“WHAT’S GOING ON!?” I shout when I wake up to a face full of ice water. Avery and Jameson dying of laughter a few feet away answers my question. “There are better ways to wake a person up, you know,” I groan, flopping back onto my pillow.

“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Xander says, “that the penalty for oversleeping here is to be woken up via ice water. But now they have to give us scones.”

“I’ll consider forgiving you if there are blackberry ones.”

“Don’t worry. There are,” Avery says. “And you get them after you’re ready for school.”

“By the way,” Jameson adds, “you two were sleeping awfully close, weren’t you?” Avery shows us a picture she snapped on her phone of us cuddling.
“You dating now or something?”

“Yup,” I say with a smile.

“Wait, really?” Jameson asks.

“Yeah. As of 2 A.M. last night,” Xander informs them. “Hence the reason we were still asleep.”

“Well either way you two need to get ready for school,” Avery says. “Scones are in the kitchen when you’re ready for them.” We go to get ready for school, Xander in his uniform, and me in a t-shirt and leggings, since my school doesn’t have a dress code.

After scones and coffee, we get into the same unmarked SUV. The driver will drop me and Percy off, then Xander since his first block isn’t for another hour. Heights Country Day has a weird schedule, so every student has all different classes at different times every day. Don’t ask me how it works. I’ve never understood it.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you after school then,” he says. I lean over and hug him, my door already half open.

“See you later.” Getting out is difficult because of the crutches, but I manage it. Percy and I walk to the commons to wait for the first bell to ring when we can go to class.

“Are you Mr. Jackson?” Mrs. Todd, our principal, asks when she sees us walking together.

“That’s our principal,” I whisper to him.

“Yes, I am,” he says.

“If you’ll just follow me, we have a few things to finalize about your schedule,” Mrs. Todd says, walking towards the office.

“I’ll see you later,” I tell him as he follows her. I walk down the hall, and my heart falls. Elaina. Wearing a crop top that I would definitely get dress coded for, with her perfectly curled blonde hair, pulled into a perfect ponytail, is walking straight for me.

“Crutches? Really, y/n? Are you that desperate for attention?” She mocks.

“This is real. I have a doctor’s note,” I murmur.

“Yeah, right. Just like you did last time. Dismissing you from class five minutes early, so you can get around without someone accidentally pushing you over? Nobody’s buying it.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You’re not worth my time anyways.” She walks past me, and I head to the commons. I find a table and try to become invisible. Then Percy comes in, and walks over, causing people to stare. Although he isn’t doing anything necessarily wrong, people stare. And they stare even harder when they realize that he’s walking towards me.

“Got my schedule,” he says, showing me a folded piece of paper, “and my school issued device.”

“Great. What classes do you have?” He shows me his paper, and he has almost all the same classes as me, other than P.E., but that’s just because I’m in the girl’s class. P.E. is first hour, then science, literacy, social studies, math, home ec, and language arts. The bell rings, and I show him to his first class, since the boy’s locker room is right next to the girl’s. I head in, and find the coaches.

“What do you need?” Coach Minno asks. She’s known for being grumpy first hour every day.

“I have a doctor’s note. Sprained ankle.” I show her the note Will wrote me. He was supposed to have altered the mist to make it look real, so I’m holding my breath, hoping that it had worked, until she responds.

“Fine. Change into your uniform to get your points for the day.” I let out a sigh of relief, and unlocked my P.E. locker. I quickly change out, then find a place to sit near the back of the benches.

I have to sit out of dodgeball, and I’m already on the bleachers when the boys come in. Percy stands out. Technically, he’s a little past highschool age, so we’re trying to pass him off as someone who just has really tall parents. Then he comes over to me again. And Elaina sees. She had always prided herself on having the tallest, richest, hottest, most athletic boyfriend in the school. David Johnson. He was the captain of the football team, and if his dad had just a little more money, he would probably be at Heights Country Day. But Percy looked like he could beat him in all of those categories.

She intercepts him before he can reach me. And she turns her charm way up. I predict that she will have broken up with David before lunch. Percy looks uncomfortable. I know that he won’t do anything with her, since he’s already dating Annabeth.

“Look, I already told you, I have a girlfriend,” he says.

“You don’t mean y/n?” She scoffs.

“What? No. She’s back at home.”

“You’re doing long distance dating?”

“Er- yeah.”

“She’ll never have to know.”

“I don’t care how popular you are, the answer is no. And y/n is my friend,” he says, coming the rest of the way to sit next to me.

“I see you’ve met Elaina?” I say.

“Wish I hadn’t. She’s like, obsessed.”

“You should see the way she acts around her boyfriend. But you probably won’t because she’s going to break up with him right after this class.”

“What? Why?”

“You. She has to be the one dating the number one stereotypical jock, and to be honest, you fit the bill pretty well.”

“I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t interested.”

“You did. She just won’t listen. Nobody’s ever said no to her, so she doesn’t know how to handle it now. She’ll think you’re playing hard to get or something.”

“Then she’s going to be sorely disappointed.”

“She needs that.” The boy’s coach blows his whistle, calling everyone to attention. I’m relieved that I don’t have to participate when he announces that we’re playing basketball. I just sit on the bleachers and watch. We go back into the locker rooms to change back into normal school clothes, when Elaina corners me.

“Why is that Percy guy so obsessed with you?”

“Obsessed? No. He’s just a family friend. Until he moved. But he’s back now, so-”
“I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the year if you make him like me.”

“What? I can’t do that. He has a girlfriend.”

“I. Don’t. Care. They’re long distance, so unless you tell her, she’ll never know.”
“No. I don’t care what you do to me. I’m not going to help you with this. Let Percy go, and don’t break up with David. He-”

“No. What I do about my boyfriend is my business. Are you going to help me with Percy, or not? And if you say no, I can make your life miserable.”

“You don’t have anything on me. I won’t help you with this.”

“Have it your way,” she scoffs, and goes to talk to Olivia, the school’s biggest gossip. But my record is clean. And there’s nothing Elaina could do to make me betray Annabeth like that.

I wait for Percy in the commons, since you’d have to pass through there to get to science, our next class. Eventually, he makes it out, and we walk to Mr. Thompson’s room. Mr. Thompson is possibly the strictest teacher in the whole school. So it’s just my luck that during the daily work, I see a monster pacing the halls. Percy is sitting next to me in the back of the class, so I nudge his elbow, and point to the door, trying not to freak out. Percy secures permission to use the bathroom after a mild argument, and he goes out to take care of the monster prowling the halls.

What would have happened if I hadn’t noticed it?