gnossienne
n. the realisation that you didn't actually know someone as well as you thought you did
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'Look, I never wanted to be a half-blood.
Let's start from the top, shall we?
My name is Cassandra Jackson, but everyone usually calls me Ca...
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"Your mom married Gabe for both of you," Grover told us. "You call him 'smelly,' but you have no idea. The guy has this aura... yuck! I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on the both of you, still, and you haven't been near him for a fortnight." I frowned, grabbing a lock of my hair and taking a sniff at here. Strawberries, like usual.
"Thanks." said Percy, clearly, not happy about smelling like Gabe. "Where's the nearest shower?"
"Don't you see, Percy?" Grover asked as if the answer was as clear as day. "Your stepfather smells so repulsively human, he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside him Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady." I turned away, wincing at his words. "She must've loved you guys a lot - if that makes you feel any better." It didn't. In fact, it only made me feel worse.
"Is." Percy and Grover turned to me as I looked off towards where our apartment was. "She is a smart lady, and we're getting her back." I corrected him, before going off after Annabeth, who was buying our tickets.
After all, my mom was the real reason I'm here on this quest. Not for some stupid lightning bolt that Zeus lost, but to get my mom back off Hades. I don't care about saving the world or helping my dad out of a spot of trouble. He never helped me, so why should I help him? I shouldn't. All I cared about was saving my mom.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I became to resent Poseidon for never visiting, for never helping out my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support cheque. I mean, he's a freaking god! I'm sure he could spare the cash. He only claimed us because he needed a favour, not because he wanted to be a part of our lives; he's had plenty of time to do that.
Hades had taken mom, and we taking her back.
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As we waited for the bus, we started to grow restless and eventually a game of Hacky Sack started up with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, elbow, shoulder, anything! Percy could only do either his head or knee, but I was absolutely terrible at it; constantly losing my balance and tripping over my own feet. Least to say, I just sat down for most of it, ticking.
The game ended when Percy tossed the apple towards Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared - core, stem and all.
Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth, Percy and me were too busy cracking up. Percy had even fallen over, he was laughing so hard and Annabeth was having a tough time staying upright as well. We were catching a lot of odd looks for passer byers, but we took no notice of them.
Finally, the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favourite dish from Yancy's cafeteria - enchiladas.
