The Youngest Hawthorne

7. Training

I wake up WAY closer to Xander than I was when I fell asleep. In fact, I appear to have wrapped my arm around him at some point during the night. And it looks like he’s already awake.

“Good morning,” he says. I hastily remove my arm, and scoot away from him.

“Sorry. I guess I, uh, moved a little in my sleep… heh.” I’m probably blushing harder than I’ve ever blushed before.

“It’s fine. I don’t bite.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Around half an hour? I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“You could’ve. I wouldn’t have been mad. Just wake me up next time.” This would be a great time to tell him how you feel.

“Will do,” he says with a mock salute. I hit him with my pillow. And that is how Avery walked in on the world’s most epic pillow fight. She looks confused for a moment, then decides it’s better not to ask why Xander is currently attempting to use his pillow to pin my hands behind my back.

“Breakfast is in half an hour,” she says, then leaves. Xander and I go to get dressed, then head downstairs. I wear leggings and a t-shirt, since we’re starting training today.

Breakfast in Hawthorne house is no joke. Especially when there are guests over. There’s some of almost everything, bowls of fruit, pastries, a cereal bar, toast with more types of jam than I knew existed.

“Alright everyone!” Annabeth calls once everyone is finally seated with their breakfast. “We have basic training today. You all have daggers, correct? You’ll be training on how to use those first. Then this afternoon, we’ll move on to some cardio, since it’s important to be in shape if you need to outrun a monster.” I groan.

I hate cardio. And not just because I suck at it, always come in last place, feel disgustingly sweaty after only a minute of it, and because literally everyone is better at it than me, but those aren’t exactly the best things either. It’s because I have weak ankles. I sprain
them all the time, and I have to wrap them like every other week.

Dagger training is alright. I figured out how to stab and slash at a dummy pretty quickly. Piper had to keep reminding us that it would be very different on a real monster, and Jason constantly told us that our goal was only to slow it down enough for someone with more experience to be able to find us.

No surprise, the Hawthornes were great at it. I wouldn’t be surprised if each of them had chosen to study dagger fighting for the way the old man had trained them throughout the years.   Every year on their birthdays, they got to choose something to invest in, the old man gave them $10,000 for it. Something to cultivate, like playing an instrument or learning a martial art. No expenses were spared. And finally, a challenge. Something they had to create. Art, or an invention.

Invest. Cultivate. Create.

I had wished so much to be a real part of the family, to get to choose how to invest, cultivate, and create. That was when I was younger. Now, I’m glad to only be Hawthorne-adjacent, since that much money was a lot of stress for the boys to deal with growing up. Maybe in another universe, I would have been a part of the family. But not here.

For lunch, there’s an extravagant sandwich bar, and a stomachful of worry. I still need to tell Xander that I like him. He’s my best friend, he deserves to know the truth, even if it changes stuff between us.

“Hey, Xander?” I say, quietly.

“Yeah?” Why does he have to look so adorable with those big brown eyes?
“I need to talk to you during the break.” We’ll have two hours to do whatever we want before cardio training.

“Sure. I’m finished, so why don’t we go talk now?”

“Oh!” Crap! I wasn’t expecting to tell him now! “Sure.”

“Great. Let’s go.” We walk to his room, and sit down on the bed. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“I… uh…”

“Are you ok?”

“I… I have to stay here, right?”

“Yeah. With all of the monsters and demigod stuff, you can’t really go home. Why?”

“What will I do about school?” This is not telling him that you like him. Try again later.

“I guess you’ll just go back to your normal school? It’s not too far away from here. Only like an extra fifteen minutes to drive.”

“Right. But what if a monster attacks me during school?”

“Maybe we can have one of the half-bloods go with you as a new student?”

“That’s a good idea. Let’s go talk to Annabeth and the others so we can see who it’ll be.” My words are fast and breathy. Hopefully he doesn’t notice.

“Are you ok?” He asks. So much for not noticing.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I do not sound fine.
“What did you really come in here to talk to me about? I know it wasn’t school.”

“Cardio!” I blurt. It’s the first thing that pops into my head. That’s a lame excuse. “I really don’t want to do the cardio training today. You know how my ankles can be.”

“Oh. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Come here,” he says, opening his arms up for a hug. I wrap my arms around him, further strengthening my resolve to tell him that I like him at some point today. “Feel better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Great. Now let’s go talk to the half-bloods.”