Eyes like the Ocean

ten

Percy woke up the next day with a smile on his face and a skip in his step as he went downstairs. He stopped midway down the stairwell and ran back up to the bathroom. Kissing Annabeth was fun, but he didn't want to make out with her with morning breath.

Sitting at the kitchen counter top was Annabeth, already dressed in ripped jeans, a Maroon 5 t-shirt, and black high-tops. She was on her phone and had a glass of water in her hand. She contrasted the black and white-speckled granite beneath her elbows, but she also looked so beautiful that it made his heart ache. Percy wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"What the fuck-oh, hey." He laughed while she blushed. "I'm sorry! I didn't know who you were."

"That's nice to hear."

"Just kiss me, you big loser." Percy happily did so. He thought that if Annabeth would be giving orders like this, he wouldn't be too upset about being bossed around. They must've been kissing for a few minutes because his brain was complete mush when someone on the top of the stairs said:

"Wow."

They reluctantly pulled away from each other and turned to look at Thalia, who was gaping at them with a bitter, sarcastic smile. She rolled her eyes and walked back to her room, muttering about how she was right.

"You know," Annabeth said, "is it bad that I don't give a fuck that she saw us?" Percy smiled and pulled her closer to him.

"I think you just single-handedly made me fall even more in love with you." She shoved him away, rolling her eyes playfully.

"Ugh, if I would've known you were this much of a fucking sap-" He beamed.

"You had your chance to escape, Chase. Now you're stuck with me."

Annabeth shrugged, but the weight of his words would be burned into her soul forever.

Percy grabbed her hand and looked straight into her intelligent eyes.

"I'm taking you out on a real date today, Princess," he declared. "How do you feel about roller coasters?"

***

Annabeth had actually never been to Universal Studios before Percy took her. It was the best place ever, in her opinion.

Fuck all those posts about your boyfriend's arms being the best place, she thought. This is the shit.

The first thing they did was ride a little one, just to get Annabeth ready. She could tell Percy was impulsive and would want to puke his guts out on one of the huge ones. So, after the little one, she told him she wanted to go one the biggest ride they had.

Big mistake.

This'll be better, she figured, then, we can eat and not worry about throwing up all over the people in front of us. Turns out, she was going to throw up regardless. But it was too late to back out. They were already at the front of the line and Percy was jumping like a little kid. Not to mention Annabeth's pride...she couldn't back out of the goddamn roller coaster.

The closer they got to the front, the bigger it seemed to appear. When they boarded and the holder-thingy (Percy's words, not hers) settled down on them, Annabeth squeezed his hand.

"Hey," Percy said, finally realizing she wasn't okay. "We don't have to-"

"No," she insisted. "We have to. Just don't let go." He smirked, silently proud to have such a badass girl beside him. He wanted that on his tombstone.

"You got it."

The death machine started to rise, almost vertical as it slowly climbed up the tracks to the top. Annabeth's eyes almost popped out of her head when she was eye level with a flying bird. She half-expected to see an airplane swoosh by somewhere near. Then, she made the mistake of looking down. The people didn't even look like ants, they looked like atoms. The sun was making her even more sweaty than she already was, and Annabeth kind of felt bad for squeezing Percy's hand so hard.

The ride started to go drop, and her stomach dropped. The wind seemed to rip her face right off, and she felt so bad for screaming so loud right next to Percy. He was too busy laughing and cheering though, so she doubted he cared. There were more lifts and drops that made her stomach leave her body, but in less than thirty seconds, the ride was over. She stood up out of the cart with wobbly legs.

"That was fucking awesome!" Percy shouted.

"Fucking frightening," she corrected. He frowned.

"Aw, then why'd you do it?" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Because I love you." And she realized that that was the answer to a lot of her recent questions and the reason to many of her recent actions. Because I love you. She needed help. There were screams from the people on the roller coaster behind them.

Percy gave her a soft look before pulling her in for a long kiss. When he pulled away, he said, "if you make me blush one more goddamn time, Annabeth, I might just ask you to marry me right here." Her mouth opened a little in surprise, but she closed it just as quickly and slapped his arm.

"Imbecile."

But the look she gave Percy was too fond for him to take her seriously.

The rest of the date went perfectly, but when they got home and headed to their rooms, Annabeth made him stop talking.

"You hear that?" she asked. He listened closely. There was soft crying coming from Thalia's room. They both hesitated. On the one side, they'd both known her forever and it was only sensible to check up on her. On the other side, she'd completely isolated herself from them and probably didn't want anything to do with them.

Annabeth ignored all the memories of Thalia calling her a slut and opened up her door wide, revealing her ex-best friend on the edge of her bed with tears in her eyes and a shattered phone by her feet. 

one more chapter left :(  

thank you to anyone who reads this, i had a lot of fun writing it and publishing it

-reyna