𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

── returning

         𝕮amp was just the same as normal when Aurora returned. Or, almost the same. There were slightly fewer people, with the summer campers having left already for their school terms. Activities were still running, and Aurora was quick to ditch her bags into her cabin and then hurry off.

She had to find Luke.

She'd been gone from camp for two and a half weeks, which was one and a half weeks longer than she'd planned, but now her mother was placated and she was free once more to come back and see Luke and explain that it had all been a great misunderstanding and she had never meant to say what she had said. Then it would all be better.

"You're looking for Luke?" Aurora paused at the question, twisting on her heels to see a small, dark haired girl standing behind her, arms folded. "Aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." Aurora's eyebrows furrowed, wondering how the small, nine year old child knew that. "You are?"

"Annabeth. I'm Luke's little sister." Something clicked in Aurora's brain as she worked out who the girl was.

"Annabeth. Nice, it's super cool to meet you!" Aurora grinned, holding her hand out for the small girl to shake. Annabeth did, shooting the older girl a half smile in response.

"I liked the puzzles that you did. They were cool."

"You can thank your big brother for that. It was his work." Aurora explained as Annabeth hummed, tilting her head a little. "Are you a child of Hermes too?"

"No, Athena."

"Oh, so you're super smart then." Annabeth blushed and hummed at being complimented, muttering something beneath her breath. "I'm jealous of that, you must be way above your level for school work and stuff?"

"I am." She muttered.

"That's super cool!" Aurora grinned as Annabeth smiled, scuffing her shoes.

"Do you want to find Luke?"

"Yeah, I need to talk to him super quick." Aurora explained as Annabeth's eyebrows furrowed. 

"I think he was down at the lake. Just past the Hermes cabin." She pointed towards it as Aurora nodded. He'd be easy enough to find in the woods because of those god awful orange shirts, so this would be quick.

"Alright. Thanks Annabeth! Look forward to chatting more, you can tell me all about your work and what would have made those puzzles harder, huh?" Annabeth grinned and nodded at that, before the small child disappeared to do gods knows what and Aurora turned back towards the cabins.

Dodging down past the Hermes cabin, Aurora looked for the path to the lake, hurrying to go and find Luke.

"Aurora!" Two arms wrapped around her shoulders, spinning her on her heels and twisting her back around as she yelped. There were only two people that Aurora knew would dare do this to her.

"Chris. Mack." Aurora looked between them. "Do you want to get off me?"

"Not really." Mack grinned, winking as Aurora shoved his head away.

"We've got something to talk to you about." Chris nodded, both boys shooting each other slightly disconcerting looks that Aurora struggled to work out the meaning behind. They were hiding something from her.

"You two are being weird. For once, I need to speak with Luke, so, I'm going to go."

"No you don't."

"What do you need to speak to Luke for?"

"We're so much better." Mack and Chris both laughed, dragging her away from the Hermes cabin, as Aurora sighed. She had learnt that it was just better to go with them than to resist, because resisting meant they'd drag her there anyway but it would just take twice as long. Or one of them would grab her legs and the other would grab her arms and it would just be super embarrassing.

"Alright, what do you want to show me?"

"Good question." Both boys panicked, before deciding the Council of Cloven Hooves would fulfil their promise of surprising Aurora and giving an adequate reason to not let her talk to Luke. So, off they dragged her, showing it to her with a wide smile.

The girl looked around, before turning to her friends.

"I already know about this." She narrowed her eyes.

"Well, we didn't know that you knew!"

"Yeah, how were we supposed to know?" Mack and Chris shrugged.

"Because you two showed it to me last time." Aurora pointed out. They shared another look, wincing. They'd forgotten about that. "Right, I'm going to find Luke."

"To tell him what?"

"Why do you want to know?" Aurora narrowed her eyes at them. Mack and Chris stumbled over their words for a moment, as Aurora rolled her eyes.

"Because we love and care for him?" Mack suggested.

"That's a lie." Aurora pointed out as both conceded. "But, if you must know, I accidentally friend zoned him which I'm sure the two of you knew because you probably bullied him about it or were hiding in the rafters somewhere with a tape recorder. It was on accident, I need to tell him that."

"Well shit." Chris pulled a face.

"What did you do?" Aurora's eyes narrowed. "I've only been gone two weeks."

"Almost three actually." Mack replied. "And look, we didn't know that you'd been joking about it? Or that you'd said that? We just said something and might have made Luke upset. But the friend zoning thing adds up and probably didn't help."

They both looked at their feet as Aurora sighed.

"What did you say to him?"

"We made a joke that you might be way out of his league and he was a little delusional?" Aurora smacked both of their heads at Chris' words, feeling far worse about everything that she had said as she groaned. The boys both hissed. "What? Look, in all fairness, we didn't know that you had friend zoned him and it was just a joke, honest!"

"Yeah, we didn't know he'd take it so seriously." Chris smacked Mack as Aurora froze, spinning towards them. "If we had known, we would have kept our mouths shut about it all. Probably would have made him feel less shit."

"What?"

"What?" They both paled, sheepishly grinning. "Did you say something Chris, I didn't say anything?"

"No, no, I didn't hear anything either."

"Luke took badly? Why didn't any of you tell me? I would have come back!" She had hoped that Chris and Mack would have heard about the friend zoning thing and made sure he knew that it was a joke and she was just bruising his ego.

"You're kind of hard to get in contact with and Aruna didn't have your phone number." Chris shrugged.

"How did he take it?"

"Honestly?" Mack checked.

"Honestly." Aurora nodded.

"Badly. We apologised, told him we were joking and that we didn't know what you said, but I think the whole thing made him think that maybe he'd been too forward, made you uncomfortable and that you'd taken to just friend zoning him because he hadn't got the message and your constant bruising his ego was another way of doing that." Mack sighed. "That last thing he ever wanted to do was make you uncomfortable."

"Shit." Aurora's heart went up to her throat, nausea swirling through her. "I've got to go and tell him that's not it. I didn't do it because of that, I just didn't filter my words and I blurted it out, and oh shit, that's not what I meant, why am I so stupid..."

Aurora turned, hurrying back towards the cabins, needing to find Luke, to tell him that she hadn't meant that but she just got scared. Chris and Mack called after her, shouting for her to turn around and come back but Aurora didn't listen. Turning the corner, Aurora came skidding to a stop, as Chris and Mack turned up beside her.

"Aurora..." She stopped, tears forming in her eyes. Chris placed a hand on her shoulder.

"This is what we were getting to." Chris muttered as Aurora looked at the scene in front of her.

Luke was standing in the door to the Hermes cabin, holding hands with someone that definitely wasn't Aurora and laughing with her. She was smaller than Aurora, brown hair tucked behind her and a wide smile on her face as she stared up at Luke with warm eyes. Aurora watched as Luke leant down to kiss her, stepping further backwards into Chris and Mack, who managed to keep her standing.

"What-?"

"She's a daughter of Aphrodite." Mack explained gently. "She asked Luke out like a week and a half ago and he said yes because he thought it was better than pining after you, that it would be better to move on."

"Aurora." Chris tried to pull her into a hug but Aurora shook her head.

"I need to go, I'm going to go find Aruna I think..." Aurora kept backing up, before turning back to her own cabin. She brushed her tears off, hurrying away from the cabin and the boys, before going to find Aruna as Chris and Mack looked after her.

"What do we do?" Mack turned to Chris. "Do we tell Luke?"

"I don't know. What do we say? You know the girl that we made a joke about not liking you and she friend zoned you so you moved on? Turns out, she actually does like you and didn't mean to friend zone you and wants to date you?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Mack nodded.

"No it doesn't." Chris shook his head as Mack stopped nodding to shake his head. "Luke had such a shit time, like, he was definitely crying at one point and he's trying to move on and feel better and then we're just going to go and ruin in."

"Yes, but now, Aurora's going to have a shit time as well because he's just gone and broken her heart." Mack pointed out. "No one's going to be happy."

"Luke just has to talk to her himself."

"Talk to who?" They both jumped as Luke's voice appeared behind them. "What are you two plotting?"

"Nothing."

"No worries."

"Bye Luke." They both rushed off.

∘☽༓☾∘

Hiya,

Fun times, right? So, Luke was depressed and is now trying to move on with someone else and now, it's Aurora's turn to be depressed but don't worry, she's met Annabeth. How we feeling? Also, as a reminder, Luke is a sixteen year old boy who thinks his crush has just rejected him and that he made her super uncomfortable and is trying to leave her alone and move on.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx