Déjà Vu (Secrets #2) | Percabeth AU

16- Kiss

Percy's POV 

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For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace. I wasn't thinking about Rachel and that stupid fake relationship thing or whether Mr. Collins was saying the truth about an arranged marriage when Mark hasn't even proposed yet. I was thinking about nothing really. My mind was empty. 

I listened to the way the water was softly splashing around me. How it feels on my fingertips. I opened my eyes and glanced at Annabeth. Her blond hair floating around her made her look like a goddess. Her skin shone bright and looked so soft that I wanted to reach up and caress it like how I did when I woke up today. It still amazed me that after all these years and she's still the most beautiful person I've ever laid my eyes on. 

What an angel. I sighed. Too bad I didn't get to you earlier. 

Her eyes seemed deep in thought. She was staring up at the ceiling and her eyebrows scrunched up. 

"What's in your head?" I asked, hoping that wasn't too intruding. She broke her gaze and looked at me, as if she forgot that I was here. She kept floating. 

"Just thinking about the past week," she said. I knew she was lying when she said she had an emergency that made her leave the studio without saying goodbye. Even it's been years, I can still tell when she's lying to me. 

"And?" 

"And... I can't help but think I'm like my mom," she confessed. 

I glanced at her. I wanted to say: Yeah, both of you are good at running away. But I didn't say that, in fear that she was going to drown me. 

I let her speak. "We both ran away when things weren't working. I know she left to pursue her dreams, and I did too. But, I felt like I ran away more to escape, not really for school." 

"I tried," I confessed. "I tried catching you at the airport, but you already left." 

She nodded and pursed her lips. "I know. I read all of your letters too."

I was shocked. I honestly thought she had thrown them all out. The amount of digging and asking I had to do to get her SF address. When I realized that she wasn't going to reply, I had stopped writing to her. Now to come think of it, I'm pretty sure I wrote embarrassing stuff. 

"I never told you, but I got into Cornell, Columbia, and Yale," she said. I smiled sadly, knowing that she could have been that close to me. 

2 of them are in New York. 1 close enough. 

"Why Stanford then?" I asked, needing to know why she chose the farthest school from me. Call me selfish or needy, but I just needed to know. 

"It didn't matter. You would have been out touring the world anyway," she said. That hurt me a little bit. Sure, I would've been touring, but I would've came back. "I needed to be home. Plus, the food is better in SF anyways." 

She shrugged jokingly. I feigned hurt. "Are you calling out my city? I'll have you know that New York has the best food you can find in all of America."