All is Vanity ~Percabeth

13: say wha?

Sunday rolled around once more.

"Good afternoon, Sally." I greeted, letting myself in the house.

She was in the middle of making some dough for baking, she smiled when she heard my voice, "Good Afternoon, Annabeth, Percy's upstairs, I told him to go clean his room."

"Thanks."

"No worries, I'll be bringing in some traditional biscuits in later."

I nodded and walked up the narrow stairway, heading right to Percy's room, I knocked the door and he opened the door for me, "Come in," he offered, "I just cleaned the room."

"Oh, okay," I said as I sat back down on the same spot as I did last week.

He sat down beside me, "And err, help me to apologise to Piper, I don't want to make her feel bad."

"Apologise? For what?"

"You know... Last Friday when she confessed to me..." he mumbled embarrassingly.

"Nah, it's fine, she's not really shaken up or anything, she told me that you had someone you like, is it Frank?" I accidentally blurted out.

Percy coughed out his water, "What? Frank! No!" he sputtered, "He's my best friend, plus he already has a girlfriend."

"Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking properly, sorry..."

"It's a girl," he declared.

"Who?"

"Emm, I'm not comfortable with sharing it wit--"

"O-oh, I'm sorry, I always say stuff without thinking."

"You always apologise," he giggled, "It's kinda annoying."

"Sorry," I said spontaneously.

"See what I mean?"

I blushed, I liked seeing this side of him, and the girl he liked, she better be someone super hot for him to be able to turn down Piper.

"Do you have anyone you like?" Percy asked absent mindedly.

"Me? Well, yes but--"

He leaned forward smiling smugly, "Cool, how about we exchange information, you tell me your crush and I'll tell you mine"

"Right... But it's embarrass--"

"That's alright, we can write it down, then exchange papers."

What if he didn't like me? What if I can't give them tutoring lessons anymore because of that? Should I write down a random guy's name? I can't just confess to him just like that, can I?

He read my expression, "It's okay if you don't wanna do it, I'm not gonna pry."

"N-no, I'm fine. Yeah sure let's do it."

He passed me a blue sticky note and a pen, what do I do? I bit my lips, should I or should I not? Confessing will just make things awkward, but if he gets the wrong idea...

I glanced at Percy, he had confidently, placed his notebook upside down, waiting for me to finish. What if this is actually a prank? No. I shouldn't think that far.

'You." I wrote, then I scraped that off, 'Percy jackson.'

"You done?" Percy asked, holding his notebook to his chest.

"Y-y-yeah," I stammered, folding the note into a smaller square, "You ready?"

He slid the notebook face down to me, reaching out a hand to take mine, my trembling hands made my way to his, putting it down in his hand. This is the end, there's no going back.

"One.." He counted, "Two...Three!"

I closed my eyes as I flipped over the notebook, slowly opening my eyes, there's nothing written on it, but instead a messy child portrait of a young girl , I couldn't recognise the person, was his drawing skills really that bad? Disappointment flowed through my veins. I traced the painting, noticing the small details, like a headband, a pink overall and a star shaped necklace, my fingers found their way to my neck, touching the necklace like it wasn't real. The exact star necklace was worn by the girl in the portrait. It was then I recognised the messy blonde hair and the dark grey eyes, was the girl in the portrait... the younger version of me?

I continued flipping the pages, a portrait of 6th grade me in the lab, a portrait of my back listening to class, a portrait of 7th grade me at lunch with Piper, I kept flipping and flipping, all of these portraits were me?

I finally dropped the book on the table, "You-- you like me?"

He stood up and went to his drawer pulling out a stack of papers, 'These are some of my best." 

I picked the papers up, there was a very detailed and professional portrait of me wearing a blue shirt and black jacket.. the exact clothes I wore on Friday. The rest was also recent portraits of me, listening to music, doing maths homework, tying my hair.

"W-why?" I asked, "Why did you draw me?"

He shrugged, smiling, "I like you, Annabeth. Ever since 6th grade."

"I lik-e you too," I stammered, "But do you really? You never pay attention to me, you hardly talk to me, how can you like me?"

He sighed, staring out of the window, "The way you laugh when you talk, the way you bite your lips when you write, how your eyebrows arch when you're struggling with something, the way you cross your arms when something is bothering you, I have always took notice of you, Annabeth. Always, don't forget that."

"I don't what to say," I admitted, "This feels like a dream."

He smirked, looking at me, "Then I know exactly what to say. Annabeth Chase, will you be my girlfriend?"