(TW: Mentions of suicide attempt)

Walking into the school building was like walking into a prison, the atmosphere felt so gloomy and drained of any happiness. Part of Percy wanted to just sit in the corner and listen to CD's of all his favorite songs, but unfortunately he couldn't just ditch school. Where was he supposed to hide? The whole place was the school, and escaping would probably just get him sent back to a disappointed mother and a pissed off step-father.

  "Luckily your first period is the same as mine, Algebra II. Don't worry, it's better to have the worst class first, that way the rest of the day just passes by." Jason chuckled at his own statement, but Percy just stared at the floor. He was never good at math, especially Geometry. No matter how much the teacher tried to drill it into his brain, Triangle congruency Just didn't make any sense. Algebra made a bit more sense, seeing as it was actual numbers and formulas involved throughout the majority of the class, but he still was terrible at it.

  "Yeah, guess so." Percy followed Jason to a seat near the back of the room, he set his bag on the desk next to the one Jason sat at. "So, anyone else from yesterday gonna be in this class?"

  "Yeah, Annabeth. Her boyfriend is in this class too, he's really nice. You'll like him," Jason smiled as he spoke. "His name is Luke Castellan."

  Percy nodded, staring at the doorway as the pretty blonde walked in, her hand linked with a tall guy with blond hair. Percy wanted to know why there were so many blondes in that classroom, his black hair stood out like a sore thumb.

  "Percy! Oh my gods you have to meet my boyfriend!" She nudged Luke, who just smiled.

  "I'm Luke," he said.

  "I've heard." Percy chuckled, brushing his hair away from his eyes, "And I'm Percy."

  "Oh really? I've heard as well," Luke snickered. Percy couldn't understand why Luke pissed him off so much, and he really tried figuring that out. Maybe it was because the dude was way too attractive to just be a random guy at a boarding school, but Percy was determined to figure it out. "Where'd you transfer here from?"

  "Oh, Jupiter high. It's in Queens, I believe," Percy hated going to school in Queens, which was probably why he had been so excited when the principal expelled him. He'd have to wake up incredibly early in the morning just to make it to school on time, that was both mentally and physically exhausting.

  "I think I've heard of it, I grew up in Connecticut but moved to Queens when I was nine. Obviously never went to the high schools there, though," Luke chuckled at the memories he was thinking of, his arm still linked with Annabeth's.

  "That's cool," Percy nodded, eager to just sit down. Luke seemed to be a conversationalist, Percy didn't like that. Percy wasn't a conversationalist, he'd rather just sit down and be ignored all day, just as he was in his old schools.

  The bell rang, causing Luke and Annabeth to go sit in front of Percy and Jason, much to Percy's dismay. The teacher walked in, she was a tall woman with long brown hair that was put up in a bun, he couldn't tell if she was going to be a chill teacher or an uptight one.

  "Alright class, I hope you did your homework last night, because today we have a pop quiz. You need to apply the formula used in your homework to solve five questions," She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the equation on the board. Once she was finished she set the chalk down and looked around the room until her eyes met Percy's. "We also have a new student joining us today, would you like to come up here for a moment?"

  Percy sighed, "Not really."

  A few students snickered at that, but Percy didn't mind. He was once scared of sassing teachers, or adults in general, but he soon learned that it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

  "Well, too bad kiddo. Get up here, introduce yourself, and then we can speak about where you left off in your old school," She put her hands on her hips with a grin plastered on her face, Percy groaned. "I'm Ms. Athena, by the way."

  Percy nodded and stood up, trudging his way to the front of the classroom. Eyes burned into his skin at each step, the constant feeling of attention reminding him of why he hated talking at school.

  "I'm Percy Jackson, hi." That was lame, so lame. Percy wanted to hit himself with a baseball bat just for saying something so lame, but alas he was still standing in front of his new classmates, who were expecting some grand speech, but only got a name and a greeting.

  "Where do you come from?" Ms. Athena urged, obviously not satisfied with his introduction. He needed Leo to teach him how to make a cooler introduction, that guy was good.

  "Manhattan, I went to public school, until now, obviously."

  Percy definitely wasn't getting a public speaking award anytime soon, no matter how much he'd like to say he improved at it. Sure, he liked to act tough in a small crowd, but when it's a bit of a larger crowd and they're all looking at him, he'd forget everything he taught himself.

  "Must've been nice there, do you miss it at all?"

  Ms. Athena obviously never lived in Manhattan or went to public school, because neither of those were all that nice.  "Not really."

  "Well, you'll like it here," Ms. Athena gestured for Percy to walk to her desk, he complied. "Which unit did you leave off on in your old school?"

  Percy shrugged, he never bothered to pay attention in his old school. At the time, he didn't really believe that his grades mattered, so he didn't try. Bad idea on his part, of course, because his grades unfortunately mattered now.

  "Alright, just try and keep up with the units then, if you need any help I can assign you a tutor, alright?"

  Percy nodded, grabbing the papers she handed him, and walked back to his desk. People still occasionally looked at him throughout the hour, and he felt each one.

——

  Lunchtime arrived quickly, which was quite a surprise to Percy. At first he searched for an empty table to sit at, he didn't really expect Jason and his friends to actually let him into their group. Jason had found him pretty quickly and led him to their table, which was in the corner of the dining hall. Apparently their cafeteria was fancy and didn't get the actual name, it had its own building and therefore named the 'dining hall.' Percy was already tired of the change.

  "Perce! You gotta meet someone, he was out doing some club stuff yesterday so you didn't get to meet him!" Jason exclaimed, he grinned widely. Percy Just snickered and followed along, carrying his lunch tray carefully.

  When they arrived at the table, Jason sat down and patted the seat next to him, Percy sat down in that seat and set his tray on the table. "Okay, so who exactly do I have to meet?"

  Hazel grinned and pointed at the boy that sat next to her, Percy looked at him and stared.

"This is Grover Underwood! He's the head of the NRC!" Hazel grinned, "Which is the nature revision committee, if you were curious."

   Percy stared at him, memories flooding back into his mind. He never could forget Grover, not after what he had done, and he knew Grover could never forget him.

  "Hi, my name is Percy. You a junior too?" Percy plastered on a smile, looking at Grover as if he'd never met him. Grover seemed to understand this, and plastered on his own smile.

  "Yeah, I am. I'm in AP classes though, so I doubt we'll have any classes together." He took a sip of his apple juice and looked at the others, who all seemed to not suspect anything. "Where are you from?"

  "Manhattan, lived there my whole life with my parents. How 'bout you?" Percy asked, picking up his spork and began indulging in his mashed potatoes.

  "I grew up in Manhattan too, but I moved to this area a few years ago," Grover responded, "Nice to meet you."

  "Yeah, you too."

  Thalia, Leo, Annabeth, and Nico all arrived at the table, instantly changing the subject. Percy didn't try too hard to insert himself into their conversations, though they kept adding him in, asking for his input or just asking him questions.

  "So Perce, you gonna tell us how someone like you got expelled?" Thalia asked, "Because I can't seem to figure it out."

  Percy just chuckled and leaned back in his chair, "A magician never reveals their secret."

  "This isn't a magic trick, you skank!" Thalia threw a pea at him, which unfortunately landed in Jason's mashed potatoes. "Ah shit, Jason, that was meant for Percy!"

  Jason stood up and picked up his tray, walking over to Thalia with a devilish grin on his face. He grabbed her tray and placed his own on her tray, stealing hers and walking back to his seat. "You're Lucky I'm not Leo."

  Piper laughed, "Leo would throw it in your face."

  Leo nodded, "I could, or I could do worse. Much worse. Got any ideas, Percy?"

  Percy shrugged, "Uhh, Stomp on it and make her eat it? I'm not great at pranking, in all honesty." He raised his hands up defensively, and everyone seemed shocked by that.

  "Really? You seem like the prankster type." Leo commented, Percy just shrugged.

  "What's that supposed to mean? You trying to profile me like some sort of criminal investigator?" Percy never really used to think about what people would see when they look at Percy, but now he definitely would. If someone were to try and look deep into Percy's psyche, they probably would find something they wouldn't want to know. Or maybe they wouldn't find anything, maybe nothing about him would be all that interesting.

  "You know, that'd be a great job for me!" Leo grinned, "I've always been good at reading people."

  Percy smirked, "Read me then, tell me what you see."

  Leo grinned and stared at Percy, who stared back. Leo was an interesting guy, Percy wanted to get to know him more. He reminded Percy of himself when he was a kid, before everything went downhill.

  "You're a..." Leo began slowly, narrowing his eyes even more, "dumbass. I cannot profile, you are a dumbass."

  "Nah, you're great at this, I am, in fact, a dumbass!"

  "How about you?" Annabeth asked, "Can you read people?" She took a bite of her burger and gazed curiously at Percy.

  "Nah, Not much."

  "We don't know much about you, so tell us about yourself," Jason prompted, "What does Percy Jackson do with his life?"

  Percy once had an immediate answer to that question, he used to be able to go on and on about his interest with cooking. His mom had taught him at a young age and he had enjoyed it for many years, until that hobby became something he wasn't able to do.

  "I like to swim, I guess." He shrugged, though he hadn't actually swam in years.

  "Swimming? That's all you've got?" Piper teased, "When Grover joined our group, he practically had a whole list of interests!"

  "Yeah, well I'm not Grover," Percy didn't mean for that to come out so harsh, he looked over at Grover who was staring down at the table. "Shit- I'm sorry." He scratched at his thighs as he looked at the others, who didn't seem to know what to say.

  "So, we gonna meet at the spot after school?" Leo asked, changing the subject. "I could totally go for a game of Uno."

  Jason nodded, "That's a great idea, Leo." Jason looked at the others, who nodded.

  "I have a NRC meeting, but if we finish early I'll try and make it," Grover explained, and everyone nodded.

  "Sounds good, how about you Annabeth?"

   "Yeah, Luke's got football practice so.. yeah, I'll come." She seemed to look warily at another table, which Percy assumed was Luke's. He didn't turn to check, because he really didn't think it would be wise to give her stalker vibes on day two.

  "Percy?" Jason looked at him expectantly, he took a bite out of his burger and waited for an answer.

  "I got nothing better to do," Percy shrugged, "Why not?"

—

The rest of the school day went by quickly, which relieved Percy. He exited the school building and made his way over to his dorm, setting his bag down on his bed and grabbing clothes from his dresser. A nice hoodie and sweatpants, comfy. He went to the bathroom and changed, but of course, he stared at himself in the mirror.

  His mother once told him that vanity was an unfortunate trait to have, though he himself never seemed to have it. She'd always say that staring in the mirror too long will tell you more about yourself than you want to know; if you only see flaws, you're insecure; If you see both good and bad, then you're normal; and if you only see good, you have a lot of vanity. Percy never understood why his mother told him that, he always wished he could never find anything wrong with his appearance. He could never seem to look in the mirror the same, always questioning if his mother's words were true. He'd asked her many times, and she'd tell him to figure it out on his own, said that it was important to make the journey without guidance.

  His mother was too cryptic for him sometimes, but he loved her nonetheless.

  He opened the bathroom door to see Jason staring at him with an eyebrow raised, "Did you go in there just to change?"

  "Uh, yeah?"

  "You can change in here, Y'know. We're both dudes, it's not a big deal."

  Percy shrugged, "I'm just used to the privacy."

    Jason nodded, "Listen, about earlier-"

  "Is this about what I said about Grover? Cause I didn't mean for it to come off like that, I just-"

   "We aren't mad at you, he isn't either. He's just.. he's a bit more sensitive than the others." Jason began to explain, Percy didn't like where things were heading. "He.. don't tell him I told you, but he had a friend who attempted suicide, Grover saved him."

  "Oh."

  "He hasn't seen his friend since, and he hasn't been the same, according to him anyways. He's a good guy, you just need to be careful with what you say."

  Percy frowned, "You act like he's the one who tried to kill himself."

  Jason furrowed his brows and frowned, "Dude, what the fuck? You can't just say that, you don't know what he went through."

  Percy sighed and nodded, "Right, sorry. I shouldn't be so insensitive, we should just go."

  Jason nodded, rubbing his temples, "Don't keep saying stuff like that, okay? We don't tolerate that kinda shit."

  Percy nodded, following behind Jason silently. He'd already fucked everything up for himself, he was furious. Not at Jason, no, at himself.

  Gabe was right, he always was. Percy didn't want to admit it, but he often found himself agreeing with Gabe's words, even if he had tried so hard to deny them.

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Hi, I'm back

Okay so it's been a month.. I sorta forgot everything I wanted from this story that I hadn't written down, so I had to do a bit of figuring out in order to write this chapter.

Reminder: this story is about mental health, it's gonna be kinda heavy in the subjects. Percy is not the only one going through shit, but at the moment the story is from his perspective and he isn't paying much attention to his new friends, not enough anyways.
Also, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave me some!
I have no idea when the next chapter will come out, but hopefully soon.