Love Against All Odds

Zoe - Mine

"There you are with that word again." The words came out sharper than I intended, like a dig I hadn't meant to throw, but I couldn't take them back once they were out.

Oskar scoffed, his jaw tightening slightly. "I am your boyfriend, Zoe."

For some reason, his words—his certainty—made something flare inside me. Anger. Maybe it was misplaced, but it was there, raw and unexpected. "Who do you think you are, telling me you're my boyfriend when we've never talked about that?"

Oskar's jaw ticked, his eyes narrowing. "Because you're only using me for sex, is that it? All of this, just for sex, huh?"

I felt my breath catch, his words hitting me in a painful and infuriating way. "We're using each other for sex," I snapped.

It was true. Our physical connection was undeniable, but was that all it was?

Oskar's expression hardened. "Well, that's fucking offensive." His voice was sharp now, and I could see the hurt in his eyes.

"No," I shot back, my frustration bubbling over, "What's offensive is you making me your woman, like we're in Ancient Greece or back in the caves."

Oskar's hands tightened into fists at his sides, his jaw clenched. "You're my girlfriend," he said, "It's got nothing to do with dragging you into caves, fucking hell, Zoe, you're making this difficult. It's about a commitment, about us being a team, a family."

My heart clenched at his words. Team. Family. That's how Oskar saw us—not just some casual fling or a possessive claim, but something deeper, something real. He saw us as a partnership, a commitment that meant more than labels. And here I was, pushing back, not because I didn't care but because the weight of what he offered terrified me.

I looked down at my food, the chicken stir fry in front of me blurring as my mind raced. I had never been anyone's anything. Even before joining the Hunters of Artemis, everything in my life had been fleeting—nothing solid, nothing permanent. I had never allowed myself to settle into anything or anyone. Lovers came and went, drifting in and out of my life like passing seasons, only there to warm my bed for a night or two. Nothing was everlasting, nothing I could truly hold onto.

Even my family had been like that—distant, fragmented, never offering the security I craved. I grew up learning not to expect stability and not to trust that anyone or anything would stay. So, I had found my place with the Hunters, with Artemis, where belonging was about something else entirely. There was a sense of purpose and camaraderie, but it was different—it was about sisterhood and the hunt. It wasn't about emotional vulnerability or the kind of intimacy that Oskar was talking about.

When I left the Hunters, I found a new home at Camp Half-Blood. For the first time, I felt like I had a place to be myself, to grow. But then Oskar came into my life, and it changed everything. With him, I felt something I hadn't felt before—a sense of belonging that was personal and intimate. It was about us, about the way we fit together.

He had given me a kind of security I didn't know I needed, which scared me. I had never let anyone in like this. I didn't know how to hold onto someone offering me the very thing I had never allowed myself to want—real connection, real belonging.

And now, here he was, offering me precisely that, and all I could do was push back because I didn't know how to navigate it. I wasn't used to being part of a team, part of something bigger than just me.

Oskar's words echoed in my mind—team, family—and suddenly, I realized how much I wanted that. But with that realization came the fear that maybe I didn't know how to accept it or let someone like Oskar in without losing myself.