Ode to my love

R&B

Artemis POV

Something weird was happening to me. Five days ago I would've killed any guy who even came close to me (with a few exceptions) but now I voluntarily kissed Percy. Percy Jackson. Butterflies live longer than how long we've known each other.

I don't like him or anything, he's merely a friend. A friend who helps me a lot and is very good looking, a friend who I can kiss, a friend who-

"Artemis!" Apollo yelled at me, getting me out of my trance. We were currently sitting at Olive Garden with the waiter at my side.

"Sorry"

"Well good afternoon, my name is Caleb and I'll be your waiter for the evening. Are you all ready to order or should I give you a few minutes?" He asked us kindly

"We're ready. I'll have the Chicken Parmesan and the beautiful young lady in front of me will be having spaghetti and meatballs"

"Excellent. Now, would you like soup or salad?"

"Yes" Apollo replied, to which I burst out laughing.

"What?" He asked me, not noticing his mistake

"He asked what you wanted and you said yes"

"Oh oops. I'll have the gnocchi soup please,"

"And I'll have the same."

"Alright. And to drink, what would you like?" The waiter asked us

"Both of us will have a raspberry lemonade. Thank you" I said, handing him the menu.

"I'll be bringing your drinks on shortly"

Apollo stared at me, like he was trying to get me to say something. It was like that for about two minutes and I grew tired of him.

"If you have something to tell me, do so"

"Artemis, answer me this please. Remember that I will know if you're lying"

"What is it"

Before he could ask, our waiter Caleb came with the drinks.

"I hope you guys have fun on your date" I chocked on my lemonade and began to cough. Apollo face turned red in a violent flush of embarrassment.

"Ew no, we're siblings. And this isn't Alabama or Kentucky or Ancient Greece"

"Oh sorry. Are you ok?" The waiter came towards me as I was still coughing and began to pat my back. Eventually it eased me and I could breathe normally again. "There we go. Relax"

"Thank you" I thanked him

"No problem at all" he winked at me and I felt him leaving something on my lap. When he went away, I reached into my lap and got a little paper with a message.

"I have to go to the bathroom, excuse me" I told Apollo, quickly reaching towards the end of the passage to the right (where all bathrooms are located). I entered and it seemed pretty clean, with some good ol' Katy Perry blasting through the speakers.

I opened the paper, curious over what it said. It read:

Caleb Woods
929-496-9420
Text me :)

Well that's weird. Ever since I started 'going out' with Percy, many other guys have begun to notice me. Is it because there's something different about me or is it because I'm just now opening my eyes into the world?

Anyways I saved the contact information on my phone and headed back to the table. Apollo was sitting alone, stuffing two bread sticks into his mouth at the same time.

"You're gay" I told him.

"I'm gay for you"

"Ew incest" he laughed and almost chocked, but it seemed as if he had experience in this type of situation

The rest of the meal went on normally, me making fun of the fact that he lost, him defending himself by saying that he was distracted, so on and so forth.

It wasn't long until it was night and I got a call from one of my best friends, Athena.

Athena was the smartest blonde ever to live, probably ever. She had weird grey eyes, but then again, who am I to judge? And just as every nerd in existence, she was the Nation champion in chess.

"Hey Artemis, how's it going?"

"Nothing much, how about you?"

"Starting the project" typical Athena, starting a project we have not been assigned yet

"What project?"

"Well, a little birdie told me that, in order to graduate we have to make a song, write it's meaning, how the theory relates to the emotions it's trying to conceive, and bonus points if it's done in another language"

"What kind of try hard would choose to do it in another langua-"

"So I chose Italian because it's the closest thing to latin while it also has a lot of fluidity. Add to that the fact that no word in Italian finishes in a consonant, it's a rhyming heaven" Athena interrupted me

"Well, you already have part of your project done"

"Yeah. Hey, you doing anything tomorrow?"

"I'm going to watch Percy at his swimming competition," I said. There was a silence that followed, then a mutter "did you say something?"

"Nothing, I just had a theory but it seems to be false"

"What theory?"

"I thought that you were faking a relationship with him so you could annoy Apollo and make someone jealous. But now that you're spending time with him, it just seems to be more real" damn she was good

"Yeah we're real" I said laughing a little. Suddenly, something Athena said didn't make much sense when I remembered it "you said that you thought it was fake just so we could annoy Apollo and to make someone jealous, but you implied that the jealous person would be someone else. Who were you talking about?"

"Nobody!" She quickly replied "I gotta go sleep. Talk to you later girlfriend"

"That sassy thing really doesn't suit you"

"Shut up. Bye"

"Bye" I hung up the phone. Laying on my bed I began to wonder on two things.

First of all, who is this other person? Is it someone who likes me? Or was it meant as a 'I'm ugly and still got a hot boyfriend' type of jealousy?

And secondly, and correlated to that last sentence, why am I focusing so much on Percy? He's just a normal guy, a normal stupid guy*. And why am I hanging out so much with him? I almost never hang out with boys, but here I was coming tomorrow to his competition. What is happening to me? Why am I changing so much?