I plaster a smile on my face, "Hi, Calypso."

Calypso sighs, "Percy, we need to talk."

"Yes, ma'am." I say, mock saluting with only my index and middle finger.

She rolls her eyes and grabs my arm, pulling me down the hallway, out the main doors and towards a nice little bench sitting right outside the school where we both sit down. 

"Hi, Percy." She says, looking me up and down.

"Hi... I just said that, now what exactly are you doing here?" I say.

"Look, I didn't really know you'd be here. You've been moving around to so many schools, finding you here was just luck guided by an educated guess." Calypso says, sighing once more.

"So, you've been trying to find me?" I ask.

"Sort of...it's been years, Percy. We are almost adults. I thought it was about time we reconnected." She says, trying to reason with me.

"Hmm. That's weird, because for some reason, I remember last time we saw each other, your exact words were, 'Get out of my sight, Percy Jackson. I never want to see your face again.'" I say.

"Perseus! It has been years!! Let it go!! We were kids!! I thought we would be together forever!! I was a heartbroken seven year old!! Do you know how hard that was for me?!"

"Don't call me that." I growl, "And I know exactly how difficult it was for you. I went through it too. I lost my soulmate!! We both lost each other!! When I needed you most, you weren't there. No, all you would do was blame me and blame other people. Sure, my bond with my soulmate was gone and my heart was broken, but I lost my best friend too and that was NOT because of a stupid tattoo or because of some random person from a beach!! It was because of YOU, Calypso!! No one else, but YOU." By now, we are both on our feet and gaining the attention of many passerby's.

"Percy. What happened to us?" Calypso says, a tear slipping down her cheek.

I scoff, "Calypso, I... don't know."

"I still love you, Percy," Calypso says, a chorus of awwws echo from the crowd surrounding the pair. 

"Calypso, I," I begin to shake my head, "don't, I can't... I can't do this right now."

I turn around and growl, "Sorry guys, show's over," pushing my way through the crowd.

I walk towards my car and begin driving away from this madness, to one of the few places that I can really relax and feel calm. Home.

Annabeth

An entire half of a school day passed since I talked with Percy at lunch. Now, after robotics club which is currently occupying my time, I will get to go home and do my homework! Don't get me wrong, I do love robotics, but I really need to get my homework finished so I have enough time to volunteer at the food pantry, before going to work.

Last night was my first night of work. I will work at the bar Monday through Friday and sometimes overtime on weekends if needed. 

I barely slept at all last night, after getting home at 4:30, I collapsed on my bed and was suddenly plagued by a stream of insane nightmares that woke me up every five minutes. Too early, at 5:15, my alarm began blaring, waking me up from my already restless sleep. It was time to go to the student government meeting.

I snap myself back to reality to find the entirety of the robotics team staring at me as I hold down the forward button, pressing our robot into the wall.

"Annabeth, are you alright?" Malcolm, a senior and my distant cousin asks.

"Yeah," I brush him off, "I just didn't get much sleep last night; I just spaced out."

Malcolm smiles teasingly, "Big surprise. Annabeth doesn't know when to stop doing everything so amazingly."

"Annabeth, go take a break!" Leo says, fiddling with some bits and pieces from our robot. "We can take it from here. Get some rest."

I look around at everyone, including our club supervisor, Mr. Vulcan. "Seriously?" I ask.

"Yeah." Mr. Vulcan says in his gruff voice, "Don't worry about it. I'll make sure these kiddos don't get too crazy and destroy anything while you're gone."

"Thank you, Mr. Vulcan." I say.

He waves me towards the door in response, walking over to Leo to see what he has been working on. 

I leave, but know I won't be getting any more rest.

🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋Time skip to the next morning🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋

Percy

I arrive at school, about a half an hour early. I guess Annabeth is rubbing off on me. I open the doors only to see Calypso standing there staring right at me. 

"Percy, you never let me finish yesterday." Calypso says, a fire of anger burning in her eyes. "No, you humiliated me in front of an entire SCHOOL. You of all people should know how difficult it is to start at a new school."

"Look, Calypso, I'm sorry, okay?" I say.

"No. That's not okay. I came here to tell you something. Not only that I still love you, but also, I came to tell you the truth about what happened when we were seven." Calypso says.

"The truth? Wait, so you did come here intentionally. You were looking for me!" I say, spitting accusations.

"Yes, I did come here looking for you, but I didn't know I would find you here. I will explain everything if you would just shut up!" Calypso yells.

And for once, I do. We walk over by some lockers and sit down.

"Okay," Calypso sighs, "When we were seven and we went to that beach, you met this girl and immediately, something inside of me felt wrong. I felt sick and queasy and my chest hurt. That's why I asked us to leave early."

"I remember that." I say.

Calypso nods, but sends me a warning glare, reminding me to stay quiet. "The next day, you came to me and said that your tattoo was fading, so I did too. I told you that mine started fading too and pretended to be in pain the exact same way so you wouldn't feel bad that you were in essence breaking up with me." 

"Before long, you started getting angry with me for blaming that girl at the beach, for blaming you for not loving me. I wanted to just tell you the truth, but I didn't want to be called a liar for hiding this for so long. Then we had our worst argument of all. I regret a lot of what I said, but I knew I couldn't take it back. I was mad at you for some of the things you said too." 

"That was when I made the decision to come clean about my tattoo and tell you the truth. I waited until the next day, but when I went to your house, you and your mom were gone. My mom told me that you guys had sent your Step-Dad to jail and that the house reminded you guys of him, so you left, but I knew that wasn't the only reason. I was crushed and I didn't know what to do. I was bullied at school about my soulmate leaving me. It was a really hard time for me." 

"The thing was, through it all, my tattoo didn't fade. It never did, until just a couple of months ago. I started feeling the exact same pain that you had described all those years ago, so I came to find you. To find out why now of all times it would start to disappear."

I take a deep breath.

"Calypso, I'm so sorry. I never realized." I say.

"Percy, I want to be with you again. I know my tattoo is gone now, but I think maybe if we get back together, our tattoos will come back. Maybe all we needed was a break." Calypso says.

"Calypso...I..." I start.

"...And it will be easy to start over since we are both kind of new here." She continues.

"Calypso..."

"...And I'm sure in a few days, our tattoos will be back and everything can go back to normal. Then, we can go back to Ogygia and show people that you never really left and just went on a vacation for a while to get away from your step dad. That'll show everyone. No one will ever make fun of me." She rambles

"Calypso! I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all I put you through. I just...I don't feel that way about you anymore. There's someone else." I say.

Calypso sighs, "It doesn't surprise me. You're a great guy. I figured some girl would sweep you off your feet. I was just hoping "

I chuckle, "Yeah, something like that."

"Percy, I'm sorry I've been kind of crazy." Calypso says.

"No, don't worry about it, crazy is good sometimes. I'm sorry I left and wasn't very understanding." I say. "Truce?"

"Truce." Calypso says, smiling slightly.

Calypso glances toward my arm. "Do you have a tattoo?"

I look towards my sweatshirt sleeve and pause. Just then, the bell rings and I stand up.

"Time for class." I stand up and hold my hand out to her.

She grabs it and I pull her up. 

"Bye." I say.

"Bye, Percy." Calypso says.

We split ways and head off to our classes.

Annabeth POV

A few hours later

I am exhausted after another late night at work last night and I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast.

I walk into the lunch room and stand in line to get today's lunch item. I glance over at my usual table and see a girl sitting there that I don't recognize. She is sitting next to Percy and Leo is standing next to her. For some reason, I feel something in my stomach seeing her so close to Percy, but I dismiss it as hunger. She must be the new girl that Leo was going on about, I deduce. 

After getting food, I walk over to meet her, when I begin to overhear Leo talking to her.

"Soooo..." he says, "You like...potatoes?" He gestures towards her tray, at its center, a crappy school baked potato, doused in sour cream straight from the complimentary package, thoroughly mixed with green onions and half melted, shredded, cheddar cheese. 

She laughs through her nose and smiles. "Yeah. I do. This isn't exactly the type I typically go for, though. I much prefer french fries or mashed potatoes that aren't grown in a box."

Leo smiles with his typical crazed look in his eyes, "I like potatoes too. Not as much as Katie Gardener over there, but she has personal reasons."

"What's your name again?" She asks him.

"I'm the Super-Sized Mc-Shizzle, man! I'm Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme." He says, reciting the line as if he had practiced it hundreds of times in front of a mirror. "But you, my lady, can call me---"

"Leo-" Percy cuts him off. "You can just call him Leo."

Calypso laughs, "Well, Leo. I'll see you around."

She looks to Percy, who raises an eyebrow at her as Leo "cooly" strides out, then skips his way down a hallway after he thinks he is out of sight.

I sit down across from Calypso and Percy and introduce myself to her. "Hi. I'm Annabeth. It's nice to meet you."

"Hey. I'm Calypso. Nice to meet you too." She replies.

I smile, "I see you already know Percy and 'Bad Boy Supreme' over there."

She laughs, "Yeah. I just met Leo and Percy and I... have History together."

Something about the way she says that makes my stomach churn the way it did when I was in the lunch line. I take a bite of an apple slice, hoping to help ease some of my weird hunger flashes. "Mrs. Silvia is a great teacher. I had her last year."

"Mrs. Silvia? Oh- yeah- right... she seems very nice." She replies.

I attribute her confusion to her being new and move on, "What school did you go to before here?" I ask, trying to get to know her better.

"I went to Ogygia Academy. It's a small school, you probably have never heard of it." She answers.

"Actually, my family and I went to Ogygia a couple of times on vacation when I was younger and when... um... my mom worked here..." I say, not feeling like going in depth about my family life to a complete stranger. I look to Percy who has been unusually silent the last few minutes and who seems very intrigued by the details of his sandwich while Calypso and I chat.

I glance back at Calypso to see that she is quite intrigued by not only Piper talking about her college plans, but also by Leo who had reappeared at the end of our table and was making a potato cannon from a baked potato and his milk carton. 

I look at Percy and wonder what is wrong with him and why he is being so awkward when he is usually so charismatic. I kind of miss the guy who shared his feelings with me, like that one day at the pool when we talked about his... soulmate... Calypso. Holy Hera! How did I miss this! Calypso is his soulmate. Or was.. whatever. That's why he's been so tired... I mean awkward. He told me all about it just the other day. Gods, I am exhausted. What is wrong with me? How did I not connect the dots?

I stand up fast. 

*slam* 

I hit my thighs against the table. "Sorry, I just remembered I have to ask Mr. Blofis a question about the English homework." Everyone gives me a strange look and I sprint out of the room, emptying my tray on the way out. 

I mall walk to the library so as not to run and I go to my "secret corner" A.K.A a corner full of blankets and books, guarded by a desk in the assistant librarian (who is rarely there,)'s office.

I grab the book I've been reading recently, All the Bright Places. I start reading and it immediately calms my heart-rate. Wait... why is my heart rate even fast? What do I care about meeting Calypso? Nevermind. Just focus on the book. I can't help but love the two main characters, Finch and Violet, they are so adorable, just kids trying to make their way in the world. Their relationship is so interesting and after Luke, I think it's going pretty well so far.

I am so exhausted and comfortable that I bookmark my book and close my eyes.

I think I hear a voice say, "I told you I'd make your love life interesting," then I am out.

I hear a knock on the office door and peek up over the desk to see if it's the librarian asking If I want a pass to my classes. 

It's not.

I drop down under the desk again and compose myself, then pop up again.

"Hello." I say smoothly to the figure standing in the doorway.

"Hey. I guess it's true. You can find anything in the library." He laughs, his eyes lighting up as if they were reflecting the sun.

"Yep." I reply. He stays strictly outside of the office, refusing to even step inside. His lean, muscled figure is tense as if he is very stressed, yet his face is at ease with a jovial essence to it.

"I don't want to intrude on your sacred space, so can I come in?" He asks, teasing me. 

"Yeah, Percy." I smile. "That would be nice."

Finally another chapter!!! Thank you so much for reading. I love you all so much. 10k reads. Holy cow. (Oh! I get it, because Hera likes cows!) This is a longer chapter to hopefully make up for the long wait. I really appreciate all of you commenting your reactions and asking for updates. Please continue to do so! Thank you guys again. 

Love,

Leah