When We Were 'Us'

Furious and Ginger- Annabeth POV

"No offense, Annabeth, but I really don't want to see you right now."

I sighed and shifted from one foot to the other, watching Rachel paint. She hadn't looked up when I walked into her cave, but there must have been something distinguishable enough for her to know it was me.

"Go away." Rachel said after a few moments of silence, dipping her brush into her paints again.

"I just want to talk." I said quietly.

"And I think I've made it very clear that I don't want to talk to you." Rachel shot me a glare over her shoulder for a moment. "Get out."

I crossed my arms. "Why are you so mad at me?"

"Why am I mad?" Rachel laughed, slamming her paintbrush down on her workbench. "Because you had the nerve- the- the audacity! To break an honest man and throw him aside like he was a trinket that lost its value."

"Rachel-"

"Shut up, I'm not done." She set her palette down as well. "You practically ignore him for weeks, spend all your time with your current boyfriend, drop Percy like a dirty napkin, and now you're all over camp with Luke like its your personal playground and you just got a new toy."

I sighed and looked down. Really, she was correct. But I'd tried my best to do what was right in the situation, and it had backfired on me. I'm only human.

Well, half-human, but its not as if I'm omniscient or infallible.

"And the worst part!" Rachel threw her hands in the air, nearly scattering her supplies. "I knew."

"You did?"

She nodded, her face flushed almost as red as her hair in anger. "For weeks! And every time I tried to tell Percy he brushed me off, or he was with you. I knew he was going to propose, I tried to stop him, and he wouldn't listen.

"Either I have the worst timing in the world or the Fates hate me, because I just couldn't catch him at a time when he would listen to me."

"I'm sorry." I said quietly.

"Are you?"

We stood there in silence for a few moments, then Rachel turned away sharply and walked off, further into her cave. I didn't follow her, but she came back a minute later with a small notebook.

She tossed it at my feet.

"What's this?"

"All the dreams I've had from the Oracle about you and Percy. Specifically you and Percy."

I picked it up and flipped through it. "Why are you showing it to me?"

"Because I'm tired of looking through it." Rachel huffed, dropping into a chair. "He's gone now and I'm making myself stop thinking about him all the time, even if that means getting rid of pieces that I love."

I opened it and looked at the first drawing. It was a sketch of me and Percy on a date, one I remembered well.

"Why are you trying to stop thinking about him?" I asked curiously.

"Because thinking about him gives me nightmares from the Oracle." Rachel snapped.

It didn't sound truthful, and I raised my eyebrows. She looked up at me and rolled her eyes, getting up again.

"Go away, Annabeth."

"I will... I'm sorry for causing you pain though."

She paused. "What?"

I tapped the notebook against my fingertips. "I was a really jealous girlfriend, and it was probably not fun dealing with me a lot of the time. Especially when Percy and I weren't really dating yet. I was a girl with a crush and I was mean about it, so I'm sorry."

She grunted. "I forgave you for that a long time ago."

"You did?"

"'Course. Didn't have time to be mad at you for treating me that way and be mad at myself for loving a boy who was taken. Especially once I became the oracle."

I looked down at the notebook again.

"Do you love him?"

"No. Get out."

"I-"

"I said get out, Chase!" Rachel yelled.

I sighed and nodded, backing out of the cave and heading off towards the Athena cabin to put the notebook in my trunk.

Rachel still loved Percy, even though she couldn't have him. I knew that feeling, sort of.

Poor girl.