Percy

The nurse let me go home early after I talked to the councilor a little bit. Just about how I didn't feel ready to come back to school. Told her that I had a panic attack already and it wasn't going to get much better immediately.

So I went home, watched a little TV, talked to Grover. Mom got home around 2, which is pretty normal.

"Percy?" Mom asked, knowing I went to school this morning. "Sweetie, what are you doing home? I thought you had study hall a different hour."

"I uh, went home early." I explained to her, taking a sip of the tea I made myself a little earlier. "I didn't just leave, I went to the nurse first."

"Oh no," she remarked, looking a little more worried than she's been. "I'm sorry, sweetie. Are you feeling alright? You're not sick, are you?"

"I'm not sick," I promised her. "School just uh... It was a bad idea."

She gave me a questioning look.

"I had a panic attack emotional breakdown sort of thing during lunch," I clarified. "With all the people and teachers putting attention on me, it was overwhelming and like... Yeah. I talked to the counselor, she agreed that it was a good idea to go home. To wait a little bit until I go back. Not a long time but like... A week maybe?"

Mom rubbed my back, at least trying to be supportive. I missed her a lot when I was gone. Didn't miss Paul too much, but I really missed Mom and Wilson.

"Then don't worry about going to school," Mom assured me, giving me a kiss on the temple. "We'll enroll you when you feel ready. And if it's taking longer than we think it would, we can always look at doing online or something. Outside of that, are you feeling alright?"

I shrugged.

"Just tired, I think."

"Did you sleep last night?"

"I tried to, but not really."

She was nice enough to tell me to just lay down and try to get a little bit of sleep. So I slept for maybe an hour. Nico showed up a few minutes after I woke up with Grover. Which... A little bit of nerves were there, just because I knew Wilson was going to stop by after school, which would be ten, twenty minutes from now tops. Depending on how soon he gets out.

"Hey, what's..." I said, sitting up. "what's up?"

"Hey, you're up!" Grover exclaimed as Nico sat in my window sill. "Not much, but you forgot some stuff. I figured I'd pop in and Chiron wouldn't let me leave alone, so. I just got back. How uh... How are you doing?"

I shrugged, telling him he can just put the box next to my school bag.

"Eh," I figured. "I mean, not the best, but that's mostly because I haven't been sleeping and Paul forced me to go to school today."

"Already?" Nico asked.

"Already," I confirmed, nodding my head. "I had a panic attack during lunch and went home early, so. I'll be here for a few days, but yeah. Wilson's coming over in a little bit. You've met him, right?"

Grover thought for a second.

"No?" He guessed. "You've definitely talked about him a little, but I've never met him. We used to have a demigod named Wilson. I wonder what happened to him. Went home and just... Never went back."

"Oh, well, you can meet him if you want to," I insisted. "You complain about not knowing him but you never come over when he does."

"Who's Wilson?" Nico asked, out of the loop.

And my dumbass... Like, Grover knew because he knew Annabeth was a lesbian and I'm gay.

"My boyfriend."

But then I realized how bad that sounded.

Nico's eyes went wide, and I was ready for a lecture.

"You..." He started off, off the window sill now. "You're cheating on Annabeth? Percy!"

Shit.

"No, no, I'm not..." I started off, knowing he was waiting for an explanation. "We're not... Annabeth and I aren't really together."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I..." I said and stopped for a second. "I'm gay. Annabeth's a lesbian. But her family is Mormon and will disown her if they find out. So we're dating as far as her parents are concerned. And her parents talk to Chiron, meaning Chiron has to think it, too. Okay?"

Nico just looked at me for a second.

"You're... Does your boyfriend know that?"

"Yeah!" I assured him. "He's well aware. Annabeth has a girlfriend. I won't say who, though, because I'm not that big of an asshole. This stays here, by the way."

"Of course," Nico insisted. "But uh, Annabeth and the others will be here any minute, they just stopped because Piper and Frank both had to pee really bad."

Shit.

"Yeah." Grover agreed. "Good luck with that one."

Thankfully, the others showed up first. Even better, Clarisse was with. Annabeth, Piper, Hazel, Clarisse, Frank, and Jason.

"Hey, Annabeth," I said, and remembered that I should probably say something so people aren't worried. "Babe, can you and Clarisse come over here for a minute."

A little curious, they wandered over to the kitchen as everyone else was in the living room.

"Hey, what's up?" Annabeth asked as they stood across from me. "We didn't come at a bad time, did we?"

"No, timing is fine," I insisted, looking at the time. "However, you guys know Wilson."

"Like, your friend?" Clarisse asked, being careful with wording in case somebody was listening in.

"Yeah, that one," I agreed. "he'll be here in tops ten minutes and I'll be lucky if he didn't do anything suggestive while everyone is here because my parents know and aren't even home right now."

"Oh," Annabeth remarked. "Shit. That's uh..."

The three of us shared a look, because this is something we've discussed on occasion. Telling our friends and just hoping that Annabeth's parents don't find out.

And if they do? Clarisse starts college next fall, she could stay at home for the year and move in with Clarisse. It's not as bad as it was a year and a half ago when we got this idea.

"I mean, I'm not..." Clarisse started off and looked at me and then at her girlfriend (her and Chris dated for about a year and a half and got together shortly after Annabeth and I started this). "Should we tell them? You guys know them better than I do."

"Well Grover already knows." Annabeth thought out loud. "I'm just worried about Leo and Hazel, and maybe Nico? Leo can keep a secret, but he is a loud mouth at times. I don't know if Nico and Hazel are homophobic or not, though."

"Nico isn't," I assured Annabeth of that much about the situation. "I don't know about Hazel, but Nico isn't. She is friends with Leo, though, which seems promising."

"Yeah," she agreed with that, and let out a sigh. "I mean, they would find out eventually, what's the harm in them hearing now? We're here, so if Chiron calls my parents, I stay here. I don't have to worry about the flight and whatnot."

"Are you sure, Annie?" Clarisse asked her, sounding slightly worried. I would be, too. "if you aren't ready to come out, I have Wilson's number, we can try to call."

"No, I'm... I'm sure," She insisted, giving Clarisse's hand a squeeze. "I'll be right back."

I expected her to have to go to the bathroom or something like that. Not to just walk over to the others immediately.

"Hey, everything alright?" Piper asked Annabeth, who smiled.

She's really going to do this.

"Yeah!" The daughter of Athena assured Piper, nodding her head. "We were just talking and there's some news."

"News?" Nico asked, as if he didn't already know. "like, good news or bad news?"

"Good." Annabeth told them.

"Alright," Leo figured.

And I don't know why, but she thought it'd be alright to just phrase it like this:

"So Percy and I aren't dating—"

And I saw Piper and a few others make this split second assumption that I just broke up with her for Clarisse. I saw the dirty look.

"Stop it," Annabeth told the daughter of Aphrodite. "That isn't the story at all."

"So... Why is this good exactly?" Frank questioned, confused as all hell. And I don't blame him, because in the end, it was absolutely terrible wording. "like, breakups usually aren't a good thing.'

"I mean we didn't really break up, it's more of a..." She started off. "we didn't really date in the first place."

They weren't getting it, though.

"You definitely did date." Hazel remarked. "Are you feeling alright, Annabeth?"

"Yes, I'm fine, it's..." Annabeth turned around to face me. "Help?"

So I sighed and just told them.

"I'm gay and Annabeth's a lesbian but her parents are Mormon so we faked a relationship to get them off her back and now that we're both in actual relationships and at a safe age where she can have other places to go if her parents kick her out, we've decided that it's okay to let you guys in on it as long as we keep Annabeth's parents thinking that were dating."

And they all just stopped for a moment, it was really kind of hilarious.

"So... Your parents?" Leo questioned.

"Oh, they know," I assured them. "the whole thing was my mom's idea a few years ago after she first met Annabeth's dad."

And personally, I though Jason nudging Nico was absolutely hilarious because I am well aware that Nico's gay and at one point in time liked one of us here. For me, it wasn't hard to figure out. I've known for a while.

But he's not ready to come out, and so I won't ask, I won't push him.

Jason's nudge gave me the idea that I might've been that crush, though. And that he's out to just Jason.

Because it's weird how their friendship works, and it would make sense of it was something like that. A secret to keep, an almost forced friendship between them.

Jason whispered something, Nico ignored him, and Hazel asked about our relationships outside of each other. So Annabeth and Clarisse officially, after over a year, came out as a couple. I assured them that my boyfriend was on his way. He's a demigod who went to camp when we were younger but we met from school. So he knows of the gods, but won't recognize everyone.

Which meant they were super excited to meet him or reunite with him and within another ten minutes he showed up with some Chinese. And while I wasn't that hungry, I accepted the Lo Mien.

"Annie!" Wilson exclaimed, seeing the others here and immediately knowing that people probably think I'm dating Annabeth. Don't be super touchy. "Grover! Clarisse! I didn't know you guys would be here!"

Annabeth knew Wilson and I were dating, we met with her a while ago. Last week. Her and Thalia. But I think Clarisse and Grover almost lost it when they realized that it's the same person that they knew.

"Yeah, we had to drop some stuff off," Clarisse explained to him. "my gods, you grew up. Where did you go? It's been years! We miss you at camp!"

"Uh, just like, different camps?" He figured, shrugging. "the past couple years it's been swim camp. Maybe this summer I'll go back, I'll talk to Mom about it. I heard it got really bad, though."

"From who?" Grover asked.

"Uh, well I just found out that Beckendorf is dead during lunch today because of like, Kronos? That's really bad I feel like. Percy was gone for what? Almost 10 months. Because of camp? That's bad."

"Look, it..." Annabeth stated. "yeah, it got really bad. I can't promise much.  It's a shitshow, but your cabin needs a leader who isn't what? 14?"

"He just turned 15," Nico agreed. "He won't leave me alone."

"That's because he likes you, Nico." Piper remarked, humored by his annoyance.

"I never would've guessed," Nico wasn't about to deny that. "I don't know why. I'm not that bad, but we've only talked like twice before this fall? In meetings? I didn't even know his name until this last August and he asked me out like as soon as I was out of the infirmary. Which, I'm flattered, but be needs to calm down a little. He's also... He's not my type."

I chuckled.

"What's your type, Nico?" I had to tease him for it. "girls?"

He thought about it.

"I mean..." He shrugged. "No. But even at that, he has way too much energy. I don't even like getting out of bed unless I can eat."

I don't think most people realized that Nico just came out because nobody said anything about it, just agreeing with the last comment.

Either way, though, everyone was just chilling out and we were playing cards against humanity in teams, and so like obviously, I went with Wilson. And he was being chill about it.

However, I was feeling touchy, so I basically laid on top of him so look at our cards. The game went on for a few rounds before the others all left and it was just Wilson and I.

"Are you feeling alright?" Wilson asked me once everyone was gone. It was Friday, which meant date night for my parents. They won't be home until a bit later. "You're normally not this touchy with a bunch of people unless something's up."

I shrugged.

"I'm okay," I assured him. "we uh, told them about the whole situation between Annabeth and I not too long before you showed up, which is why I didn't really care. They all knew when you showed up who you were. So like, yeah. I'm okay. A little tired from the unexpected visitors, but okay."

Wilson smiled, giving me a kiss on the forehead.

"Good," he insisted. "I was worried after lunch, that was bad."

"Yeah, it was," I agreed. "But I'm going to wait and hopefully it'll be okay to go back soon. I missed you and the team."

He smiled again, this time giving me a legit kiss.

"I missed you, too."