You're Not Getting Away From Me

CHAPTER TEN: Favorite Spot

Annabeth's POV

Percy has been acting kind of strange lately. Not strange as in, like, ignoring me strange. More like he always seems a little preoccupied strange.

For example, last night at the campfire, we were sitting next to each other but he wasn't singing along to the silly song about Grandma's armor.

"Perce, you feel okay?"

"Uh, what? Oh, yeah, um... Sure. I'm fine." Then he continued to stare into the fire and mutter under his breath something that sounded like stage directions. I can't figure that out. And. It's. Driving. Me. Crazy.

I'm trying not to get too wrapped up in it though. It's not directly affecting me; Percy doesn't act any different towards me, but sometimes he blushes and seems a little nervous. I can only figure he's embarrassed about the campfire thing.

I went to talk to Thalia about it. Even though she's sworn off boys and all that stuff, she's still my best friend. After explaining everything to her, she acted a little caught off guard.

"Well, if you are so worried about it, just ask him. What's the worst that doofus could tell you anyway?" she said, but maybe a little hesitantly. What the Hades is going on?

One night I couldn't sleep at all. The nightmares were terrible. I couldn't stay in bed any longer. I got up as quietly as possible, careful not to wake any of my siblings. I naturally started walking towards Percy's cabin, but I didn't let myself. One, it was against the rules (well, being out here at night was, too, but oh well). Two, I felt bad about depriving him of the little sleep he got. So I decided to go for a solo walk.

I thought about going down to the beach, but my footprints would be visible. People would notice footprints that weren't there before lights out. Or at least some people would. So instead I went to the woods.

I went to my favorite spot. It was a sort of clearing, far away from the cabins. It was about the most remote place still inside the borders. It had a few beautiful trees and a nice breeze. You couldn't hear the noise from camp all the way out here. I didn't come here that often because I hardly ever had time. The only person who even knew about it besides me, as far as I knew, was Percy because I had brought him one evening right after the Titan War. It was one my favorite memories with him. We had just started dating and it was nice to just be with him with no saving-the-world stress.

But tonight not just some trees and wind occupied my favorite spot. A boy with jet black hair was standing with his back to me. I guess Percy wasn't sleeping after all. He caught me so off guard I nearly screamed. But I didn't. But apparently I made some sort of noise because Percy whipped around, drawing Riptide, but not uncapping it.

"Oh, it's just you," he breathed out.

"Yeah, just me." There was a moment of comfortable silence.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.

"Couldn't sleep."

"You could have got me from my cabin."

"You wouldn't have been in there, Einstein!" I laughed softly.

"Oh... Yeah, I guess not," he replied, scratching the back of his neck. I laughed again.

"What are you doing, Seaweed Brain?"

"Well... Um, well I... I couldn't sleep either." I raised an eyebrow. Sounds like he just made that up right here to me.

"Alright...?" I suddenly wished I'd brought a sweatshirt. I wrapped my arms around myself. "I think there's more to the story, Per-"

"Come here, you're cold." I did as he said, and when he embraced me, I forgot about my skepticism, for the time being.

We spent the rest of the night in the clearing, together.