Unknown Friendship

CH5 - First Thing You See

Katie Gardner's POV

February 18, 2005.

To say Katie was a nervous wreck would be a total lie.

She was trying to keep calm—not knock out the doctors and nurses and drag her best friend, Percy Jackson, out the door—while at the same time act cool and collected for said best friend. It wasn't working out too well for her.

She'd "accidently" tripped three doctors, broken three bags of donated blood, and ripped off the crisp white jackets of nurses off of some nurses.

What? She liked the number three; it was good luck.

Well, she also broke one IV, but that doesn't count. She was positive the doctor was going to stab her with it! Even though he was twenty feet away...

Yeah, Katie Gardner does not do hospitals.

She clutched Percy's hand tightly as the clock ticked by—one second closer for each tick. He was actually doing better at staying calm than she was, and he was the one who was about to get operated on! He squeezed her hand back calmly, like he wasn't flipping out, which she knew he was; whenever he was really angry, sad, upset, panicked, nervous, or anything else of the sorts, he grew stony, like he had never even heard of the word "emotion."

"It's going to be okay," he said, rubbing his middle finger and thumb together, another antic Katie knew; he was thinking of something to say, loop-holing all his words.

She took his hand in both of hers and played with his fingers. "How do you know?" she asked, but she already knew the answer to that.

Percy gave a weak grin. "Now that's a stupid question." He turned to face her, like he was already looking at her, but that wouldn't even begin to happen for another thirty seven minutes and four seconds. "I just know, okay?"

She nodded and released a deep breath of air. "Okay, you're right. It'll be fine."

After that they began talking to each other about random things that popped into Percy's ADHD brain, like how he loved berries but could not eat a large portion of them or he'd break out in a bright red rash. The time passed by too quickly for Katie, and soon a doctor came striding in, kicking out everybody in the room.

Before the doctor could shove her out the door though, Katie rushed to Percy's side and took his hand. He turned to face her—he always did—and she forced him to look however much he could in his imagination at her face. "Perseus Jackson, I swear I'll be the first thing you see, whether you like it or not.

He popped his thumb knuckle and gave the tiniest of nods at her. "Thank you," he whispered.

Then Katie rushed out the door.

Waiting felt like an eternity, and she finally knew what Percy felt like during boring events—like the world had stopped rotating and orbiting. During her long wait however, she did get to talk to Sally Jackson, AKA Best Mother Ever, who she didn't get to see very often. They were conversing about what Percy did at the other's, what he acted like, etc., when Ms. Jackson brought up a very... uhhh... kept quiet question.

"So how did you two do it, raise all the money?" she asked, fiddling with her fingers.

Katie's eyes glanced at the closed door leading to Percy's operation room, an idea forming in her mind, the way Percy taught her. "We begged." It wasn't a lie, not at all; it was more truth than things kept hidden.

Because information isn't a secret if nobody's asked about it.

"Oh." Ms. Jackson's brows furrowed. "Okay."