If It Were To Be Fate

Chapter 5

All it took was a good morning text for my world to come crumbling down.

Blondie: Gm ;)

Dammit. I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t keep pretending that I didn’t like Blondie, when every single thing he typed made me feel like my chest was on fire. Even thinking about him made my stomach feel like it was being squeezed into a tiny ball.

I couldn't handle this. I needed to do something. I needed to talk to someone.

So, I texted the only person that I thought might be able to relate.

Me: Heyy, are you free to hang out after school today?

Nico: Yeah, why?

Nico: Is everything okay? You usually ask others before me

Me: I’m fine dw

Me: There’s just a few things I need to talk abt with you

Me: I need advice

Nico: Oh

Nico: Wait so like

Nico: OH

Nico: Yeah sure I can try to help

Me: Thanks

Nico: yup

I went through the morning barely paying attention to anyone around me. I felt like I was in some sort of daze, until Hazel nudged me some time during lunch.

“Do you guys see that?” She asked, between bites of food.

I looked over to where she was pointing, and my jaw practically hit the floor.

I hadn’t even noticed that Annabeth wasn’t sitting at our table. Call me a terrible friend for that, whatever, but I was kind of distracted.

But there she sat, at the football table, holding hands with Piper McLean under the tabletop.

When did that happen?

She saw us looking over, and gave a bashful smile. Well, that was surprising.

I know Annabeth has had a crush on Piper for months, but we both always figured that Piper was straight, so it was a huge shock to see them being all couply out in public.

In a way, I was also jealous of Annabeth. At least her crush was into her, and was an actual physical person that she’d met outside of just texting. I couldn’t relate.

The second major shock of the day came when Jason Grace waltzed into the lunch room.

He glanced at me, but instead of coming over and berating me about how good the football team was, he gave me a confused stare turned away.

That was… Weird.

Actually, scratch that. Weird didn't cut it. I was absolutely… Flabbergasted?

What was going on? Did everyone just decide today was opposite day and not tell me?

Whatever. I didn't have space in my mind to be worrying about all the other weird stuff going on right now. I was occupied enough with my Blondie issues.

The rest of the afternoon was even more a blur than the morning.

When school ended, I found Nico and Hazel standing right outside the main entrance.

"Oh! Hey, Percy!" Hazel greeted me. "You need something?"

Nico answered for me. "Actually, Percy and I are hanging out. I needed him to help me with something."

I mouthed a 'Thanks' at him for the excuse. He nodded.

The walk home was fairly quiet between the three of us. Nico and Hazel talked about something for one of their classes, but I wasn't paying much attention.

Finally, after what felt like three hours (but was probably only 10 minutes,) we arrived that their house.

"We can go up to my room, if you want privacy." Nico suggested.

"That would be good."

Once we were in there, Nico started with the questions.

"So, what's up?" He asked.

I tried to find the words, but after a minute, I just shrugged helplessly.

"Okay. Well, because you came to me and not anyone else, I have a few assumptions."

I nodded.

"So, I'm guessing you like a guy?"

I hesitated before nodding again. Nico seemed satisfied with himself.

"Okay. So, then, can I ask who it is?"

Here we go.

"Okay, so I basically met this guy through an app and we've been talking all week and… Yeah."

Nico paused. "So you're in love with a guy you've never met and know basically nothing about?"

I nodded. He facepalmed

"Okay. Do you have any other information about this guy? Like his name, where he's from, anything?"

I thought for a second. "He's from somewhere around here. His phone has the same area code as mine. And he's our age."

Nico nodded. "Great. That helps. Can you tell me his number? I wanna see if it's anyone I have saved.

I told him the number. He scrolled through his phone for a second, before his face fell.

"PERCY!" He shrieked.

"What? Do you know who he is?"

Nico answered. I thought he was still in shock, but when I saw his face, I realized he was actually laughing hysterically.

"Oh my- You aren't going to believe this." He said between breaks in his laugh.

"What? Tell me!"

Nico shook his head. "Nope. This is too funny. I'm gonna let you figure this one out on your own."

"Nico! Come onnn! This isn't fair!"

He shrugged. "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. I'm leaving."

Nico grinned. "Whatever. This will be fun to watch play out."

So Nico left me alone to walk home, with a major question in my mind: Who the heck was Blondie?

Clearly, it was someone Nico and I both knew, so I guessed it was someone from school. It's not like he and I had anything else we did together.

Was it one of our friends? But Blondie was a guy, and all of my male friends were in a relationship.

So who did that leave?

I'm sure the answer was obvious, but I genuinely had no clue who he was.