NPOV

"Nath I-"

"Shut up, just shut up!" Nath hissed as he yanked me further through the maze of parked cars. His one hand twisted in the cloth of my shirt, he couldn't get me locked up in his white Mercedes quick enough. He spared a few glances back over his shoulder, waited for a head to pop above the shining roofs, for some lost teenagers to appear from around the rear of the vehicle, smoking pot on the dusty ground or for a biker to slow down while gazing at us intently but the closer we got to the car, the emptier the sparking space got. Until it was just us standing between outlined rectangles of sand with not a single eye watching Nath's back. 

I didn't dare looking at him.

I didn't dare looking away from him. 

He let go off me, tossed me against a green Toyota and I hissed as my elbow dented the gleaming exterior. His finger pointed accusingly at me.

"I asked you one thing, one thing only Nico!"

I rubbed my tingling elbow, all feeling in my fingers gone by the shock, I flexed and stretched the blue skin underneath the gloves.

"Are you stupid?" 

I shook my head after a short pause. 

"I asked you something!" He took  an angered step forwards. 

"No." 

"Then how many times do I have to keep repeating myself until it gets through in that thick skull of yours?!" 

I stayed quiet.

"You love to be an issue, don't you? You adore being troublesome."

He will never know how much I wanted to respond 'no' to that with a wildly shaking head, how much those words irked me like festering wounds eating away skin. It hollowed me out, having them stuck on me like tacky labels. 

I couldn't say no because I would have been lying. 

I am, an issue,

I am, troublesome.

I blindly push people in directions where I think they should go, not aware of how the people close to me fall down like outlived domino bricks. The trail gets larger, the guilt gets bigger. 

I watch as it goes, unable to stop it. I never wanted the pile before my feet. I wanted to move from one place to another, a better place, that's all I ever wanted. 

I never strived to be the bad guy.

But no bad guy ever does, right?

The more I try to do the right thing, the more movement I make, the more people crash down. 

You can't rotate yourself around the very thing you caused. 

"Yeah, you do and you realize it. It's getting too ridiculous to deny," he said.

With that, the lights of the car flashed on and off as he unlocked the vehicle. 

"Get in," he ordered as he slung his door open. 

My knees felt wobbly as I walked to my side. The sun shone on my black hair, heating it pleasantly, my insides turned into concrete as my fingers wrapped around the handle. I couldn't find the mental strength in me to push it down. 

"I said, get in." Nath's voice was muffled against the window. 

Two blackbirds flew up from the branches, into the bright blue sky. I remember thinking how beautiful the day could have been to anyone else but me. 

"Enough of your games!" 

The door swung open. I had just enough time to dodge it, getting squeezed between the Mercedes and the green Toyota. The light in Nath's eyes sparked out of control as he looked at me. 

"What is wrong with you?" He spat. His head red from restrained anger and the musty warmth from inside. 

Without answering, I squeezed my body through the small opening before dropping myself down on the leather seat. Nath put his keys into the contact. With a small jostle, the car sputtered backwards. I quickly shut my door again. Nath manoeuvred out of the narrow parking spot and drove a few meters forwards before slowly coming to a stop. I glanced sideways, wondering why he had pushed his foot on the brake. 

 "Do you know how soul-draining it is to put up with you?" he asked. His fingers had turned white from snaking so tight around the steering wheel.

"Nath I-"

The impact of his fist was so quick and hard, my whole body banged against the window from the unexpected blow. The pain that shot up from my nose and cheek made me cry out without thinking. His eyes were feral as he grabbed me by my shirt. 

"Stop moaning like a porn star and actually behave like a decent fucking person next time, got it?"

I whimpered in disbelief as I tried to wipe away the blood streaming down my nostrils. Red dripped down on my pants, over my shirt, tainted my fingers. My whole face pounded from the warm glowing skin. 

"You son of a-" I rasped out.

He glared at me to shut it. I tilted my head backwards to try and slow down the niagara waterfall.

I kept breathing heavily, blinking my eyes open and closed to force the tears away as Nath made a turn to the left. 

"I'm only asking you to stop behaving like a little child. I came to pick you up, I wanted to take you to town, do something fun together but then people ran up to me and said you've been acting all kinds of hysteric during a respectable meeting... Honestly, I don't think I know someone who's a bigger attention whore than you are." 

I let his ramble wash over me as I laid my head against the window. My arms had started shaking again so I pulled them closer against my sides. I looked right into the sideview mirror, breath itching in my throat, tiny specks of red glistened on the dashboard, a trail smudged over the glass window from where my nose had hit it.

My wheezing stopped. My heart made a triple tumble in my chest. Nath quickly glanced from the road to me. 

"What? What is it?" He asked. His eyes darted back to his window shield. 

I kept staring at the silhouette in the mirror, growing smaller and smaller the further we drove away from it. 

Her outlines unmoving as she stood in the cloud of sand the wheels of the Mercedes blasted her way. 

Her monolid eyes didn't blink once as she watched us go. I wished I could've seen the expression on her face but the sun and distance had turned her into a dark purple stain against the horizon. My insides froze.

Blair.

"Stop." he didn't hear my hoarse voice over the humming motor in the back, "s-stop, stop the car!" 

He slammed the brakes and turned his whole body to the rearview mirror, the seatbelt hugged his chest tighter. His eyes widened.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he cursed as he spotted the short figure lingering on the parking grounds. As he hurriedly wrestled himself out of his seatbelt, Blair darted away. 

"Wait!" I grabbed his arm, "let me handle her, I know her."

Before he got the chance to say anything, I had already thrown myself out of the car door. My heart pounded in my chest as I sprinted after her. 

"Blair!" I yelled. My voice sounded slightly nasal from the blood that had started clotting up in one of my nostrils. 

"Blair wait!" 

Dust prickled in my eyes as I caught up with her.

"Blair."

She slowed down into a jog before coming to a stop, she bent over with her hands on her knees. Her black vans were now a faded grey from all the dust that was coating it. I could hear her rushed breaths as I pulled her up to look at me. 

"Blair, where are you going?" I asked while ignoring the growing headache from the bright light around me. I quickly pulled my hand back as I noticed the red fingerprints I left on her shirt. 

"Where am I- Nico! I saw that guy hit you!" Blair exclaimed. Her cheeks red from running. 

"No wait, it's not..." I let out a laugh and shook my head while wrecking my brain for a believable ending to that sentence. I glanced from her face to the Half-Blood house where no sign of life was given.

Thank God, we had that meeting at 7 a.m. 

"it's like you auditioned for a remake of Carrie!" Blair nearly screamed as she gestured at the sticky blood on my chin and shirt.

"Now you're being dramatic."

"Dude!" her dark eyebrows shot up to the sky, her voice cracked, "my tampon from this morning has seen less blood than you." 

Her shrill voice made me close my eyes for a second as the hammering in my skull worsened. I saw some movement from behind the curtain of the front room.

"Okay calm down," I gritted out, "no need to worry anyone." 

Blair marched past me. "Percy! Percy!" she yelled with her hands cupped around her mouth. 

I crossed my arms and scoffed. "So you're going to call Percy for a bloody nose now? He'll be thrilled to hear that you interrupted his nap for that." 

She waved her hand at me as if I was some annoying fly buzzing around her head. 

"Percy!" 

I glanced back at the white Mercedes with Nath in it. I could see his outlines watching us sharply from the rear window, head turned to us. He ticked his finger against his wrist. I whirled back to Blair while the nerves squeezed my ribs closer against each other. 

"Percy will walk out any minute," Blair said, more to herself than to me.

"I'm not scared." 

"You're not scared of Percy?" 

"No."

She paused for a moment, her black eyes darted over me before she placed her hands around her mouth once more and started screaming "Annabeth!" at the top of her lungs. 

I yanked her by her arm. 

"Don't call Annabeth!" I hissed. She opened her mouth to say something when the door of the Half-Blood house slowly creaked open. 

"Annab-!"

I hurled her against the ground behind a black s.u.v. My heart beat wildly as I clasped my hand over her mouth. 

"Not a word," I whispered, my face an inch from hers. Her eyes were blown wide as she nodded. I released my shaking fingers from her lips, a string of salvia between them. 

"Hello?" Annabeth called out. 

I pushed my back closer against the hot exterior of the car as I carefully peeked around it.

Annabeth's blonde head poked out of the opening and looked to her left. 

"Did anybody call me?" her voice rung through the silence. I didn't even dare breathing out. 

"Hello?" her head turned to the right and I dove away. 

My heartbeat skyrocketed. 

"Hellooo?" she sing-sung but besides the passing of cars, no sound answered back. She shrugged before pulling the door closed again. 

I turned back to Blair with murderous eyes. Right when I wanted to scold her, she cut me off.

"Dude, did you just batista bomb me in a parking lot?!"

She scrambled back onto her feet and dusted off her ripped jeans. I leaned my head against the car while gazing up at her.

"You can't tell anyone." I said.

"Why not?" 

I sighed deeply while rolling my head over my shoulder. "Because I punched him first, I'll get in trouble again." 

She looked at me, her movements slowed for a solid second.

"You did?"

"Yeah and they're already really mad at me for falling into that pool, if they hear that I've been fighting again they'll probably kick me out of the House." 

My leg started bouncing again. Blair might have though I looked away out of guilt but it was only out of shame, growing hotter and larger with every lie that slipped out of my mouth. 

If there's anything a troubled fifteen-year-old understands, then it certainly is another comrade in need.

"I don't want you to get kicked out," her eyes were puppy size large, the closest thing to earnest I had seen in a painfully long time, "you're our wacko uncle."

A soft snort left my throbbing nose. 

"Pinky promise to keep it our secret?" I asked with a smile and raised my trembling arm up to her. 

She bit her lip, glanced over me once more before warily locking her finger into mine.

"Okay, our secret then." 

-

"Nath," I rasp with a nearly non-existent voice. My head is pounding so badly, almost every movement makes me fall over myself. My nose has swollen to the amount where breathing can only be done through my mouth. I grab the icepack of the table and lazily lay it onto my warm face. 

"Nath," I try again.

"Hmm?" He doesn't look up from the tv before him.

"Can I go to the music school? There's nearly no one there at this hour and I really want to play the piano." every word hurts my throat. 

Flashes of white slide over his face as he answers; "No."

I lean onto the table with almost all of my weight, frustration boiling under my skin "Please Nathan, it calms me down so much and it's been so long." 

Nath emotionlessly zaps from one channel to the other.

"Nath?"

Nothing.

I bite my lips as the tiredness inside of me pushes the tears into my eyes.

"Nath come on! Please just let me play!"

I'm near begging now. Nathan dismisses me with a wave of his hand, "Alright, alright stop wailing already. You can go."

I breath in through my parted lips. The helplessness and anger that was roaring underneath my skin evaporates through my pores.

"Thank you," I bring out. 

I turn away from him so he can't see the sly smile that takes over my face. From out of the pocket of my pants, I fish out a small lilac card with the curling letters 'Dance performance minis'.

I promised Summer a while ago that I'd go see her and her friends from ballet class. Now, Nath would never let me go into a theater with Will in fact, Nath won't let me go anywhere in a hundred miles radio near Will. But he never went to the music school, he doesn't know Summer trains next to it every Wednesday afternoon, the last class of the day. 

So I might not be able to watch her on stage but at least I can watch her from the little window. 

I smile brighter as I shove the card back into my pocket. 

"I'm coming Summer," I whisper underneath my breath. 

---------------

My boyfriend dumped me so I'll just project all of my love onto this story.

Stay strong my loves! xx