chapter forty-four

─── awkward conversations are my specialty

          𝕿halia had been taken to the med bay soon after, with neither Annabeth or Luke seeing her, nor her seeing them. The next few days at camp had been tense.

Chiron had decided that the emotional strain on both Luke, Annabeth and Grover, meant that none of them should talk to Thalia, let alone catch her up on the past six years that she had been gone for. It was also decided that she probably shouldn't meet me just yet either, considering she also didn't know that she had a cousin who was, supposedly the same age as her.

At least, I think we were the same age. 

Chiron had said that when she was a tree, Thalia had aged slower, making her now younger than me, at fifteen, whereas she should have been my age. Instead of aging 6 years, she'd aged 3 and no one could really work out why. Not like there was a book on How to Care for your Best Friend after she died and got turned into a tree.

It would be super helpful if there was one.

Now, nearly a week later, Thalia had been discharged back to One, and Luke, Annabeth, me and Grover, were all trying our best to avoid her. No one really knew how to have that conversation, but on top of that, Annabeth was still avoiding me and Luke.

It was a somewhat shit show.

"Why are you distracted?" Luke's sword swung towards me, and I ducked, dodging backwards. Slicing upwards, I kicked the back of his knee as his mind faltered.

"I could ask you the same question." He huffed, before finally coming to a stop. Sweat was beading at his brow, and he pulled his shirt off for a fresh one. I was already in a sports bra, the July heat practically sweltering. Scratching at my scars, I grabbed Luke's water bottle and began to drink. "We can't keep avoiding them."

"We can."

"We really can't." I pointed out, looking up at my boyfriend. He was staring at his bag, meticulously getting the sand out of his sword and ignoring eye contact. "Babe..."

He continued to ignore me.

"Luke." I touched his side, nudging gently until he looked down at me. "We can't avoid them forever, we have to speak with them."

"That's easy for you to say."

"They are your family." I pointed out. "You know them better than anyone."

"You want me to explain to Annabeth that we hid the fact we were dating from her, and then to Thalia that she got turned into a tree for 6 years and I'm now dating her cousin. She'll love that."

"You never know, she might."

"She won't." Luke hissed.

"We're cousins. Family ties might count for something." I pointed out, as Luke shook his head. "Okay, Mr. Pessimist, what do you suggest? We avoid them forever?"

He looked like he was seriously considering it.

"Luke!" The man scowled. "Alright, you take one and I take the other. We need to do this. We've been putting it off for far too long."

"We can put it off for longer."

"No." I glared. "My birthday is under a month away. I'm not having my nineteenth be a mess because of family issues. They're your sisters, we have to speak with them."

"Thalia doesn't think we're siblings."

"Well, maybe sing her Sweet Home Alabama and explain that it would be incest and also, she's a minor." I pointed out. "Then it's not the crime of stealing the lightning bolt and raising Kronos to worry about, it's jail time for serious crimes against humanity."

"So eloquently put."

"Maybe we should just play them Sweet Home Alabama."

"We're not playing them Sweet Home Alabama and even if we did, Thalia wouldn't understand. She's been a tree for 6 years." Luke pointed out.

"Damn it. My good plans, foiled again." I huffed, before setting Riptide down and pulling my shirt back on.

"If that was the good plan, I hate to think of the backup ones." He slumped down beside me, before sighing. "What do I even say?"

"That it's good to see her?" I shrugged. "That you thought she was dead, that you want to thank her for sacrificing herself? That you missed her. Maybe leave out the whole resurrecting Kronos thing."

"I was gonna lead with it." Luke looked down at me, a smile breaking the serious look on his face as I laughed. Reaching up, I pressed my hand to his cheek and kissed him gently.

"You'll know what to say when you speak with her, but you've got to stop running." I whispered, as his shoulders slumped. "She'll be just as scared and confused as you are, Luke. But she's gonna need you. Just, treat it like every other new, scared camper who arrives at camp and gets put in Eleven. Treat her like me."

"I'm not treating her like I treated you, that was different." Luke stood with a huff. "You were special."

"You know, from anyone else, I'd take it as an insult." He laughed at my words, before shaking his head. "You're gonna do great. I'll deal with Annabeth."

"You sure? She's not gonna be happy."

"I'm sure." I nodded, before grabbing my bag. "It'll be better coming from me than you."

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"Annabeth." She spun, finding that I was standing in her cabin. Malcom, her brother, had let me in, and I'd managed to make sure that Annabeth was in the library at the back of the Athena cabin so that she couldn't run. "No more running, we need to talk."

She put her back to me, huffing, as I set my workout kit down.

"Neither of us wanted you to find out like that."

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long have you two been dating?" Annabeth tugged at one of her braids, glaring daggers into the wall opposite her. "Weeks? Months?"

"Since last October." I replied, as she spun to stare at me, betrayal on her face.

"And neither of you told me?"

"No." I shook my head. "We didn't."

"Why? Why didn't you tell me? This has been going on for months, and neither of you said a word." Annabeth hissed. "Luke was travelling back and forth to see me all that time, was he seeing you as well?"

"Yes, because he was flying from JFK to San Francisco, it made sense that he'd see me before and after he saw you." I took a deep breath.

"Who else knows?"

"My mom, now the rest of camp." I licked my lips. "Annabeth, look, neither Luke or I knew whether or not our relationship was going to work out. There was no point telling people because if it didn't, there'd be so many rumours about why. You know how camp is. We weren't just not telling you because of your crush on Luke, we told no one."

"You..." Annabeth went quiet, as I shrugged. "How did you know?"

For a moment, I didn't say anything, trying to work out the best way to respond.

"Annabeth, of course we knew." I sat down on one of the benches. "It was bound to happen. Luke was one of the most consistent male figures in your life, if you didn't have a crush on him, I'd be surprised. But, Luke is seven years older than you, Annabeth, he's an adult, and for him to have acknowledged it or done anything that could be misconstrued, that would have been bad. As much as you like to pretend that you're mature and grown up, you're a child. He practically raised you."

"But..." Annabeth trailed off, as I sighed. This was the harsh truth, but unfortunately, she needed to hear it.

"You're his little sister, Annabeth." I reminded her. "He'll always love you as a sister, but nothing more."

"Why are you telling me this? Why not him?" Annabeth hissed.

"Because he's having to have the same talk with Thalia, and considering they've kissed, that's gonna be worse." I pointed out, scratching my hair. "He can only take so much mental strain, so I said that I'd talk to you."

Both of us went silent, before she came and slumped beside me. We stayed like that for a while, before she spoke again

"Luke never dated anyone, so I always thought that maybe, maybe I could have a chance." Annabeth whispered. "I didn't realise that he was grieving Thalia and then the quest happened."

"You were too young to know." I pointed out, wrapping a tentative arm around her shoulder. "He tried to hide the anger and pain from you."

"I was so angry at you because I..." Annabeth trailed off. "I thought I had a chance and that dream got shattered when I saw him kissing you."

Tears formed in her eyes, and I squeezed her a little tighter.

"I really wanted it to be him." Annabeth brushed her tears away. "I know it can't happen. I know it's stupid and that he's sees me as a sister. I just wished I was older and then that I wouldn't have that stupid crush, and then that I was you."

"Annie..." I kissed her head as she brushed more tears away. "You know, I once had an illogical crush on a teacher. He treated me like a normal person, instead of someone who got expelled from multiple schools, who had dyslexia and ADHD and had a shit home life. He always made sure that I had the resources I need to succeed in what I could do, and that there was a place for me to talk if needs be. It took me a while to realise that I was mistaking his care for a student as falling in love, because I wasn't used to people looking out for me. I'm still not. Luke looked out for you for a long time, he always made sure that you were safe and alright before anything else, but there will be someone else. Someone more your age who does that, who cares for you and looks after you, who treats you well and loves you for who you are. You don't need to be me, or older, you just have to be you. The person will come, the time will come."

"I wanted it to be Luke."

"I know you did." I kissed her head. "I know. It sucks, but in some ways, him being off limits might help you. It will allow you to see the difference between a brother and someone that you've got a crush on."

Annabeth sighed.

"There'll be other people, and I know that sentence sucks, but someone else is out there." I squeezed her a little tighter. "Like my mom always says, you're in camp, where there's only a limited number of people, but that's just the people in the zip code. I promise you, that there's other people out there much better than Luke."

"I know."

"Who aren't as annoying as him."

"Probably." Annabeth laughed lightly at that, and I took that as a win as she wiped the tears away. "It's not gonna go away overnight."

"I don't expect it to. But you needed to talk about it, and you needed to hear it from one of us."

"Thalia's gonna electrocute Luke and then you, you realise."

"I know." I shook my head. "That's Luke's problem at the moment. Not yours, or mine."

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Hiya,

So, this was a conversation to finish up the book with both Luke and Annabeth, because I wanted Annabeth to have the closure before the next book, because it allows for her to continue to grow and move on. I don't know how I feel about it, but hopefully it's alright.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx