The Hate Between Us (Percabeth&Solangelo)

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Never Again

Annabeth POV:

"Do you ever miss him?" She asked, looking up from her phone. I knew she had been texting him; they had never lost touch, not after I called it off, because they had become so close. I didn't blame her for it – if anything, I was happy. Some part of us, still connected.

I tilted my head away, staring at the wall so that she couldn't see my face.

Two years since we had left school. Now I lay in my bed at Oxford University, first semester. Two years, a million miles away, in a strange country I didn't know as home. Nothing ever would be home without him.

Two years since I had left him. Yes, I still miss him.

"What makes you ask that?" I said in way of response. Avoid the questions, and maybe the answers will go away.

"You've never been the same since you left," she answered honestly. She had never been someone to hide from the truth.

"In what way?"

I heard her stand up from the window sill. My bed dipped slightly as she sat next to me. I felt her hand on mine. I refused to look up.

"Still you... still Annabeth... just... sad."

Percy, I regret everything I ever said. I want to go home.

"Things will change, Piper," I breathed. "I'll get better. I'll forget him."

"We both know that's not true."

If I closed my eyes at any point during that week when Percy and I reunited, I could almost pretend that things had never changed. No five year gap. No betrayal, no breakup, no distance between us. Not even just friends – as we played at now – but boyfriend and girlfriend. Percy and Annabeth again.

The thing is I didn't want to close my eyes, in case I missed anything. In case I missed the details in his face that time had erased from my memory so selfishly. The extra freckle I had forgotten. The strands in his hair that were lighter than the rest. The new shade of blue that came out in the summer sun – admittedly something I had never seen before, because he and I had only been together during winter. And I thought about how stupid that had been; we were only together for a few short months, but it had felt like an eternity. A brief one. Cut too short. But forever, with each other.

And yet – for all the laughter we shared in that week, and the talking and the exploring and even the moments when we walked side by side and I hoped that he might be brave enough to take my hand in his (like a teenager in love all over again) – I couldn't ignore reality. I had to remind myself why I had left him, in case I let my guard down once more.

Worse still, reality hadn't ignored me.

James messaged me constantly. Apologies and when-can-I-see-you-agains and I-need-yous.

On Friday evening I couldn't ignore him any longer. I was walking home from a night out with Percy. We had planned to go to a restaurant together, but during lunch we had stumbled across a hidden garden and had just spent hours talking in there, forgetting that time could move on without us. Now at midnight, I realised I was walking down James' street, and I knew it would be cruel to hold him off again.

"Hungry?" He asked after he had opened the door to me – surprise on his face.

"Starving, actually," I admitted, although I didn't tell him why.

"I'll order us a pizza."

And waiting for the pizza to arrive, we made small talk, neither of us knowing what the other was thinking.