Okay, inhale, Annabeth thought to herself, exhale. She pushed open the double doors to the school and walked down the main hallway. She had taken classes at Goode high school every since the sixth grade, and she knew the halls like her own home.
Around her, students rushed past, heading towards their classes. She smiled at all her old friends, the people she’d known nearly her whole life. They grinned back, waved even. She was the girl who was up in the trophy case for winning the National Scholastic Bowl for social sciences three years in a row. These students who had been Annabeth’s classmates for nearly ten years didn’t seem to worry about her.
The past year, Annabeth had been attending a college prepatory school, Yancy Academy. It was a high-class school, with Smart boards in every classroom, an Olympic sized pool, and the best education program in the country. It was a miracle that Annabeth had been accepted, not to mention given a large scholarship to pay for the costly tuition.
Now she was back at Goode, roaming the halls as the straggling students entered their classrooms right before the bell. She was letting them all down.
“Annabeth!” Coach Hedge, the head of the athletics division exclaimed. He was a smaller man, always wearing nylon workout pants. “Hey kid, what are you doing back at this dump?” he asked in a gruff voice.
Annabeth shrugged and gazed above the coach’s head. “I’m just visiting family, and I decided to come here too.”
Coach Hedge nodded, tilting his baseball cap up and down. “Alright. How’s school?”
She inhaled. Annabeth had rehearsed this already. “Lots of tests, lots of papers.” It was a standard reply, and truthful in most cases. Yancy was filled with competition.
He grinned. “I knew you’d go places.” He regarded her with pride.
Inhale. Exhale.
Hedge strolled off, towards the locker rooms, while Annabeth headed for the main office. She passed her own beaming smile, captured in a picture right after they announced her name as a finalist for Nationals.
Goode High School didn’t exactly compete in the athletics, fine arts, or academics. Annabeth had been the first person in years to even make it to State for the Scholastic Bowl. It was a wonderful school, but students who wanted a higher education wouldn’t find it at Goode.
Annabeth was their pride, the one who made it out. She was the one who always made the grade, but maybe she should have just stayed home instead of going out just to be a disappointment.
When she was little, she was always in the most advanced classes. She learned how to calculate the velocity of a plane when the other kids were crafting flimsy paper planes. Annabeth would stay up way past an eight year old’s bedtime just to study the constellations through a homemade telescope in her tiny backyard.
It seemed like a lifetime ago when Annabeth had been rushing off to class with the students of Goode high school. Now she was an outsider. Finally, she reached the main office, where the principal and dean’s offices resided. The secretary gestured for her to sit in a plastic seat to wait for the principal, Mr. Brunner, to speak with her.
Annabeth’s heart was nearly beating out of her chest. Inhale. Exhale. How could she tell Mr. Brunner, tell anyone that she had so much to hide. And her parents. What would they say?
How could she tell them? She couldn’t hack it at Yancy, now she was back home. She’d lost her scholarship after the first semester, dropped out, and just been living at a teen homeless shelter for the past month instead of her comfy dorm room at Yancy. She knew she was letting them all down.
Inhale. Exhale.

Notes

Although this doesn't involve Percy yet, trust me, it will. This chapter is based heavily on a song from "In the Heights" Breathe. It's one of my favorite songs, and I highly suggest it. Enjoy.