I wasn't on crack when I wrote this, I promise. Even if it looks like I was.

"Okay," the person starts. "We'll be reading part of a one shot I wrote."

"Why only part of it?" Frank asks. 

"So my readers will have to go and read the rest to find out what happens," the person answers. "Duh."

"Huh," Annabeth says. "That's actually a pretty good strategy. Self-advertising."

"Thank you." The person bows dramatically. "This story is called Dirty Little Secrets."

"Who's it about?" Leo questions.

The person smiles innocently. "You'll figure it out. I made up a situation I thought could happen and I wrote it out." 

Jason blinks in surprise. He hadn't really been paying attention. "Wait, so we're revealing someone's secrets?"

"Kind of," the person answers. "I made up a secret. Like, an alternate universe."

Percy nods in understanding. "Okay, sure. That makes sense."

The person starts. 

 The vase shone in the dim lighting of the moon, a simple red rose sitting in the glass leaning toward the window, as if yearning to be with the moon. 

"Why do I feel like this will be important?" Leo asks.

"What?" Piper says. "The rose?"

"Yup," Leo responds.

Piper simply shrugs in response.

The vase set gently on a small wooden nightstand- all that was on it was a digital clock and the vase. The vase with the rose.

Percy frowns. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't figure out why.

The numbers on the clock glowed a light red color. Why was everything red? The glowing numbers read 2:00 am. Was it really that early? 

"Well, if the clock says it's 2, it's probably 2," Annabeth says.

That's what the numbers read. But numbers can be deceiving.

Annabeth shrugs. Maybe it's 2, maybe it's not. How would she know? She had no way of knowing if it was 2 or not. She didn't write this story. (Or did she? Kidding, kidding. I'm not Annabeth. I'm too stupid to be a child of Athena. Nah, I'm a child of Oizys.)

The bedside table was untouched. No one used it. All that lay in it's drawer was a small pack. A pack that hadn't been used in years. Next to it, a lighter.

"No!" Hazel exclaims. "Smoking is bad for you."

"Yup," the person agrees. "At the beginning of the story, I tell the readers not to smoke."

Jason frowns. "I'm confused. You always talk about readers, but this isn't a story. It's real life."

"It's real to you," the person responds. "But I'm sitting behind a computer screen, typing this out."

Jason gives the person a look that asks, What the flying fuck?

 The drawer had cobwebs. It hadn't been touched in 4 years. 

Annabeth shudders.

"Good," Hazel says happily.

It was somewhat forgotten about. And, on top of the table, was a vase. A vase with a red rose. The rose had thorns. All good roses do. Cut the thorn off, but the scars will stay. They always do. A rose without thorns is like a man without imperfections. All men have imperfections. Everyone has imperfections.

"This is weirdly philosophical," Leo comments.

The person beams. "Thank you."

Leo hadn't really meant it as a compliment, but he didn't say anything.

Especially him. He was like the rose, in a way. 

"He," Percy echoes. "Is it one of us?"

"Yup," the person responds.

Like the rose, he was stained red. Red in his eyes. Red in his thoughts. Blood was red. The clock was red. The rose was red. Fire was red. He liked fire. 

"Is it Leo?" Annabeth asks. 

"Nope," the person responds.

Annabeth frowns.

Especially what it brought.

Smoke. They all knew it, but no one spoke up.

He sat up on his bed. He looked at the red clock. 2:01 am. He was a blue boy in a red world.

"Jason?" Frank frowned. "No, Jason wouldn't smoke.."

Percy knew who it was. He had a feeling Annabeth did, too.

 He never fit in. He never would. Blue never fit in with red. He knew that. He looked at the nightstand. It shone a reddish tint in the lighting. He always liked red. Fire was red. Fire brought smoke. He hadn't smoked in years. He needed fire.

2:02 am. He looked at the table once more. He reached toward it, his hand finding the drawer in the moonlight. He opened it, reaching his hand into the cobwebs.

Annabeth shivers again, gripping Percy's hand tighter. 

2:03 am. He pulled out the pack and lighter. He set the pack next to him, staring at the lighter. He flicked it once. Nothing.

"Maybe it wont work," Frank says hopefully. But he knows he is wrong.

 Twice. A spark. 

Frank is sad now. He doesn't want any of his friends to get cancer or something because of smoking.

Three times. A tiny flame leapt up. He smiled.

2:04 am. He stood up, lighter and pack in hand, and stepped outside into the cold, crisp autumn air. The moonlight caught him in it's grasp, dragging him into the light of its beauty. It was full tonight.

"The full moon messes with your brain," Annabeth informs her friends.

Percy thinks for a moment. "Like in H2O?"

Annabeth resists the urge to bang her head off a wall.

Leo high-fives Percy. (Because Leo is obviously secretly a fanboy.)

He took out a cigarette. His escape. He never wanted this. But sometimes life doesn't give you what you want, not because you don't deserve it, but because you deserve so much more. 

"Damn," Percy says, tears in his eyes. "That hit way too close to home."

"Was that a Perks of Being A Wallflower reference?" Annabeth inquires.

"Nope," the person says. "I saw the movie for the first time a few months after I wrote this."

"The book is better," Annabeth huffs.

The person shrugs. They'd never read it, so they couldn't really say anything.

He didn't know that, though. All he knew was that he would never get enough. He knew he deserved something greater, and he yearned to find it.

He softly placed the cigarette in his mouth, 

The person pulled a Twizzler out of nowhere and started to pretend to smoke it. 

Piper and Frank looked at them weirdly.

looking around to make sure no one was out. One flick. Two flicks. It sparked, a tiny flame appearing. He lit the cigarette.

A few months ago, you would've looked up to him and seen a hero, a person to look up to. Now, he seemed weak, sitting on the porch of his cabin at 2am, a cigarette in his mouth. He looked like your everyday delinquent. 

"Oh!" Piper exclaims. "It's Percy!"

"I'm offended," Percy huffs. Then, under his breath, he mumbles sarcastically, "Delinquent."

But, he was nothing of the such. Don't forget- looks can be deceiving.

He tapped his foot on the ground, a melody he knew all-too-well forming in a rhythmic pattern on the cold, leaf-covered ground. He took the tube out of his mouth, 

"Tube?" Hazel asks.

"Another word for cig," the girl answers. "You'll see a lot of words like that. Cig, butt, tube, etc."

blowing a cloud of smoke out from his lungs. He tapped the butt on the stairs, 

Jason frowns. "Tapping it? Why would you need to tap it?"

The person looks at Jason like he was an idiot. What, had he never seen someone smoke before? "To get rid of the excess ash, duh."

Jason looks confused. "Wha?"

The person ignores him.

watching the ashes gently fall to the ground.

Smoke still hung in the air around him, the misty gas floating and harboring itself into his mind. His two fingers loosely held the cigarette, but it didn't fall. It couldn't. To him, the cigarette was a part of him. A part that, no matter how many times he cuts off, always grows right back.

The first time he cut it off was when he was 9. He'd gone a few months without smoking, but on his 10th birthday, when his step-father gave him an extra beating, 

"Yup," Percy interrupts. "It's me. This story is about me."

Frank stares at his friend blankly. "How did you figure it out?"

Percy looks around at his friends. "Raise your hand if you had an abusive step-father." No one raised their hands. Except for Percy. "No? Just me? Okay then."

His friends who hadn't known gaped at him (aka everyone but the person and Annabeth).

he tried using his escape. It grew right back, and he was too naive to cut it off again.

The second was when he was 12. At Yancy, he'd finally made a friend. So, for the sake of that friend, he cut it off. He didn't feel as useless. But, then he got to camp. No one liked him, 

Annabeth cringed.

which wasn't a surprise, but he resorted to his escape when he was too frightful.

"And I never found out?" Annabeth asks in surprise.

Percy shrugs.

The third time was after his step-father died. 

Percy giggles. "'Died'," he says, grinning, putting air-quotations around the word. 

Leo looks at him strangely.

He took a few packs, just for the sake of the possibility he might start again. He knew he was free from the man. He had no more use for them. He took a pack and buried it in the park under a tree he was fond of as a child. Another, he put in a box under his bed. And, for the last one, in a drawer on a nightstand he never found a use for. A nightstand with a vase. A vase with a rose.

"The rose is back again," Leo notes.

He was like a rose. Everyone was. The thorns were imperfections, and pedals were what were great about them. Kindness, loyalty. Things like that. He didn't think he had many pedals. He knew he had thorns, though. More than others, too. At least, that's what he thought.

"You've got my self-hate and disappointment down nicely," Percy notices. "Good job." He high-fives the girl.

Again, he took the cigarette out of his mouth. Blow, tap, watch gently as the ashes fall and smoke rises. He put his escape back into his mouth.

He looked up at the stars. They were clear tonight. He looked up at his favorite constellation, the Huntress. 

Percy bowed his head in remembrance. 

She would probably be disappointed if she saw him here, by himself, smoking his worries away. But, no matter how disappointed she would be, he hoped she would understand. Well, at least if she were still here.

He closed his eyes. For a moment, he was no longer a war-stained man, no, he was a boy. A boy who didn't worry about how he might die the next day. 

The group of friends cringed.

No, a boy who worried about smaller things, like not finishing his homework or passing a test. But, as fast as the moment came, it was gone. Again, he was the war-stained man that would never truly find peace. He didn't mind being that man, though. He was used to it.

A silent tear rolled down Annabeth's cheek, going unnoticed by her peers.

Sometimes, all he wanted to do was fade away. 

"Like Pan," Percy mumbled sadly.

Let himself float away like a billow of smoke or a pile of ashes. But, he had people who needed him. And he couldn't just leave them. He knew that, of course, but he desired it with the deepest parts of his soul. Just imagine it: fading away into the breeze, letting your worries fade away. Like a pedal in the wind. A pedal from a rose. A rose on a nightstand.

"Always comes back to the rose," Leo huffs. "What's so important about it?"

"I don't know," the person says after a moment. "Maybe it has some sort of psychological influence. You can interpret it however you want."

It will always go back to the rose. Roses, like all things, die. Fade away. And he knew he would fade away, one day, too. 

Percy closed his eyes. Fading away sounded like a good idea. It was a nice thought.

But not his memory. No, that would not fade. Someone would always remember him. And he would remember the rose. That simple, red rose he kept thinking back at.

Again, he took his escape out of his mouth. Blow, tap, watch gently as the ashes fall and smoke rises. He put the cigarette back into his mouth.

"That's all I'll be reading," the person says after a moment. Sk8r hands them all a copy of the story. "You can finish it yourself if you'd like."

Annabeth smiles. "I'm sure you've heard this before, but you have a way with words."

The person returns the smile. "Thank you. I like writing. I think I'm pretty good at it."

Annabeth nods. "I like to say one of the most valuable traits you can have is persistence. So keep on writing, even if others say you're not good." 

This is a message to all my readers out there. Keep doing what you enjoy, even if you're not good at it, because I promise you'll get better. I used to be awful at writing, but I kept on going and learning. And look where I am now. I'd say I'm a pretty decent writer.