A Shot of Desire (A Life of Love #2)| Percabeth AU

Chapter 3 ⚫Confidence Conflicts⚫

(I'm just giving up and putting the picture of these two over here because of his cute face)

Road shimmer wigglin' the vision
Heat, heat waves, I'm swimmin' in a mirror

Road shimmer wigglin' the vision
Heat, heat waves, I'm swimmin' in a mirror

Percy POV

That's it.

I give up.

Babies are officially the world's most vile creatures.

It has only been three days since Estelle was born, and I'm already crazy. There are creams in the kitchen, wet wipes in the bedroom, and feeding bottles in the shower. I can't even take a step without stepping on a diaper filled with yellow shit.

Mom and Dad are much, much worse. Estelle cries louder than the music at the strip club at 1 AM every night and has deemed herself a nocturnal animal. Just looking at her makes me feel tired.

The only escape I had was when I went out, but even that was stripped away from me when crowds began to gather. So there goes my me-time.

But Annabeth and I have dinner with some of my colleagues tomorrow night, and I can't be happier. I never thought I'd say this, but nothing would make me more content than dressing up and going out and getting out of these vomit-stained clothes.

Thinking of Annabeth, I couldn't help but wonder what she was thought whenever she held Estelle in her arms beside me. We were still in our senior year of high school, and the thoughts I was having right now should not have entered my head.

"Honey, did you start your applications for University yet? I shortlisted a few from your list, and they have amazing courses for Marine Biology. There's Brown University, California State Uni, and ooh, University of Miami, Florida. Pretty close to the beach, just the way you like it." Mom came in, holding up a few brochures. I turned in my seat. My GPA was not the highest, so college applications were the things I least looked forward to right now.

"You might want to get started on the applications by next week so you can enjoy the holidays!"

I smiled and took the brochures from her, struggling to read the text as the words seemed to do the Macarena. 

"I'll read it later," I sighed, "I'll go upstairs to review some flashcards Annabeth made for my History test tomorrow."

Mom looked stunned. "Oh, you're studying?"

"Uh...yeah?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Well, it's good to see you doing that. Um...good luck!" She awkwardly left the room. I knit my eyebrows, baffled by her reaction.

X~X

The next day, I aced my test! I probably got a few spellings incorrect, and a few questions in the short answer section wrong, but hopefully, I would have a B!

With that same killer confidence, I raised my hand to volunteer for an extra credit project that required doing research for Shakespeare's life. I mean, it was boring, but I seriously needed to raise my GPA if I wanted to get out of this toilet fire and do something I actually like, like swimming with the fishes!

"Yes, Percy, you may go to the restroom." Ms. Abiko sighed, barely glancing at my raised hand.

I frowned, "Uh, actually, I'd also like to take part in the extra credit project."

"Oh." Mrs. Abiko said with surprise laced in her voice, the same expression as my mother. "That's quite a surprise. But it's great to see you stepping out of your comfort zone." She gave me an awkward smile and scribbled down my name with a maladroit look on her face.

I slouched back in my chair, ignoring the class gawping. Some arrangements were done regarding my attending school here, so no personal information could leak out. Thank the little suspension slip for that.

With my senior year of school, the stress of my situation was finally piling on. My GPA was already lower than Leo's height, and I was disappearing completely for a few months to film a movie now? I couldn't wait to ditch my acting career when I went to college.

In our free period, I was approached by our college counselor, a nice lady who looked like she had barely passed out of college herself, and the bags that were under her eyes were really against my daydream of college. But at least, there won't be homework!

"Oh, there will be homework," Lalya, the college counselor chuckled, looking at my report card.

"No!" I cried.

"Dramatic much? And none of those Hollywood puppy eyes going to work on me," She rolled her eyes. "Looking at your report card, I can say that you have college athlete grades. However, since you wish to be doing research for the universities you want to attend, not swimming for them, you need to significantly improve..." She waved vaguely at my report card, "Whatever the hell's going on here."

"Hey!" I protested. "I'm working on it."

Layla sighed and leaned back in her chair, shaking her head, "Listen, I don't care. I'm just working at this school for some stipend because college life is high maintenance. Now you could get into your dream schools by paying the fee, or you could earn it and score a full scholarship. But I'm looking at your grades and...you're going to have to work hard."

"You think I can't work hard?" I said with my voice breaking.

"No, that's not the case at all," Layla shook her head. "It's just that you are going to have to push yourself like you never have before to change your average from an 'F' to an 'A', you understand?"

"I do," I nodded and left the room, not having understood.

X~X

Annabeth was in the park, watching the little kids play as I sat down next to her.

"Oh, hey!" She leaned over to kiss me.

"Hi," I said. Then I quickly blurted out the thing that had been bugging me all day. "Do you think I'm not smart enough for college?"

"What?" Annabeth said, taken aback by my question. "Why would you say that?!"

"I don't know," I said, fiddling with my sunglasses, "All day, it's just been...pretty belittling."

"You know what belittling means?" Annabeth's eyes widened.

I stared at her. "Oh, sorry." Annabeth realized, biting her lip awkwardly. "I'm just shocked, that's all. But it's great to hear that you participated in the extra credit project! With you being absent for half of the semester, I think you could use that right now."

"I certainly could. By the way, could you tutor me in Math? And Science? And History? And practically every other subject I am taking?"

"Sure," Annabeth shrugged.

"Good! Because I have a project on Shakespeare, a five thousand word essay on how the Cold War made a deep impact on our current lives, and a presentation on how rainbows are formed,  all due tomorrow."

A/N Wow, I updated in a month?! Damn, I'm sorry, y'all. In this chapter, I wanted to do something different and make Percy really determined for a good education and career, something different from his usual laidback persona. Anyway, hope you liked it, there are lots more to come, and the theme of this chapter was inspired by Paxton from Never Have I Ever,  A Netflix show, so that's that. That's show is seriously addicting, go check it out.

Unclerickdabest, out.