The Secret of Us

What a Time (Leah's POV)

The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind. Every time I tried to talk to Walker about Olivia, someone interrupted us -- Aryan who saw a cool edit, Walker's mom with an urgent request, or our publicity handlers carting us across the Santa Monica Pier to squeeze the last dollars out of us before they gave us the bad news that we wouldn't be getting a season 2. 

I mean the last thing hadn't happened yet, but that must be the case. No matter how much we tried to rationalize it, if we were getting a season 2, we would've known by now. 

That didn't mean Walker and I didn't get alone time. We did. Weirdly, a lot. They were always in short bursts. 3 minutes here. 5 minutes there. In each of those bursts, I felt like I learned more and more about him. What made him smile: snow cones, Fortnite, the color blue, and Naruto. What made him mad: rules, getting cut off, people recording him, and know-it-alls. What made him dang-near giddy: dirty jokes, sarcasm, anything with Will Ferrel, and hearing his full name (weirdly?). 

We've sort of fallen into a groove. Even Aryan seemed less mad whenever he was around us. We got to be friends when we were all together and keep the small moments between Walker and I to ourselves. Kind of like a secret. 

I felt so guilty about it, it weighed me down. It's not like we made out or anything. But our conversations somehow felt more intimate than that. Like maybe making out would make me less of a bad person than realizing I like the guy my friend likes.  

Yep, I admit it. And I could tell the more Walker caught on, the more he would get antsy about being in this gray place too. He stopped being good at hiding his frustration like 5 interruptions ago. 

Today was the Super Bowl. And today, I'd tell him we can't.. because Olivia likes him and it'll just be complicated.  I'm sure we'll be able to stay friends... right? 

I felt an emptiness in my chest. What if we couldn't?

Walker's family did the Percy Jackson vacation before set this year, so as leading lady, it only made sense my family hosted our closing event. Everyone was coming by the house around 4 PM to get a few hours of chatting in before they hunkered down to watch the game. 

Technically, it would be the last time I saw Walker if we didn't get casted on the same show again. Charlie, Dior, and even Aryan lived within a hour drive from me, but Walker lived all the way in PA. And not a cool part of it either. The last Republican vestige type of area signaled by their Black population of 2. So, it's not like I could casually visit there and send him a "I'm in your city" text. I would never be in his city. 

BZZP! I looked down at my phone - a text from Olivia. "Don't forget! You have to tell me what Walker says!!! I'm so NERVOUSSA;NFSFJLBSF" followed by a lot of prayer hands. 

I smushed my face into my pillow. This is the worst. BZZP! BZZP! I clicked over to our PJO group chat. Dior sent another Percabeth video. Walker hearted it immediately followed by Charlie. I hovered over the video for a second... then clicked out of my texts. 

I didn't need to be reminded how obsessed everyone was with the chemistry between me and Walker. I was actively trying to forget that, which got increasingly harder when the Percabeth edits started going viral consistently beyond all over Percy Jackson videos. 

Whoever created the instagram function that populates videos based on key words it hears in your every-day conversations is on my hit list. Of course it hears Percy Jackson all day. That's my job. So now every other post on my fyp feed is a Percabeth video of Walker and I doing our best to embody these huge characters. 

Maybe that's how things got blurred? Us being too deep in character?

The audience's reaction just got worse (Or better I guess depending on your perspective) when the interviews dropped. I flapped my forehead into my pillow. I could've did a better job about not being obvious, I guess.