A Love Like War (A Heroes of Olympus love story)

Chapter 5

• Nico's POV •

     The next day at school was boring as fuck, like every other fucking day. Ah-em, excuse my language, but for real. Reality fucking sucks. I wish I could run to a land where nothing went wrong, where families cared for each other, where relationships were perfect. The only up in my life right now is Leo. He literally means the whole world to me. If I were ever to lose him, I honestly don't know what I'd do with my life, possibly end it? That's how much it would hurt. But then, Mr. Jackson came back crawling into my life.

     We met each other at summer camp in either the sixth or seventh grade. Everybody kinda avoided me, thinking I was that creepy dark kid, but then I met Percy. He was so kind to me, and soon we became the best of friends. I developed a tiny- okay, huge - crush on him, and that was when I found out I was gay. It was hard to resist his vibrant sea green eyes, honestly. I didn't tell anybody, and even if I could, I didn't have any friends, besides Percy, and I didn't want to scare him away if I told him. When camp was over, I eventually had to say goodbye to Percy, which broke my little heart.

     In the eighth grade, that it when I decided to come out. To my friends and my foster parents at the time. They weren't so happy about it, but they didn't scold me or anything. They just kept things on the silent side. But at school, kids would bully me and beat me, continuously insulting me.

     "Faggot!" They said. "Go back to hell!" They shouted.

     I ran away from several foster homes, along with Bianca, and life has been going downhill from there. I am so thankful for a sister like Bianca. She is my absolute best friend. So supportive, so loving, yet so annoying. But hey, she's my lil sis. My former foster mom, Darley-Ann, is the best so far, and I don't plan on running away. She's funny, has an amazing singing voice, and she has this thing for making everything smell good.

     When I came to this school last year and reunited with Percy, my mind went SPLOOSH. I thought I had gotten over him, but then, his face. I had to hold back a few butterflies in my abdominal area when I saw him. But we ended up being "friends" and has now introduced me to my lovely boyfriend, Leo Valdez. My relationship with Leo has been slowly erasing my gooey feelings for Percy. But to make things clear, not everything has been erased. It's like a poorly job done on erasing a white board, with a few marks on the corners. But this is a touchy subject. I'm happy where I stand.

     In first period, where Leo begged for me not to skip, we took the longest test ever. Something about seeing what we've learned and all that other bullshit. Why do we even have to learn algebra? Pointless. Not even five questions in, and I want to tear my test up to shreds. I bubbled in random answers on my scan sheet and wrote "YOLO" on it.

     The bell rang after a long, torturous 55 minutes, and we all placed our exams on Ms.Johnston's desk.

     "How'as your test?" Leo asked quickly as we walked out the classroom together.

     "Great. Awesome. It was the most fun algebra assessment I've ever taken." I said.

     "Uh, Nico, I think there's some sarcasm dripping out of your mouth." He joked.

     I softly smiled and walked Leo to his class. I kissed him goodbye, and walked into the boys bathroom. I locked myself in one of the stalls, and just leaned against the wall. I decided that I wanted to skip second period, chorus. I can sing and all, but I just don't like to sing in front of others, and especially when my teacher calls me up for solos. I heard the tardy bell ring from the hallway, and I just took out my phone to scroll through Instagram. After about ten minutes in the bathroom, I took out a cigarette from my pack in my backpack and lit it, inhaling.  Yeah, it was risky, smoking at school, but I couldn't care less.

     I heard footsteps shuffle into the bathroom and froze. He walked, but then suddenly stopped in front of my stall.

     "Nico?" It was Percy. How the fuck did he know it was me? I slowly opened my stall door and Percy stood in front of me. "I smelt your smoke." He explained as if he read my mind.

     "Oh." I looked down.

     Percy nodded and walked over to the mirrors, checking his hair. "What are you doing here?" Percy asked, looking at my reflection in the mirror.

     I exhaled my smoke. "Skipping." I said, followed by me clearing my throat.

     "Ah, I see. Chorus, right?"

     I nodded and threw my cigarette in the toilet and flushed it down.

     "But you didn't even finish that!" Percy noticed.

     "Yeah, I know." I shrugged.

     "But you could've given it to me." He said.

     "I didn't know you smoke." I responded.

     "Yeah, every now and then."

     "Well, I have more if you wanna." I offered.

     Percy smirked and held his hand out. For the rest of the period, we smoked in the bathroom and talked about camp.

     "Hah, remember that time when you tripped and fell into that muddy puddle?" Percy jested.

     "Shut. Up. It was raining, and I slipped, okay?" I turned red.

     "And that other time when you took a shower and Clark and I stole your towel." Percy started laughing as I stood there in embarrassment, but eventually I started to laugh along.

     The bell rang, and we both walked to class together. I don't know, that strange feeling is coming back to me. Eh, never mind, shut up Nico.

• Percy's POV •

    

     During class, I strangely caught glimpses of Nico staring at me. But once we made eye-contact, he'd quickly look away like nothing happened. This kept happening throughout the period, and it was confusing me. Doesn't he have a boyfriend? Yeah, yes he does.

     I doodled on my paper, trying to distract myself from looking back at him. It was kinda hard to not look at him. I mean, his fine jawline, dark charcoal hair, and gorgeous eyes of burnt umber. I shook those thoughts away. Remember, he has a boyfriend, and he's just your friend.

     To be honest, it tore me apart whenever I saw Nico and Leo together. Leo makes him so happy, and he's such a lucky guy to get someone like Nico. Even though Nico is a troubled, dark soul, I know there is more to him than just his appearance. Behind his hollow eyes are deep stories, behind his pale, gaunt skin are old tales.

     I met up with Jason in fifth period, and all we did was talk about the weirdest stuff ever, like any other day. But I also caught glancing at me, the same way Nico did. What the hell is happening? Eh, maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just my gayness trying to beg for attention. I laughed at the thought.

     "What's so funny?" Jason asked as he nudged my right shoulder gently.

     "I dunno." I shrugged. "I'm just thinking."

     "Ah, okay." He went back to drawing penises on his notebook. "Hey, wanna come over today to work on the rap?" I asked.

     "Oh, so you've just decided we're doing a rap?" Jason said.

     "Well, yeah, I can't sing for shit." I shrugged.

     "Same. So I guess we'll write a rap then." Jason said as the bell rang.

     "Yup, just meet me in the front after school." I informed.

     "Okay, see ya." And we walked our separate ways.

~~~~~
MYEHHHHH IM SORRRRRYYY!!
MY WRITERS BLOCK DOES NOT WANT TO GO AWAY.

but I have something in store for the next chapter *wink wink*

-Rezelda