Attached at the Wrist

Chapter Two

Percy clicked his pen over and over again, bored. Mrs. Kerr, his math teacher glared at him. At the sight of her stony glare he dropped his pen on his desk, eliciting a few snickers from his classmates. He glanced at them. Most of them were writing on their arms, probably talking to their soulmates. His stepfather disliked the concept of soulmates and the whole writing on the arms thing, so it was forbidden for Percy to contact his soulmate that way. He felt a strong surge of annoyance. Why did his stepfather get to control his life so much, anyway? It was ridiculous, to the point where he couldn't even talk to his soulmate, just because he said so. In a moment of defiance, Percy picked up his pen and wrote on his left wrist.

"Hi," he wrote in his usual messy scrawl. He waited for a reply. After a surprising short amount of time, a reply appeared in neat penmanship. He smiled to himself.

"Hi," it said.

"My name's Percy. What's yours?" 

"Annabeth. Annabeth Chase."

So her name was Annabeth. He repeated the name over and over again, trying it out. He had never heard that name before, but he liked the sound of it. Annabeth. He hesitated, his pen hovering over his wrist. 

"I'm sorry for not writing earlier," he wrote. He remembered when he was little and came home from school, being so excited to tell his mom about what his soulmate had said to him and finding his stepfather instead, who immediately became angry. He winced, remembering how angry he had been at him when he saw the letters on his arms.

"It's okay." He smiled, a real smile, not the fake ones he used around his friends and in school. "I'm just glad that you wrote back." 

Percy spent that whole day writing to Annabeth. He wrote to her all through English, Science, and the bus ride home. He washed off the ink on his arm when he got home, of course, but he stayed up that night, talking to her.