Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Twenty: Prophecies

(The Lightning Thief pg 373 - 374 & The Last Olympian pg 55)

Trying to maintain that sentiment worked well enough for issues regarding my father but with Luke, not so much. Percy and I tried to continue working to figure out what Kronos was planning but now that we knew ... well it was hard for me to talk about any of it without falling apart at the seams. I tried to stay active, tried to do things that distracted me from my problems, but it seemed as though everything at camp was just a reminder of what had happened. I wanted to puke, sob and murder someone all at the same time, it was like Luke was throwing his absence in my face and I hated myself for missing him.

I didn't want to stay at the camp any longer, but even though we argued sometimes Percy was always trying to help and make me happy. If he hadn't been there, I probably would have run away and lived in the woods alone.

Repressing my problems during my waking hours just led to even more horrible nightmares usually related to having to use the dagger Luke had given me against him. His face showed that he felt betrayed by me even as I felt betrayed by him. After waking up in a cold sweat I'd usually get up and walk down to the beach. Sometimes Percy would already be there, or he'd show up later, but we'd study the constellations together, he'd make up new ones and we'd duck into the hidden alcove whenever the harpies came by. It probably would have been easier to just stay in the alcove, but you couldn't see the stars very well and we enjoyed making up new stories to go with our fake constellations.

The last night of the summer we were sitting on the beach enjoying the ocean.

"Have you decided what you're going to do for the school year?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he replied. "I think Chiron wants me to stay, train more, maybe get more specialized one-on-one lessons. I mean I know that I could use it. But I'm not sure what it is that I want to do. I mean I love it here and it certainly beats sitting in a classroom most of the time. But I miss my mom and ... well I'd hate to leave you here. You know with just Clarisse as company."

He paused and looked at me like he was expecting me to laugh but I realized I couldn't put off telling him my plans any longer. I was still worried and barely able to say it out loud, but I whispered, "I'm going home for the year, Percy."

"You mean, to your dad's?" he asked, and I nodded.

"I wrote him a letter when we got back, just like you suggested," I confessed. "I told him that I wanted to come back, if he still wanted me and he wrote back almost immediately. We decided ... we'd give it another try."

"That took guts," he said, which made me feel better. My relationship with my dad would probably always be rocky and it was comforting that Percy realized how scary this was for me. "Well, if I don't have to worry about leaving you here with Clarisse then maybe going home for the year would be a good idea."

I nodded and said, "you won't try anything stupid over the school year, will you? At least ... not without sending me an Iris message?" If he managed to almost die again and I wasn't there to save him because I was trying to make things work with my dad, I would kick myself.

"I won't go looking for trouble," he promised, "I usually don't have to."

He was right, it's not like he had planned any of the crazy things that had happened.

"When we get back next summer, we'll hunt down Luke," I suggested. Even though the idea of facing Luke as an enemy made me queasy, I wasn't going to let Luke get away with trying to kill my friend. "We'll ask for a quest. But if we don't get approval, we'll sneak off and do it anyway."

"Sounds like a plan worthy of Athena," he commented as he shook my outstretched hand.

—

As I packed my things the next morning, I found Aphrodite's scarf at the bottom of my Waterland backpack. I had forgotten about putting it in the bag while we were on the quest.