SAFE . . . reyna ramirez-arellano

54 - yoi leaje somerhijf knre ebeur day

BRIAR COULDN'T TALK to Reyna.

She left that job to Jason. Well, he just walked over to Reyna, and Briar didn't feel inclined to join in, so she decided to just stay in her room and be a hermit, because she was emotionally exhausted.

Briar turned on the lights on her vanity and started drawing in her sketchbook some clothing ideas. She wanted to go to the university in New Rome then go on to be a fashion designer. It was something that she enjoyed doing, so why not?

She did this until someone knocked on her door and opened it. Briar glanced up to see Annabeth.

"Can I hang out here?" Annabeth asked. "The thoughts are getting to me."

Briar hesitated. Her stomach churned when she thought about what tomorrow would bring — a bad feeling, something about being unable to love, and despair.

She ignored it. This was one of her best friends. Whatever dread she was feeling could be solved later. "Yeah, sure," she said, turning back to her sketch, losing her train of thought. She tapped her pencil on the vanity as she tried to find the spark of inspiration again.

"I'm glad you got Percy back, by the way," Briar said quietly as she found her inspiration and sat up straighter, frantically scribbling with her pencil to sketch her idea before she lost it.

"Thanks," Annabeth said, though her voice was far away as Briar continued to hunch over her vanity. She knew that Annabeth wasn't bothered by this; they've been in this situation too many times to count. "I just realized how much I complained and cried about him to you. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the daughter of love for anything else," Briar offhandedly commented as she continued adding little details; slight shading in, a necklace, some lace there . . .

"Hey, don't downplay yourself," Annabeth chided, probably good-naturedly, but Briar could only hear the words, you've become too much like me echoing in her brain. She couldn't tell if the voice in her head was her dad's or someone else's.

At Briar's lack of response, she could feel Annabeth's joking mood dampening. Maybe it was a Venus thing. That thought made her feel as nauseous as she did when seeing blood. "Seriously. You've already done so much for this quest, and it's only been three days."

Briar laughed bitterly. "The only thing I've done to myself in the past three days is fuck up my brain. And my relationships with probably the two most important people in my life."

She dropped her head in her palms, rubbing her eyes. She was suddenly glad she'd only done her hair.

"Did you have a falling out with Jason sometime in the past thirty minutes?" Annabeth asked. "Because Hazel and I heard you two and Leo in the mess hall. It didn't seem like you guys had a rocky relationship."

"No, I finally told him everything and now we're good in terms of having brunch on the off days." Briar lifted her head and turned her body so she could lean on the back of her chair to look at Annabeth, who was sitting on Briar's bed with her laptop open. "I fucked up my relationship with my dad, as if it wasn't already ruined enough, which led to me fucking up me and Rey."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Already did with Jason and Leo," Briar propped her elbows on the chair and propped her head in her hands, sending a smile at Annabeth. "But thanks. I'm all good with the emotional dumping for now. I still have to apologize to Rey, though."

Her smile faded at that, and she shook her head. "I don't know how to apologize without it sounding fake," Briar groaned. "I said a really hurtful thing to her and I need to apologize for it but we argued about something else and I—"