the way we are?… because, I’m not but, I am at the same time. I want to be able to call her my girlfriend but, the thought of breaking up and losing her is unbearable. I love her and If she’s happy… I’m happy.

I start the car again and continue driving. After about 5 minutes of silence Annabeth turned up the volume on the radio.

“…Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones
And girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun”

Annabeth and I looked at each other from the corners of our eyes, grinned at each other, and burst out into song. It was a high school musical worthy moment.

“The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells what you gonna do with your life
Oh daddy dear you know you're still number one
But girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have…”

The rest of the journey to Grovers was quite uneventful.

Notes

Sorry again for not updating... I have no excuse this time. I just kept putting it off but here it is. Enjoy.