it must be so confusing, for a little girl
For Annabeth, the world ended when the rear wall of the Hermes Cabin stopped smelling like smoke. She remembers the first time she caught him, just a girl of 9 years, but old enough to know that although the grey smoke escaping his lips matched her eyes, he was dying from the inside. She remembers crouching against the wall, watching the brown paint peel like rust, the lament of the leaves against his burning cigarette. The memories of that time are palpable, she can hold and examine them like lines of her work. But like the delicate threads of her tapestries, lugging at the wrong one can destroy the whole thing. Her memories fuzz at the edges when she tries to recall the end, but all that comes to mind is a big smile and a pair of ocean green eyes.
Luke taught her everything she knew, so of course, she picked up his bad habits, too. The first time was the day after she saw Luke in the labyrinth. The smoke tasted bitter, like acid, but it hurt less than his golden eyes. But when Rachel hit him, the god killer vanished into the air for a minute, leaving behind the distorted image of the boy who’d held her hand through the wreckage. How would Percy get it? He’s been loved, cared for, by his mortal and immortal parents. Annabeth’s mom shoved her into her father’s hand and her father kept her as a paperweight. He filled their house with a wife and kids and soon, Annabeth vanished from their lives faster than Luke could fling his hand around to hide his transgressions. He was going to destroy her. But, she could save him. Who would save her?
She took a drag of the stick and felt her lungs filling with something putrid. She closed her eyes and held it within herself, like a decaying limb, and then exhaled. Annabeth opened her eyes and felt herself crumbling into tiny specks of dust, and watched as the dust and smoke made their way up to the sky until she couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
She wondered why Percy, of all people, looked at her like she was a silly, petulant girl chasing an old crush. Foolish girl. He won’t love you. When he scowled at her and pushed her away for wanting to save Luke, she was back to being seven again, hunched under her bed, heaving through her tears, not wanting to trouble her father. Back then, she had thought that if she asked less from her father, hid well enough, blended into his furniture, requesting less than a casual dusting, he would love her more. I know, no one ever does. Was it so unbelievable that she wanted to save the person who had saved her? Luke had taught her how to read, how to spell parentage. Even when she got frustrated and tears escaped without permission, he caressed her filthy, unwashed hair, welcomed her tears, and spelled it out for her, again.
Connor Stoll caught her once when she was too lost to the growing rot inside her brain. Too lost to tell the difference between the bumpy and harsh wood of the wall, and the soft, yet broken, familiarity of her skin.
“Damn, Annie. Hope you saved some for me.” He sat down beside her, and all the ease left her body at a drop of the poisonous nickname.
“Don’t call me that.” She handed him the half-smoked cigarette, rested her head on her knees, and watched him take a small drag. His hair was blonde like Luke’s too, but longer and shabbier. The way it was when they were on the run together.
“He used to smoke here, too.” She turned her head in the other direction and closed her eyes.
“I know you know. I saw you with him, here, once. After that, I tried to not come here. It wasn’t my…” Annabeth knew he was trying to find the right words. The right words that wouldn’t warp Luke into something detestable, and Annabeth, as immature. She shut her eyes tighter, denying permission. Deny, deny, deny.
“Should I have tried harder? If I had… would things still be the same today?” What her eyes try to imprison escapes through her voice. It’s cracked, and raggedy, and Annabeth twirls a small blade of grass in her fingers. Her back aches after hours of sitting against the hard wall.
Connor scoots closer and wraps his arms around her shoulder, pulling her into his body. She doesn’t turn her head toward him, but her body relaxes into his softness.
“No, Annabeth. You were… you were just a little girl.”
The last time she smokes, and she remembers this clearly, is the day after Percy’s fifteenth birthday. She holds the lighter close to her face, watches as it chars the edge of the cigarette, but the burn doesn’t feel good anymore. The singe of his lips on hers feel like burning coals, unlike the blackened paper she can taste in her throat. She thinks of the immediate after, him looking like he was denied air. Of his cool, green eyes, contrasting against the blazing red fire around them. Of the last line of the prophecy that she had hidden from him; if only hiding can make things disappear. She looked up at the sky, blue as Luke’s former eyes; a world of its own, just like he was to Annabeth, once upon a time. Red. Green. Black. Grey. Blue.
One more year. The Prophecy feels heavier than ever, even though she’s been carrying it since she was twelve. Her father. Her mother. Helen. Luke. The world. The rough wall of the Hermes Cabin. The sear of Percy’s lips. Her back aches. She sighs, putting the cigarette out, shoving the nub into the wet ground. She coughs once, and then taking a deep breath, learns how to inhale all over again.
