Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Nineteen: Betrayal

(The Lightning Thief pg 356-358)

I spent the next few days silently debating with myself about the pros and cons of writing to my dad and trying to make things work. I went through all my memories about my dad and through all of the times he had left me behind or pawned me off on someone else. I thought about the times he read to me and all the times he yelled at me about bringing monsters into his life.

There was plenty of data to show that giving him another chance probably wouldn't be a good idea but despite that part of me remembered what Luke had said, there isn't any possibility for something positive if you don't try.

I wanted to believe there was still a chance I could have a family outside of Camp Half-Blood but the idea of trying again terrified me. It was a lot easier to observe from afar and hope that my dad had changed. Actually, trying and finding out he hadn't seemed like torture, and I didn't want to go through that again. But thinking about the last time we tried to live together made me realize how much I had assumed.

My hypothesis going into the situation had been that it wouldn't work, that my dad would fail me again and I'd be miserable. It had been proven correct mostly because I had a large number of preconceptions of what the outcome would be. It hadn't been a fair experiment. I knew I shouldn't allow myself to draw a conclusion after a single faulty trial.

By the time the fourth of July came I still hadn't actually sent my dad a letter. I had decided I should, but I couldn't seem to find the courage to actually do it and kept putting off writing anything.

Percy was with the Athena cabin for sword training that afternoon and we were sparring and practicing a new technique Luke had shown us. Even though Percy had only been working on sword fighting for a month he was already close to being better than me, which was really annoying. I still managed to beat him about half the time, but it took all my focus and a lot of mental dexterity, which made sparing with him way more fun than sparing normally was.

As the class wrapped up and we were getting ready to go shower and get ready for the fireworks show a girl from the Aphrodite cabin stopped us on the way to the bathrooms.

"Hey Percy," she said. "I was wondering if you had anyone to watch the fireworks with tonight. And if you didn't ... would you like to go with me?"

I rolled my eyes; this was like the fourth time this week someone had asked him that. Percy had asked me to watch them together with Grover as soon as he had found out about the show. He totally meant it as a platonic thing, but I still turned bright red when he had asked. Percy didn't seem to realize how much most of the older campers considered the fireworks show to be a romantic event. Now that Grover was planning on leaving later that afternoon it would just be the two of us. It seemed a little ridiculous that he hadn't picked up on any of that yet.

"Sorry, I'm going with Annabeth. I mean you can hang out with us if you want though," Percy said, completely oblivious to the fact that the girl was asking him out.

She pouted a bit and said, "Oh, never mind. Have fun."

"Sure, you too," Percy said casually as he turned to leave.

The girl glared at me, and I stuck my tongue out at her before she ran off. Percy didn't notice any of that just like he hadn't noticed it the past three times it had happened.

As we got set up to watch the fireworks that evening, Grover came to say goodbye.

"I'm off," he said. "I just came to say ... well, you know."

I gave him a big hug and said, "Be sure to keep your fake feet on, okay?"

He nodded as Percy asked, "Where are you planning on searching first?"