Alternatively

Blossoms in Our Lungs

She has matching scars, precisely in the middle of her ribs on each side. Anyone who had been to the beach with her would see, anyone who caught her in a crop top would know. It's not so taboo; many people with the means got the surgery. Therapy took too long and she had been choking, barely gulping in enough air at times and clogging sinks with matted petals and overfilling trashcans with stems and leaves. She knew it was the best option, and Annabeth Chase was rarely wrong.

It wasn't shameful to contract the disease, as so many people at her school alone had to pull a petal or two from their mouth at some point. Still, she would rather undergo anesthesia and two weeks of unbearably dull recovery than futilely gasp for air in the middle of English.

Sitting on her couch, huddled in a blanket and staring blankly at the TV playing reruns of some sitcom, she decided she would never fall for that again.

No pining, no daydreaming, no romance movies to even tempt her. Living with her mom definitely helped keep her mind off boys, so she moved across the city and into that cold and classy apartment. If anyone was the queen of rejecting natural human emotion, it was her calculating genius of a mother who didn't know how to be a parent.

That wasn't to say she shunned everyone; she would probably waste away if she shut down like that. She joined the volleyball team, became president of her school's chapter of TSA. She and Rachel spent the night at Piper's every Friday, she and Malcolm went to every superhero movie midnight premiere. Hell, she was on the senior superlative ballot for Most Likely To Succeed and Most Likely To Be President. With so much to do, she hardly gave anyone a second glance, much less having a crush.

She pitied anyone who even tasted the barest hint of roses.

"Who is it?"

Percy rolled his eyes, spitting crimson petals into his napkin. "So nosy."

"Next time you try to keep it a secret, wait til you actually close the door before blessing the porcelain throne."

"It's not a big deal," he shrugged. "I just didn't see why you needed to know."

She raised her eyebrows. "You once told me when you had the runs and I definitely didn't need to know that."

"You were going to make me go to the football game and wouldn't take no for an answer, so I definitely had to tell you my specific reason."

"Regardless," she swirled her coffee, eyeing him across the table. "You still could have told me."

He looked out the window, pensively chewing on his biscotti. She had figured something had been bothering him for awhile; from the way his breath rattled in class to his floral laugh, she should have known sooner.

"It's pretty bad, isn't it?"

"Hurts to breathe sometimes," he muttered.

Her hand threatened to drift to her throat, the phantom pain of stems threatening to claw their way up her airways leaving the tang of blood in her mouth. "How long?"

"Not awhile," he leaned back, reluctantly meeting her eye. "I mean, for a year or so, it was just buds. Small leaves."

"How did you let it get so bad?" she gestured for him to wipe his face, red glistening on the corner of his lips.

"I didn't know who it was, so it wasn't terrible until recently."

Annabeth frowned. "Recently, this isn't a recent thing."

"Fine, a couple months," he huffed, looking at his napkin. "Makes no difference."

"Of course it makes a difference, you should have been looking into treatment forever ago. Did you ever confront the person? Do I know the person?"