All Shades of You Chpt. 8
yep.
Grover was trying to convince himself that Percy wasn’t acting weird, but it was getting harder and harder by the second. He seemed more on edge than usual, almost jumping at the sight of a pile of leaves Mrs. O’Leary had run into, and Grover was sure he’d only heard half of what he’d told him in the past hour.
He’d gotten to Beckendorf’s apartment before Percy had, and he seemed to share his suspicions. Grover chewed his lip anxiously as Beck told him about his grumpiness all weekend. “He has a test coming up,” he told Beckendorf, “he's probably nervous is all.”
Beck shrugged, clearly not convinced. They both were thinking the same thing: Gabe. Percy wasn’t exactly known for brushing things off, but it was the arguments he had with his stepfather especially that got to him. At the end of last year, things had started escalating. Grover had felt the change in his best friend. Percy had finally started sticking up for himself around his stepfather. Grover and Beck alike had encouraged it, but then Gabe walked in on Percy and his mom talking about him.
The fight had been so bad Percy had to stay with Beck for two weeks and he’d ended up taking his frustration out at school, finally earning him the boot from the institution. Percy had barely been allowed back to the apartment when Grover left for camp that summer. When he came back, Percy had gone back to keeping his head down around his stepfather. But it was only a matter of time before things blew up again.
His behavior was slightly different than before, though. There wasn’t as much anger, he just seemed frustrated, confused.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Grover finally asked.
“What?” He leaned down to calm down Mrs. O’Leary as a small chihuahua walked by and barked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been acting weird all day.”
“No I haven’t…” He sighed, looking away from Grover. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired, Grover. It’s nothing.”
Grover wasn’t convinced. “You’ve been tired since I met you, Percy. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Percy rolled his eyes at him but knew better than to try to lie to Grover again. “Fine! If you must know, Annabeth and I got into a stupid fight. I don’t know what’s gotten into her! Now, I’m sure I'm going to flunk that stupid test!”
Annabeth? Grover bit back his smile as Percy went on and on about how impossible she was. He’d had his suspicions since they’d started hanging out more and more without him needing to be there.
“Are you laughing?”
“What? No!” Grover quickly fixed his expression to something more sympathetic. “Annabeth means well, Percy. I’m sure she has a good reason, but she’s not great at expressing her feelings.” Quite like you, he thought to himself. “Just try to talk to her.”
Percy looked slightly panicked at that suggestion. He seemed like he was going to answer but then something behind Grover’s head caught his eye. Grover turned around to see what it was but all he saw was the busy New York skyline being lit by the last rays of sun. He turned back around to ask what all the fuss was about, but Percy appeared hypnotized.
“Seriously, man. What’s going on with you?”
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