Ode to my love

Salsa

Percy POV

It has been three months since I started in OMC, three months since I moved away from Manhattan, and three months since I started fake dating Artemis. Ever since then, I've been getting closer to Artemis to the point that I actually like her. She saw my competitions, she practiced archery in my backyard and everything was going well.

Of course, it is an understatement to say that I'm, first of all a dumbass, and second of all a moron. So because of this, the only plausible thing to do in my mind was to break up the relationship with Artemis. I mean, she didn't feel anything towards me, yet I fell totally in love with her. Whatever she said made total sense to me, whatever she asked of me I did and I thought of many ways to spend the most amount of time with her.

So my school of reasoning was this: I 'break up with her' and tell her I love a girl, when she asks me who it is I tell her and hopefully I won't have ruined a friendship.

Now I stayed up all night planning on the exact words I would say, which is a really stupid thing to do. But then again, I'm stupid so it was normal that I did that.

Before you judge me I just want to say that, for the record, I regret everything that happened today.

"Hey Artemis, could I talk to you for a second?" I asked her while she was talking to Athena, Aphrodite, and Persephone.

"Yeah sure Percy. What's up?" She asked me

"Umm, could we talk alone please?" I said while glancing sideways to her friends. Athena, the blonde one, really hated me for some reason, while Aphrodite was normal with me.

"Oh ok. I'll be back" she told her friends, grabbed my hand and walked us outside.

It wasn't a beautiful day, like if the skies knew that something bad was going to happen. The sky was grey but not with clouds, it just seemed really dirty. The sun didn't shine bright, but it wasn't cold. It was a really weird atmosphere.

"So, Artemis, here's the thing. I think we should break up" I dropped the bomb. Artemis stared at me with wide eyes

"W-what? W-w-why?" She stuttered

"Well I kinda have feelings for this girl and you said that if I ever happened I could break this up."

"Oh..right." She was looking at the ground, and I noticed that she tears in her eyes.

Now this next part is where I really, honestly, fucked it up. I regret saying this more than I regret being born.

You see, as I said earlier, part of my plan was her asking me who I liked and then I would tell her that I liked her and we would live happily ever after. But things weren't going according to plan.

"Are you going to ask me who I like?" I asked her, instantly regretting ever having a mouth.

"Why would I do that?" She asked me, her voice breaking a little. "Do you even think about maybe easing this a little bit? I was happy today and then you just drop this bomb on me?"

"Are you ok?" I asked her, worried that she was taking this harder than I expected.

"Yeah I'm fine. I don't even know why I'm acting this way, it was a fake relationship anyways." She wiped her teardrops with my blue hoodie that she wore all the time.

"But-"

"I gotta go. See you at the party tonight" she speed walked away from me, leaving my idiot self standing there like...well me.

Now you may be thinking 'yo Percy, why didn't you just tell her that you liked her instead of breaking up with her?' or 'um Percy, you know that you were literally in a relationship with her and this was all really unnecessary' well believe me, I know that now. But now is a little bit too late.

That afternoon passed so slow that I thought I was going to die. The news spread like wildfire. Like they say 'small town, giant hell', except that in this case it's a small school, not town.

I tried calling Artemis and apologize, but she didn't pick up any of my calls. I texted her and she left me on read. No matter what I did, she just wasn't having it. And with good reason.

I got ready for the party at Artemis and Apollo's house. Their parents and siblings were away for the week on vacation, but because of school, they couldn't go always with them. So Apollo decided to throw a party, all the school was invited, and we all had a plus one. I didn't invite anybody, but once I got there I quickly figured out that everybody else did.

There were around 200 people in the house and the music was blasting out the speakers. I went in and it was a pretty normal party overall. You had your two beerpong tables, the open bar in the kitchen, your pizza in the living room, the people dancing and the people making out in any sitting area available. I quickly noticed that Artemis was playing beerpong with a girl from our class called Jane, against Hermes and Dionysus.

I went to the table and I think Artemis didn't notice me, or maybe she was ignoring me.

"How are you guys losing?" I put my arm around Dionysus, who shook it off

"Artemis doesn't miss a single shot! I mean, she's beginning to miss because she has been drinking her and Jane's beer because Jane can't drink. But still! The only thing keeping us at bay is that I never get drunk" he said the last part proudly

"And that means you miss all the fun" Hermes said while making his shot, making both teams have only two cups left.

Next shot only Artemis made it and Hermes drank that cup. So the score was now 1-2.

"Don't worry Hermes. I'm sober, look at me make this shot." And the motherfucker made the shot. Now it was only 1-1 with Hermes still on turn. Hermes threw his ball to the remaining cup and it hit the cup.

The rules of beerpong are simple but complicated. There's this thing that, if a ball doesn't go in a cup, but it returns to you again (I don't know how to explain it very well) and you catch the ball before the other person, you get to redo that shot but with a trick. You could say 'leftie' and throw the shot with the left hand, or the other person can say something really extravagant first and you have to do that.

So in this case Hermes was fast enough to grab the ping pong ball, but not before Artemis said "Sitting down backwards leftie".

I've never even heard someone do a shot in that position, it seemed impossible even. Hermes sat down, weirdly confident about his position.

"They call me Hermes clutch" and then as if in slow motion, the ball left his hand, did a weird curve in the air, and effortlessly went in the cup.

"Fuck this day" Artemis yelled

"You did it!" Dionysus hugged Hermes and laughed. I congratulated the team and was about to go and talk to Artemis, but she was gone by then.

I tried to look for her in the dance floor, which incredibly took me fifteen minutes or so. Next thing I know, Aphrodite comes running and yells the words that I didn't even know I would ever hear

"Artemis and Hermes are making out!"

The lot of us went outside to see the event with our own two eyes, just to check if it was true or not. When we got outside, we saw the two of them making out...intensively may I add.

And just like that, I knew what the word heartbreak meant.