Annabeth is finally getting what she's been asking for—quietly, constantly—for months now.

Like he moved on in a day. No questions asked.

(Moved on? Is that even the right thing to call it?)

(Probably not.)

He'd probably realized after their argument in the hall—and her weird, overly-emotional email—that she's insane. Not in a cute way, or a quirky way, just entirely fucked up. Not worth his time.

(Does she want to be worth his time?)

(Yes.)

He said that he'd give her space. That's what she asked for, but it doesn't seem to be helping much at all.

Their lunch table feels a little empty now; unbalanced, even. Piper and Jason sit on one side, Annabeth alone on the other. It's been like this for most the school year—Percy's appearance was just a brief interruption, objectively—but it's still not right.

She's nodding her head to something about parabolas in seventh period when her phone lights up.

Luke: I'm ready to talk, if you're ready for me to forgive you. I'll be at your house, 6 pm.

Annabeth heart seizes. Her hands shake, just a bit. I'm afraid, she realizes.

Afraid of Luke,somehow. The boy that she's been in love with for five years of her life.

(It's not a new feeling, though. How long has she been afraid?)

(Too long.)

When she gets home, her anxiety yields to something else, and maybe worse: loneliness, an awful, sinking feeling in her chest that she recognizes—and hates—on the spot.

Without thinking about it, she grabs her computer, and before she's out of "just got home" autopilot, she's sent an email. Another one.

From: skylinegoddess12

Subject: (none)

I'm sorry

She doesn't have the presence of mind to feel embarrassed after she hits send, though. She doesn't even regret it, which is usually her go-to. And then, in a third bizarre impulse, Annabeth decides to leave her room.

Sometime in the past couple of years, Annabeth noticed that only one part of her house genuinely feels like a home: her room. Everything else is a somewhat unwelcoming space; familiar, but not somewhere comfortable, somewhere she could let her guard down. Kind of like school did, after four years in its halls. It struck her as odd when she grew aware of her own perception, but she very rarely left her bedroom regardless.

Matthew and Bobby are playing some video game—the volume on the music is too loud and every time one of the boys presses a button, their character on-screen makes an obnoxious grunting sound. She's used to hearing these sounds, but only through the walls, not head-on.

Her dad is sitting at the kitchen table, papers spread out around him, typing away at some thesis or research paper or another; Annabeth has only a vague knowledge of Frederick's actual job. He's apparently not too deeply involved to miss his daughter's entrance to the main area of the house, though, because he looks up almost instantly with a somewhat confused smile on his face.

"What are you doing out of your hidey hole?"

The look on his face almost kills her. She wasn't expecting such a warm welcome. "Am I not allowed in the rest of the house?"

(It feels that way a lot.)

"Of course you are," her dad answers, the confusion not quite finding its way off of his face. "I'm just not used to it, I guess."

The rest of the house gets more light than her room at this time of day, she notices idly. Her room's windows face the west.

"Me either." Annabeth tries for a laugh. It manages to come out, even if it's little more than a chuckle.

"Are you…" Frederick furrows his brow. "Are you okay?"

He places his hands on the table as if he's bracing himself to stand up. "Are you hungry, or…do you need help with homework, or—"

"I'm fine, dad." She gives another little laugh—in part to cover how foreign the word feels on her lips. "You don't have to abandon your work for me."

Shaking his head, he says, "If you need me for anything, honey, work can wait a bit."

The words sound a bit awkward in his voice, a bit eager, a bit disbelieving. Like he's had the phrase in his head for a while with no opportunity to use it. "You know that, right?"

Annabeth swallows. Harder than she expects to. Her voice comes out significantly weaker than it was a moment ago.

"Don't know if I did."

More concern shows in his expression. "You sure you're alright, honey?"

Even the pet name sounds unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. She takes a slow, even breath in.

"I think I will be."

"Good," he says quickly. "That's good. Let me know if you need anything."

"I will."

Maybe she doesn't entirely mean it—she knows she doesn't—but for the first time…ever, maybe, the concept doesn't seem so unlikely.

"Actually, dad? Could you do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"If Luke comes over tonight, can you not let him in?" Annabeth bites her lip. "And tell Carol not to let him in, either?"

"I can, if that's what you want," he frowns. "Are you two having problems?"

She shakes her head. "I think we're just done."

(She's still shaking, but Frederick doesn't notice.)

.

Annabeth hears the car outside her window at ten minutes to six. She expected as much; Luke is early to everything, all the time.

Luke: I'm here.

She's sure he isn't expecting it when she doesn't answer the door. When she finally hears the door close, she realizes she had been holding her breath.

(How was that even possible?)

His voice hadn't sounded angry; her dad's sounded surprisingly stern.

Luke: Are you sick?

Earlier that day, Annabeth turned off read receipts on her phone. She's glad for it.

Soon after this—with no response from Annabeth—he sent another.

Luke: Are you ignoring me?

Annabeth waited.

Luke: Hello?

Luke: Are you fucking kidding me, Annabeth?

Luke: If you're going to be a child about this, fine. Be a fucking kid. I don't care.

Luke: This is so stupid.

Luke: I was ready to forgive you, but you never value the chances I give you. I'm the only person that cares in this relationship.

Luke: You're probably fucking Jackson right now.

She hated the tears that stung her eyes, and that started to slide their shaky way down her cheeks.

(This is why this needs to end.)

Luke: I know you're seeing this.

Luke: You just turned your read receipts off.

Luke: I swear to god, if you don't answer me right now, it's over. I'm fucking done with this shit Annabeth.

Her breath hitches. She waits for five minutes, and then ten, trying to keep her heart from breaking her ribs the entire time.

It turns out that "right now" has a very loose definition for him.

Luke: Fine.

Luke: It's over.

Annabeth's just orchestrated the end of her own relationship, she observes with a surprising detachment, simply by saying nothing. Refusing to let him in. Refusing to do what he says.

For a second this makes her furious with herself; that she could've done this a week ago—a month ago—five years ago—drove her insane.

She thinks of herself as a middle schooler, her lovestruck words, her childlike infatuation.

(Maybe it isn't fair to blame herself.)

Annabeth: Delete my number.

Then she blocks his before he can respond.

Annabeth looks down at her phone in disbelief, half expecting him to force his way through the device. "Fuck," she whispered to herself.

She's crying hard now, ugly, messy tears that find no organized method of falling, but they feel better than plenty of her smiles have. Glancing across the spot where Luke hit her, Annabeth winces, but only out of reflex. The bruise is almost entirely gone. The bit of snot on her lip stands out more than it does, just a faint, angry patch of red on her already considerable blotchy face.

.

The next day passes Annabeth in a blur. She doesn't know how to act.

Piper sees her a few times through the day, but she doesn't give the news until lunch. For no good reason, either. Annabeth's dying to tell her, dying to see how she'll react, but she can't handle that first thing in the morning.

"I broke up with Luke," She says breezily as she sits down at their table. It comes out without her meaning to say it; she'd planned on using a bit more tact.

The delivery is enough to make Piper cough up her orange juice. Jason, clearly not hearing her, turns to look at his girlfriend like her slight regurgitation is the cutest thing he's ever seen. Annabeth smiles. She likes his reaction more.

"You what?" Piper asks once she's finished hacking up her beverage. "Am I hallucinating?"

Though Annabeth can't really tell if her friend's reaction is negative or not, it's definitely strong either way. She bites her lip as her words catch in her throat.

"You…broke up with Luke. That's the sentence you just said," Piper repeats after she receives no clarification. "You have ended your relationship of five years with Luke Castellan."

Annabeth nods. "I blocked his number."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She might be angry or excited; her voice sounds the same either way.

"Do you think I'm insane?"

Piper regards her with disbelief. "I think you're finally coming back into your right goddamned mind, Annabeth."

Jason winces. "You can probably word that a little better, Pipes."

She sighs.

Annabeth is still kind of confused, and can't let the tension leave her shoulders.

"I think that Luke was not good for you," Piper says each word carefully, like letting it out too callously would cause an explosion. Caution was an odd tone for her. "And I am glad you've decided to end things with him."

She looks as if using tact is a Herculean effort. Annabeth gives a small smile.

"Oh. Okay, good."

"Are you okay?" Jason asks.

She nods. "I will be."

"Fuck," Piper shakes her head. "Thank fucking god."

"Did you not like him?" Annabeth feels compelled to ask, though she'd much rather let the subject drop into oblivion. "You've known him as long as I have."

"I hated his fucking guts."

She feels her eyes widen.

"He should never have fucking hit you, but he was an asshole before that. Luke didn't even think of you as a person. You were just a thing he ordered around half the time."

Hearing somebody else say this hurt, she realizes.

(It hurts that it was so obvious.)

(It hurts that she couldn't see what everybody else did.)

(Don't blame yourself, don't blame yourself, don't blame yourself.)

Piper doesn't stop talking until Jason puts a hand on her arm, points a look at Annabeth to help her notice the tear on her cheek. She swallows whatever she has left to say.

"You sure you're okay?" She asks.

"I will be."

Annabeth means it.

.

From: skylinegoddess12

Subject: We never hung out

This is definitely weird, and you probably think I'm weird for sending this, after everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks. Months, I guess, if we want to look all the way back. I don't want to, though.

But anyways, do you want to hang out this weekend? Get pizza or something? I've been thinking a lot lately and one of the things I thought about was that we never actually hung out, even though that's the whole reason you gave me your email in the first place. Is it stupid that I'm thinking about that? I mean, we wrote the story, and we made the video, all of that stuff, but we've never…how do I phrase this? We've never hung out without there being an excuse. I want that, I guess.

Even if you don't want to hang out—if it's too weird now, with everything that's happened—that's okay. I won't push it. Either way, though, I just want you to know that you're a really good, genuine person, and I'm glad I got to be your friend. While it lasted. A lot of my life has been fucked up for the past few months, but none of that was your fault. You were one of the best parts.

And I broke up with Luke, by the way. And blocked his number. And his Instagram, and his Snapchat, his everything. Even his email. If you care about that, I mean. I'm done with him; I'm done with that part of my life.

So yeah, let me know. No pressure.

(But the weather's really good for May, you know. We shouldn't let that go to waste.)

The smile Percy gives her as he walks into fourth period is blinding, and for once Annabeth isn't afraid to admit that she loves it.

"How did you even manage to use a semicolon in an email?" He asks, a dangerous level of amusement to his tone. Nothing else shows in his eyes; no anger, no confusion, no hurt. She likes him much better this way.

"I'm impressed that you even know what that's called, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth calls back. All of the apprehension she's worked up in herself since she sent the message dissipates instantly.

"I've had to do research since I started talking to you, Wise Girl."

She laughs. "That's a lot of effort."

"It's worth it," he grins.

Annabeth grins back.

I haven't updated this in so long, and rest assured I feel terrible, and to every person who had to go back a few chapters and re-read just to remember what happened I sincerely apologize.

That's all the grovelling I'm gonna do though, because now I'm amazed that this story might actually be finished? Anything I did after this would be more happy-one-shot territory, not actual plot. I started this in my freshman year and didn't actually finish it until I was a senior. Life's funny like that sometimes, I guess.

I like the way this ends, I think—and oh my god, I haven't actually finished a story before this, so this is kind of a milestone—so I hope you guys do, too.

Also, to everybody concerned about me in the comments, I really appreciate your kindness and concern but I'm perfectly fine! I've just had a lot going on for a very long time now. None of this story—nothing that matters, at least—comes from my actual life experience. I have gone through an entire high school education in the time it took me to get this story out, so I'm sure some of it has ended up reflecting itself in here, but I've never had to deal with what Annabeth's gone through.

If you are—I really hope none of you are—please tell somebody. It's hard, but you shouldn't let yourself stay in a situation like that. I started writing this forever ago because every portrayal of an unhealthy relationship I saw in this fandom was a bit too...over the top for me. Sometimes it's the small things that build up, without you even noticing them.

Thank you guys so much for reading!