The Hate Between Us (Percabeth&Solangelo)

Chapter Thirty-Three: After All This Time

Percy POV:

The sky was coated with grey today. As was it most days in a place like this. Beige and brown buildings. Thousands of windows decorated with the moving images of people inside. Billboards the size of playing fields flashing with bright adverts about makeup and movies and news. Hundreds, thousands, millions of people moving by with rapid pace. Some would smile as they passed, most were on their phones, didn't look when they crossed the street, didn't care about what or who they bumped into, didn't notice a world around them. Most looked stressed. Everyone was stressed nowadays. That's life, I suppose.

There were grey birds flying over the city. Distant planes flying over them. A drizzle in the air. Red phone boxes and tourists who hid their faces behind their cameras and street vendors and waiters trying to attract anyone towards their restaurants. Cyclists cycling at dangerous speeds. The stereotypical black taxi being driven by the stereotypical bloke with his stereotypical cap. Children running through water displays on the floor. The odd tree dotted between the concrete. Golden blonde hair hidden amongst the crowd. A group of men stumbling out of the local pub despite how early it was in the day.

Wait. Had I seen... could it be her?

"Annabeth?" I yelled, quickly standing up from my bench and pushing my way through the lunch rush-hour crowd. There I saw it, that flash of blonde hair, again. "Annabeth!"

The closer I got, the harder my heart beat. Could it be... did I dare to hope.

The woman with the blonde hair turned – not because I had been calling her name, not because she was Annabeth, but because she was someone else, turning around to face her friend that had called her real name. Something I didn't quite catch. And now that I was closer I realized she didn't really look like Annabeth at all. Her blonde was less warm, her skin less tanned, her stance less confident, her eyes... not Annabeth's eyes. Not intense. Not mystifying. Not wise. Not beautiful.

Embarrassed, I backed away from the woman and her friend, and I made my way back through the crowd.

Come on Percy, pull yourself together man. Did you really think you'd see her in a place like this? Now, after all this time?

It had been five years. So much had happened since I saw her last, but it wasn't like anything had changed. At least, not the way I felt about her. I still felt her with me, always. In my heart. Still saw her in my dreams, still smelt her when I woke up in the morning, still felt her lips on mine even when I told myself not to.

There were small things that reminded me of her. Lemon-scented shampoo that I had started buying. Books by Bronte and Hardy being sold at any book store I found myself in. The occasional Yankees cap I would see people wearing when I walked down a street. Every time I heard Taylor Swift or Fall Out Boy playing on the radio. Heck, even the sight of pebbles and sand and the smell of salt water at the beach reminded me of her. And, I swear, every time I saw a person with blonde hair I chased after them just to make sure that it wasn't actually her. Even here, in London, where I knew I'd be at least a thousand miles away – I still hoped that we'd cross paths.

Like that time on Harvard Campus, during my third year at college, when I thought I had seen her in a coffee shop. I had run in, shouted her name, everyone turned to look at me as if I were crazy (and perhaps I was), and I had only had to turn away, embarrassed, realising how stupid I had been. Of course it wasn't her. It was never her. Not today, in London, as I waited to go to my job interview. Not that time in Harvard. Not that time on Bethesda Terrace where I had hoped I might run into her, or even that time I had returned to Goode to catch up with Chiron, and she had not been there. She was never there.

No. The last time I saw her – saw her properly – was during our last day of school.

"And now we welcome this year's Valedictorian, Annabeth Chase!" Announced Professor Blofis.