The Meanings of I Love You

My Heart Bleeds Blue From the Cold of Missing You

"Annabeth." He whispered desperately, saying her name the way one would take a deep breath; he took it all in slowly, automatically, bringing it to the bottom of his lungs and out again.

His voice was cracked and raw, burning with the force of a wildfire. He couldn't talk smoothly, he couldn't think clearly, he needed her.

"Percy." She closed her eyes, not daring to let the tears slip, not daring to show her hurt. Although, all thoughts of keeping her emotions inside were destroyed with the exhausted, sad sigh that escaped from her lips.

"Please, we don't have to do this. We can get through it. Together." Percy pleaded, grasping at strings that had already been cut.

She couldn't look at his eyes. She wouldn't be able to go through with it if she saw the swimming greens; the way his pupils dilated and how his irises glazed over with a wash of fresh tears.

"It's just a break. We're hurting each other more than helping." She finally got the steel back in her voice. The steel that could cut through the thickest ice and slice the deepest wounds.

That's what she was doing- slicing the binds of their relationship. But was she really? The few ties that held them together had already begun fraying, all they really needed was the gentlest breeze to fully break.

She knew she was right in ending them, if only temporarily, and Percy knew it to. They were ripping each other away from the inside out. The more they tightened their hold the deeper their nails dug into each others backs.

They were becoming too dependent, too needy. Tartarus left far more than physical scars and took away more than just innocence. They woke up in the dark, sweaty and breathless as if they'd run a marathon. A sudden noise or touch made their hands fling to each other like the strongest magnets in the world. They were set in reverse on a one way road and the only way off was to get out of the car.

They were getting out of the car, but not without obtaining a few scrapes and bruises. Many scrapes and bruises.

"W-we." Percy stopped.

He ached for Annabeth; to hold her body against his, to feel her enthralling heat and press themselves together until the only hint that they weren't one was a few blurry lines. His hand wanted to linger in her hair to play with her honey golden curls. He wished wistfully to feel the pressure of his forehead against hers, that familiar pulse that seemed to course through his own body.

But he knew.

Annabeth was right, they couldn't keep living the way they were. Not that they were living so much as surviving.

His head nodded in just the slightest. His lips were pressed tight in a thin, white line and his Adam's apple bobbed unevenly. His face pinched tight, trying to suppress the storm of oncoming emotions.

"I'll always love you." Annabeth finally let her tears fall.

They were too warm for such a miserable situation. They left too many stains on her red cheeks and told too many stories. She felt their saltiness seep into the splits of her chapped lips and felt the way they stung. They stung so badly.

"Annabeth..." There it was again; that deep breath word that seemed to be said for an eternity. That word that weakened her knees and melted her heart, but not today. Today she couldn't let that word wash over her like the spell it was.

"I've never had someone like you. I'd tear down this world for you." He said it with so much conviction and certainty that it sent a ghostly shiver down her spine.

It was so utterly terrifying to have someone love you like that. To have such a deep connection that the end of living was a better reality than living without one another.

"I know."

Their voices were all whispers, tiptoeing so carefully to not break the delicate air that laid paper thin between them.

How did they ever get this fragile?

Were they already broken?

"I guess this is goodbye then." His face lifted in a joyless, ironic smile.

"Yea, I guess so." Her words felt hollow, drained of the emotion and passion she thought they should contain.

Were all breakups this empty?

The words stayed between them as another barrier, another wall they'd have to tear down if they ever wanted to reach each other. The steel in her voice couldn't cut through these words, not this time.

"I wish it could've been different."

Hearing his voice hurt. Saying his words hurt. Everything hurt and everything was painted gray. A gray so dull and lifeless that no color or flair could survive. Their relationship could not survive. At least not yet (maybe not ever).

"Me too."

And that was it. She broke. He broke. Their tears had streamed down silently before, only showing the emotions, but not putting them through the actions.

Their sobs synchronized with each other. Their voices broke at all the same places. They clung on one another as they always had, but it was different. This would be the last time they used each others (limited) strength with their own for a while.