Chapter 15 A/N We're nearing the end of the story! Ahh!

Annabeth pulled herself out of bed with great difficulty. Maybe I can just be sick today…NO, Annabeth. Face your fears, face your fears. She tried to clear her thoughts to no avail as she pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt that didn't quite match, forgot about makeup completely, and rummaged around for the books she was supposed to bring to school today.

She was still trying to prepare a speech that would basically say "Hey, you know how I ran away from you when you kissed me yesterday? Yeah. I was being an idiot. Let's go out sometime, 'cause I really like you." But…you know…without sounding terrible.

Her mind was sidetracked momentarily when she realized how awful it was that she ran away in the poolroom, those floors were wet. She could've died! There were even signs telling you not to run in there! But she was quickly focused on the Percy dilemma again when she saw him drive by and jumped into a ditch so he wouldn't see her.

Smooth, Annabeth. That was really nice.

She brushed herself off and found everything that had fallen out of her backpack, and then kept walking. When she got to school, she went straight to her locker, where Thalia was waiting, completely unaware of what had happened yesterday.

"You should answer your phone." Annabeth said in greeting.

Thalia shrugged her off, "you have leaves in your hair."

Annabeth pulled at her hair (which she had forgotten to brush that morning) and tried to get all the leaves out from her epic ditch jump.

"So, I-" Thalia started to say something, but Annabeth couldn't keep it in any longer.

"PercykissedmeyesterdayandIranaway." She blurted.

"Oh." Said Thalia, unhelpfully. "Crap."

"Yeah."

"At least I told you that you had leaves in your hair before you saw him."

"Not helping."

"Sorry."

"So what can I say?" Annabeth wanted to know.

"Well," Thalia said, "do you like him?"

"YES." Annabeth said loudly and a little too quickly.

"Ooookay." Thalia said, proceeding to list a load of things similar to the terrible attempts Annabeth had been coming up with for the past few hours.

This is not going to go well…

Percy's POV

Percy sat on the steps of Annabeth's apartment building for a few minutes after he dropped off her backpack. He was an idiot. What had he been thinking? Pretty much nothing…

He eventually went home and started to trudge up his stairs to his room. "Percy?" his mom called after him, "do you want to come help me and Rachel with dinner?"

Percy sighed, he had forgotten that Rachel was having dinner with them tonight. She had gotten here before him because of the time he'd spent outside of Annabeth's apartment. He put a smile on his face and bounded into the kitchen. "Sure!" He didn't want his mom to know how upset he was because then she would be upset and then he would feel worse and then she would feel worse and…vicious cycle. Hopefully Rachel hadn't already told her something.

But as soon as he step foot in the kitchen, Sally knew something was wrong. "Percy Jackson," she said after a moment, brandishing a spaghetti sauce ladle, "is there something you need to tell me?"

"Nooo" Percy said unconvincingly.

Sally said nothing, choosing instead to purse her lips and wave around her ladle until Percy said something. Percy tried to match her cool gaze, but was quickly outmatched. He sighed and sat down on the counter.

15 minutes later he had told the whole story, with Rachel jumping in every so often to add things that Percy really didn't appreciate. "He talks about her ALL the time, like even her hair and stuff." "It's an obsession." "How did you not know about this, Mrs. Jackson?"

Sally hadn't said anything the whole time, waiting for Percy to finish his story. "And…that's it." Percy concluded, cringing in anticipation for a lecture about thinking before acting. But all Sally did was wrap him in a hug, "I'm so sorry, sweetie." She murmured, "I wish there was some advice I could give you, but these things are hard. Just talk to her tomorrow, okay? You have to talk about it."

Percy nodded a response, and after a few moments of silence, Rachel came to the rescue with a story from art that day involving green paint, her favorite t-shirt, and the biology teacher's pet snake. Conversation returned to normal and dinner passed uneventfully, but Sally kept looking at Percy so compassionately that he wanted to break something.

After dinner was over and Rachel had gone home, Percy struggled to get to sleep, he couldn't get his mind off Annabeth. All he could think was how badly he had messed up. There really wasn't any fixing this, he decided. Tomorrow, he would take it back and things would return to normal…if that were possible.

The next morning, he dragged himself out from the safety of his covers where there were no girl problems, and forced himself to get in his car and drive to school. He lingered at his locker, unsure of what to do, but finally decided to go to Annabeth's locker to try to find her.

As he rounded the corner into her locker hallway, he saw Annabeth talking to that girl…what was her name? Tania? Thalia? Great, now I get to humiliate myself in front of her too…

To be continued….lol, I am absolutely promising to have another chapter out this week!