Never Plan Your Ex's Wedding / / Pipabeth NOMINATED FOR PJO_WATTY AWARD GO VOTE

Never Plan Your Ex's Wedding: Chapter Fourteen

I ran my hand through my hair only to have it get stuck in all the knots I created. I huffed and began pulling them apart, picking at them with my fingers. If only I had glasses and could just chew on the end of one of the arms. Alas my vision was perfect. I cursed the gods. I normally had a coral pendant Percy had given me for my seventeenth birthday, but I left it in the other room and my hands ached for something to do.

Still I didn't stop, I didn't get up, I didn't move. I never had a single thought that wasn't this wedding. It was through this that I had a sudden realization. I sat frozen in my desk and then I shoved my head in my hands. I pressed my fists into my ears, which made me sound like under water, and shut my eyes tight, trying to block out the light with my elbows. I scoured my brain to answer the question, "Did she?" I had no idea and it only made me shove myself tighter into my sensory deprivation prison.

I yanked my head up. If anyone was in the room with me they would've startled. I stared at my to-do list, an ever growing mess of scribbled writing. Every time I got one tiny detail dealt with I thought of three more. The what ifs were already flying through my head without this. I couldn't screw this up.

I wiggled out of my spot. Awkwardly pressing against the wall as I tried to get out. Despite the whirlwind I'd just created in my head I got up calmly, striding over to the door and wrapping my coat over my shoulders. Just as I went to open the door it flew inwards, nearly hitting my face.

"Where are you going?" Percy was casual, which felt odd with my spiralling thoughts. I continued to try to go out the door but he was blocking my path. "Where are you going?" he repeated, understanding now that everything was not alright. I continued to try to slip past him, barely sending a thought to the real world. He seized me by the shoulders and I started to squirm, it was my basic instinct to try to escape while in a hold. Thank the gods I'd been so out of it, I could have seriously hurt him. "Annabeth," he said. Panic gripped me now. I was thrashing around desperately trying to get him to just let go. I felt like I had to run, run all the way to the hall. It was as if I knew of a ticking bomb and had to defuse it. A minute ago I was freaked but unpanicked, I had no urgency. Now I fought like a bat out of hell, it wasn't a big deal, not until now.

Percy started to sense that I was becoming more aware of what I was doing, that any moment he could be flipped on his head. He tackled me to the ground.

"I have to go!" I yelled finally.

"For what?"

"At the hall!" I was wailing, I knew I was wailing, but I couldn't fight the drowning. "I have to go!"

I started trying to fight him but it didn't work. I hadn't eaten much of anything and I was weak. Eventually after some time I stopped fighting him. I managed to ward off the thoughts pulling at me and I stilled, quieting down. Percy finally got up and offered his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me into the kitchen.

I sat down on a stool and Percy poured me some coffee, before he started pulling eggs out of the fridge. I watched him in silence while he grabbed a frying pan and dropped a couple eggs into. With his back turned to me he finally broke the silence.

"Why didn't you tell me it was back?"

I was defensive, "It's not!" I went for something less high pitched. "It's only because of the stress from the wedding." Percy still didn't look convinced. I got up and walked over to him, putting a hand under his chin to make him look me in the eyes. "I promise you nothing is wrong. It's just from the stress."