Alternatively

Time Difference

She was dying.

Her math book was sitting prim and proper on the dresser, a paper weight holding down her finished assignment with an air of accomplishment. It was lovely to look at and vastly differed from the explosion of papers on the desk she hunched over. Every word she wrote was misspelled, every sentence she read was rearranged several times before her eyes, and the sound of her pencil scratching or pages turning or clothes shifting distracted her from the endless homework before her. Give her a thousand algebra problems; she could handle that. Swing some chemistry her way and she could knock it out in no time. History? English?

Sentence her to death.

Annabeth grasped her pencil firmly, laying her body on the desk in order to get as close to the paper as she could, as if that would fix the spelling errors. She would be focused, she would be diligent, she would be still. She would get that essay done.

Yet, even with her walls bare before her and not a sound in the room, she kept tensing up and losing the elusive attention she had tried holding on to. Her eyes would find bumps in the walls or catch on scratches in the desk top. Her ears would pick up dogs barking down the street or the air conditioner kicking on in the room over.

Growling, she shoved back from the desk and spun to face the other side of the room. Her back pack was slumped against the closet and the window was dark; night had fallen an hour into her essay escapade and only deepened the longer she delayed. School would be hell in the morning, but when wasn't it? Logically, she knew freshman year wasn't the worst of her four years at Lowell High, yet it already presented it's difficulties. Monster attacks every other week, phone calls home to her dad, two visits to the principal's office, and not to mention failing grades in most of her classes. Most of the issues were fixed with a quick call from Chiron, but damn it all if her pride wasn't crushed by the mental strain her classes inflicted. She was smart, she was a daughter of Athena, and she can't read her portion of the Diary of Anne Frank out loud without messing up every other word? She had to work twice as hard to catch up to her peers.

Which left her, of course, vowing to work three times as hard.

"Not tonight, though," she muttered, glancing at her clock.

If English was first period, she definitely needed to go to sleep before two.

She stuffed the papers in her folder and stuffed the folder in her bag before sneaking into the bathroom to wash her face.

There was a new pimple on her chin.

She tried not to pick at it, knowing she did not want to go back to camp with a glaring zit on her face.

Tying up her hair, she darted back into her room and slapped the light switch off before diving into bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut and finally, she could feel her muscles relax and her headache start to subside. Just a week before camp, just a week before truly being able to settling into herself. Sure, she'd need to get through her exams first, but really, what's an exam when she's battled monsters?

She had just started to fall asleep when her phone buzzed on the night stand.

Groaning, she turned over and squinted against the bright screen lighting up. A dumb smile and green eyes identified the caller before the tag "Seaweed Brain" could register in her mind. Confused, she yanked it from the charger and groggily answered, "Hello?"

There was a bit of static before he quietly said, "Hey."

"What," she yawned, curling into herself. "What's up?"

"I, um, I...it's not too late where you are, right?"

He sounded strange. Muffled, as if he were talking into his pillow. "No, it's fine. Are...you okay?"