that summer |percabeth au| ✔︎

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Accident

"World tour! World tour, Annabeth!" My twin sister, Rachel, throws her head back, howls up at the Bluever stars.

It's March. Carnival season. And we're celebrating. We've got every reason to, after all. Dreams like this don't come true very often.

"You crazy," I tell her, but I'm giddy too. Rum and adrenaline, the electric buzz of wishes granted. All around us the night shines with promise.

"Tell me it's real," she says, and I roll my eyes. "It doesn't feel real."

I grab her arm, pinch it until she shrieks. "It's real, see?"

We're laughing again. Last night we opened in Port of Spain on the main stage for Ariana. She loved us so, the crowd loved us so, and her manager, too.

Everyone loved us so much that when she took the crown later, she called us out, introduced us to everyone watching.

Cameras. Videos. Reporters. International tourists.

"Annabeth and Rachel Chase," she said. "Rising stars."

Later in our dressing room, as we slipped out of our matching mermaid gowns, we got the invitation from Ariana's assistant. The note was handwritten, black ink on fine, cream-colored stationery, words swimming before our eyes.

So talented.

Potential.

World tour, expenses paid.

Singing with Ariana.

Recording at top studios.

Dreams, dreams, dreams, rushing at us at once. We'll finish school in a few months, continue singing, rehearsing, and then, come summer, get on that plane.

Now we laugh again, rehearsing the words we memorized from Ariana's note. Alcohol and joy have loosened our tongues, all formality and properness gone.

Rachel howls again, tells me she's a werewolf inside.

"Shut up," I say. "You'll call Bloody Mary from the deep with that crazy noise."

"Let her come, then." She sucks her teeth, leans over the rails. "She got nothin' on us. You hear, old Mary?"

I shake my head, but soon I'm howling too.

"First thing I'm gonna do after we drop our album," she says, like it's a list, something we should write down, and I reach for our notebook, because I think maybe she's right, we should make a list.

"I'll buy Grams a house in the country," she says.

I laugh. "She already lives in the country, what's wrong with you?"

"Another country. She always wanted to visit Grenada, all their spices and chocolate growing. I'll buy her a big house. We can stay with her when we tour."

"Let's get through school first, okay?" I say, as if I'm the boss. "Before you start with your spices."

But her spirit is contagious.

Rachel, the quiet one, the gentle soul brought to life by music.

"Y'all talk so much nonsense," Leo, my boyfriend, says. He came with us tonight, out on the boat to celebrate the start of the rest of our lives. He dives into the cooler for another round, comes back out with more punch for each of us. "Don't forget your friends when you get all famous."