The Hate Between Us (Percabeth&Solangelo)

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Small Nothings

Annabeth POV

What does it feel like to be in love?

Percy Jackson entered my life on a Monday.

I only saw him from afar. I should have looked closer. Should have noticed his beauty, his charm, the elegance he walked with every stride. The way he smiled at others – genuine, kind, caring, happy. Someone who had never been given anything good, but still wished well on others.

How had I not realised it instantly? Why had I wanted to hate him so intensely?

Because there had been a time when I had – hated him, I mean. Those first few months of what could only be described as stupidity, where I tried my best to say anything to him that would cut the deepest. I think I must have known that, if I had accepted him straight away, there would have been no turning back. I must have known that I would learn to love him so deeply, so truly, so irreversibly. And perhaps, then, I knew what that would cost me. The months – no, years – of pain after we parted, and the even more surprising pain of having him back in my life once more.

Percy Jackson entered my life on a Monday.

He became part of me, that Monday. Even if I didn't know it yet. Even if I didn't want it to happen, or tried my dam best to avoid it. On that Monday, our fates aligned unstoppably. The love, the anger, the fear of losing him and not wanting him to go but then losing him all the same – all of it came with him when he entered through those doors on that Monday.

And although I hate all the pain that came with him, I would do it all again. I wouldn't change it for a moment, the love we had. The love I still have for him.

I would do it all again. Just to be with him.

"There's no one I would rather spend the rest of his life doing nothing with," he said. I looked up at him.

He sat at my desk, doing his homework as I read my book. He wasn't even looking in my direction. Perhaps he hadn't even noticed himself saying it. He certainly didn't see the smile on my face, or know that my heart had warmed at his words.

"What was that?" I beamed.

Still not looking at me – still frowning at his laptop – he said almost absent-mindedly: "I just mean to say that, I don't know, I could sit by your side through everything or nothing and just be happy that I'm with you. I was just thinking about moments like this, where even when I'm doing boring school work I'm happy, because you're here too. Like, I think I just appreciate with you the small nothings. The moments when we're together and it's quiet but it doesn't feel awkward. Really comfortable silences, in between the moments when we can't get enough of each other or neither of us can shut up."

He looked at me then and blushed. "Because I do never shut up, I know that."

I grinned again and thought for a moment longer. "You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute."

Percy smiled and closed his laptop slowly, then crossed the room and sat down at the edge of my bed next to me. He took my hand in his naturally. "You've always been better with words than I have."

"Actually, no," I laughed. "That's a quote I just read from my book – Mitch Albom is much better with words than either of us. But, as I read it just then, I was trying to work out what those words meant to me – and you just said it perfectly. We can have all the ordinary minutes in the world, and they'll feel truly important to us."