Annabeth's day was bad even before her head got shoved into the water fountain.

Smile. Just smile. Everything is happy, everything is perfect.

Annabeth stood next to her camera man, Chris, and it was clear everything was not perfect at all.

You're on a beach. With a really hott guy. The sea breeze is flowing into your face refreshingly.

"Is she even speaking English?" Chris whispered, in Annabeth's ear. Annabeth dug her nails into her pad of paper leaving crescent indents in the pages.

The sun is warm and the hott guy leans in to-

"-And I think that Solangelo should totally happen. I mean they're just so right for each other! And Thaluke! Oh Gods guys! What the Hell happened there?! Thalia and Luke are literally a match made from heaven! How can you not see this? Caleo I can understand, mainly because that guy literally just showed up in the office five minutes ago and Calypso hasn't been mentioned, but seriously Thaluke! And Frazel, don't even get me started on them-"

The girl standing in front of Chris's camera was talking. Annabeth was sure of it. And it frustrated her that she couldn't figure out a thing she was saying.

The girl had long, extremely long brown hair with a neon green streak right up front with attitude. Her green-grey eyes were filled with emotions, mostly passion, like some crazy lunatic injected her with sugar. She talked rapidly using words that didn't make seemed sense. What the Hell was a Frazel?

"Oh my Gods! Annabeth!" Twila gasped loudly rushing towards the camera knocking Chris out of the way, literally, and grabbing Annabeth's shoulders.

Chris's camera clattered across the floor. Annabeth jolted into shock at the sudden change of demeanor in her fellow student. Her notepad flung out of her hands.

"You have to make Percabeth work! No matter what! Swear to me! She's going to try to ruin everything! You can't let her do it!" Twila started shaking Annabeth's shoulders, which made it harder for the blonde reporter to focus. Another made up word. Percabeth? What was that? Why did it matter? Who's trying to ruin it?

"TWILA!" Another girl charged down the hall leaping over Chris. Twila let out a terrified squeal and bolted into the mass of students disappearing around the corner of the hall faster than an Olympic track star. The other girl, a brown haired, green eyed, girl with a green tablet and a furious expression chased after her, screaming something about ruining her story.

Chris's coughed, sorely getting up from the floor rubbing his hip where Twila pushed him over. He picked up his video camera, exhaling a breath through his front teeth as he looked it over.

"That girl has problems." Chris said.

Annabeth merely nodded her head in agreement. She picked up her notepad, gently easing the pages back into the ringlets, and brushing the dirt of someone's foot print off.

Annabeth stepped next to her partner allowing the student body to walk around them in the hall. She glanced at Chris who sighed completing his intensive examination of his tech. His eyes traveled away from the glossy black camera to the corner hallway that connected to the locker room hall. A girl was leaning at the corner, a red bandanna over her hair, her arms crossed in a tough-girl act that matched her aura of keep-the-Hell-away-from-me-or-I-will-bash-your-head-into-these-lockers.

The girl was nodding along to whatever the diva next to her was saying, but her eyes flickered over to Annabeth and Chris for the briefest second. The corners of her scowl tugged up slightly.

"We can't even use any of that tape can we?" Annabeth said distracting Chris.

Chris's shook his head, "No, Mr. Aeolus would never allow us to put that junk on there. You know how he is about the broadcasts,"

Annabeth sighed. She was very well aware of that. They were never allow to put anything not promoting the school's best side on the announcements. It was utterly frustrating.

"She wasn't even in topic." Chris's continued, "How did predictions for Friday's game become a spout of random sh**?"

"Dunno." Annabeth said, then she sighed heavily, "We better find another person for this."

Suddenly Chris shifted uneasily, "uh, right now?"

"Yeah?"

"I...um...I have something to do right now." Chris rubbed his neck, "I kinda promised it to a friend."

Annabeth's mood turned sour. Chris's scampered off leaving her by herself. She closed her eyes. She could feel the energy of other people near her, she could hear the voices of people, the good, the bad, the gossip. But standing in that hallway, surrounded by others, Annabeth never felt so alone.

She rubbed her arm where the scar was still there. Faint, but still there. And it still hurt. Not so much the wound, but the memory of that night.

The memory that while everyone else had friends, went to parties, joked, sat together, Annabeth had no one.

No one anymore.

"Friends are suppose to be there for each other. So who are you?"

Annabeth weaved in between her fellow students, forcing her memories to stay at bay. She tugged at her notes on her notepad.  Each of them written in her own hasty handwriting.

She slammed into something hard. Falling backwards her notepad slipped away again.

"Hey! Watch it Freak!" The voice pierced Annabeth's thoughts much harder than the fall. She didn't look up at the source of the voice; she didn't need to.

It was just another person who hated her.

"Hey it's the little freaks notepad!" A girl smirked twisting Annabeth's notepad out of her fingertips. She was part of a group of three, crowding around Annabeth, enough to make her uncomfortable.

"Oooh, Annie, got any notes on how ugly you look?" The one on the left purred. She tugged the pad of paper from the middle girls hands, ripping a couple pages on purpose.

Annabeth cringed, the sound of paper tearing put her on edge and the sound of that horrid nickname started a bubbling anger in her chest. "Give it back!" She demanded weakly. Like they were going to actually listen to her.

"No, obviously it just on the guys that will date her." The one on the right scoffed, tearing the rest of the pages with Annabeth's notes off the spiral leaving only a couple unused pages. "Oh, look," she said with a slight hiss and mock sympathy, "It's all blank."

The torn and crumpled notes dropped to the ground. Anger rose higher in Annabeth's chest, she swallowed a lump in her throat. She shouldn't have cared about what they said, but she did. She honestly did.

Across the hallway, something caught her eye. A person. A girl with spiky black hair. Thalia Grace, her bag on hip, her blue highlights folded neatly in between the black. She paused in her walk looking over at Annabeth. Eye contact. Her electric blue against Annabeth's intelligent grey.

Thalia turned and kept walking like she hadn't seen anything.

"What's the matter, Beth?" The middle girl snarled, using another one of those hated nicknames "Too busy stalking people to care? Is that why you don't have any friends? So much of a creepy bitch that Castellan left you?"

Annabeth glared at her fiercely. But the girl smiled smugly. Annabeth lowered her gaze because...

She was right.

Of all the stupid things, she was right. Luke left her for Thalia. He said he never let anyone hurt her. But he lied. Maybe not anyone else, but it sure as f*cking Hell hurt when she found Luke and Thalia kissing underneath that huge pine tree in the park.

They were Friends once, all three of them. Then that promise. A family, while Thalia's dad was away, while Annabeth step mom was neglecting her, while Luke's mom was going crazy. Then, a kiss, a mugging, and now...

She wasn't ever sure anymore. But they weren't friends.

"Oh, look, Drew, You made it cry." The one on the right laughed, "Come on girls! We have a couple to break up and rematch with moi!"

They laughed and giggled, and the one girl threw the mostly empty notepad behind her.

Annabeth wiped her eyes, furious that they saw her crying. Furious that Thalia turned a blind eye. Furious that no one even tried to help her. Furious at the world. She scooped the ruined pages of her notepad back towards her almost getting stepped on multiple times.

"Well there go my newspaper notes." She mumbled angrily. She wanted to just punch everyone in the face. Why didn't she? Annabeth moaned, and slumped back against the pale orange lockers.

When the bell rang for first block, she didn't feel like moving. Annabeth sorted her notes, smoothing out the wrinkles, doing her best to brush of the dirt of people stepping on them. She didn't even care she was missing History. She hated that class anyway.

Finally she stood up, the notes organized by topic to the best of her ability. As in 3/4 of her notes had to be thrown away because they were ripped in half and illegible.

Then she thought she might as well go to class. Fifteen minutes in, and like the good girl she was she couldn't ditch. She wanted to ditch. But she didn't.

She could probably make up some excuse anyway. She was the teacher's pet, after all.

The halls were empty, only slight noises coming from beyond the classroom doors. Annabeth breathed deeply rubbing her fingers against the scar on her arm.

Tears started to prickle behind her eyes. Even though she was alone Annabeth blinked hard and turned towards the nearest water fountain.

The fountain just happened to be in between the boys bathroom and the girls bathroom. Positioned just so, if you bent down the right way you could peek into one of the bathrooms.

Yeah, the creators of the school were a bunch of pervs.

Annabeth had no intentions of looking at boys in the bathrooms. Ew. Gross. No. Just no. In truth, whenever she felt like crying swallowing water eased the burning tears back. Weird kinda, but, hey, it worked.

"I SAID I WAS FINE!!" Annabeth paused looking up from her drink. The voice cascaded through the halls, startlingly loud. Around the corner from the gym came three guys. A big blond haired kid, Annabeth recognized as Jason Grace, Mr. Perfect boyfriend. He was partnered with another blond haired guy, a tall lean kid who probably played basketball. And they both were dragging a scrawny Latino kid.

"JASON! LET ME GO! I'M FINE!" The scrawny kid yelled again trying to wrestle from their grip.

"Leo, You just passed out on the running track," Jason said hustling by Annabeth, "You are not fine."

At the same time as that whole commotion, a kid in a sea blue sweatshirt exited the bathroom. He wore his hood up blocking the mess of restless black hair. He wasn't paying attention bobbing his head to the music coming from his head phones expertly hidden under his hood. Jason shouldered him accidentally and the boy slammed backwards.

Guess who was backwards?

He hit Annabeth's head downwards pressing her face into the stream of water, that was still running from her hand pushing the button.

Annabeth let out a shocked gasp, choking on the water.

"Oh my Gods! I'm so sorry!" The boy backed off quickly, removing his hood and the head phones and revealing the panicked face of a very familiar person.

"Percy!" Annabeth screamed, her hair was soaked stringing together and casting freezing droplets down her back and her face. The front of her shirt was drenched a sickly cold coating that snapped against her skin almost magnetically.

"I'm Sorry-" the boy stuttered again his sea green eyes wide with shock. Annabeth fumed, shoving him aside and started running towards the double doors, ignoring his yells behind her.

"I swear it was nothing personal!" He called one last time right before the metal doors slammed echoing shut as Annabeth escaped into the morning.