𝐎, 𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄! ; Percy Jackson

𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢

XIII;

( I've dug two graves for us, my dear )

         NICOLETTA ROSSI HAD SOMETHING A PSYCHIATRIST WOULD CALL AN ADDICTIVE PERSONALITY. She always had struggled with substance. Whenever her father would bring home a bag of Hershey's kisses she would inhale the confections without a second thought. So now, she stood there with her pupils dilated and her heart banging against her brittle ribcage because she was so high off solicitude, ( or being so close to Percy Jackson ) and tried to fight off the impending dread that sat in her stomach.

Mania. She was surely going crazy. She was nothing but Sylvia Plath, brain riddled with terrifyingly beautiful thoughts. Too romantic for their own good and Nicoletta was going to end up with the same fate; her face scorched with the heat and reality of it all. Swept under her breath, rolling in the waves of the wind, a crumpled poem, with nothing but the words, i love you, i love you, i love YOU. Amore, amore, amore, amore, o, amore how painful it is to love you.

How painful it was to look at his face. Her key to all heavens. The fifteen-year-old, young and naive, never tasked with the pitiful revelation of such a strong wave of love couldn't help but wonder if the burning in her chest was stronger because she was an Aphrodite child, or if others felt this way when they looked at someone they loved; batshit crazy.

Whatever the answer was, she didn't need to know, not now that is. Her blinding nimble feelings would not be spoken, never to be on her tongue. She was being selfish, she knew it, keeping it in her brain and her brain alone. What was love if not selfish and painful? Nicoletta would soon learn the answer.

Percy wasn't an idiot, as many would think. On normal occasions, they would see his windswept hair, blacked-out ray-bans, and a piece of bubble gum hanging out of his mouth and quickly assume that he was a brainless skater kid, a zombie on a piece of wood with practically no place in the world, but he did have a place. A place where he belonged, every part of him, and that was Camp Half-blood, the very same place he met Nicoletta Rossi. The girl that he couldn't get out of his head, the girl that every time he laid his eyes on her he heard doves cry, a beautiful symphony, yet a dangerous one. One that imprinted on his mind, just like the look on her face as she tried to untie their friends: small.

Her hands shook as she attempted to untie the knots and something inside Percy forced him to go help her, although it didn't take much convincing as his legs began to practically run over to where she was crouching behind Annabeth, fingers shuddering with an agitated facial expression.

"Let me do it," Percy grabbed her hands with his own, almost dropping them because of his mind telling him you're going to get burned, let go, but he'd never let go of her, no matter the pain.