[1] 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐄 , p. jackson

xxxiii. aphrodite made me, i swear

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE ───────────
✧₊˚｡({  APHRODITE MADE ME, I SWEAR  })

" traitor OLIVIA RODRIGO "

{ PERCY }
JUNE 30TH, 2010
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PERCY WATCHES ROMA SLEEP CAREFULLY. Not in a creepy way, he swears. It's just that she had suddenly passed out in his arms and he'd had to lay her down on his bed. But then he'd caught himself wiping the tears from her cheeks and examining every detail of her face closely. And then he started watching the way her mouth pulled into a slight scowl and the way her chest moved in a slow, even rhythm, and couldn't help himself. She completely mesmerized him.

          Roma still smells uncomfortably of alcohol but he sits by her side anyway, his hand subconsciously running light trails over her face, tracing the outlines of her jaw and her eyebrows and her lips.

          Despite having a complete mental breakdown just half an hour earlier, she looks peaceful. Calm. Content. Something he wishes she always felt like.

          She looks so beautiful like this, he thinks. His heart feels like it's aching for her. Like her entire fucking existence is a bruise he can't help but press. Just to feel something. Anything but the reality of his life and the quest after quest ahead of him. He needs her, he realizes, in ways he shouldn't. In ways, he should need Annabeth. But he knows now. He knows that his feelings for Annabeth, they'd been reduced to almost nothing next to her. Next to Roma. And he feels so horrible about it. Like the worst fucking boyfriend in the history of all fucking boyfriends. But he couldn't burden Annabeth with anything to do with Roma right now. Not with the Mark of Athena looming over her shoulders. Even if that meant he had to hurt himself to do so.

          He loves Annabeth too much to hurt her when she needs him the most. Because before she was his girlfriend, she was one of his best friends. They'd known each other since they were twelve years old. He undeniably loves her. Just not in the way he thought he would twelve months ago.

          The sun glares through the cloudless sky and the dim lights above his head slowly switch themselves off.

          Percy isn't sure how long Roma would sleep for. He'd actually been planning to sleep after he'd shown her how to Iris-Message but that clearly isn't about to happen anytime soon. He decides to call her brother for her. He likes Luis anyway. And he wants to find out whether Grace made it to camp okay.

          He slowly gets up, careful not to wake Roma (although he thinks that's basically impossible), and quickly slips on a pair of gray sweatpants and a random black t-shirt. Then he makes his way to the bathroom armed with multiple towels to clean up the smashed bourbon bottle. The situation oddly reminds him of his mom and Gabe. But that would make Roma him. And that is not an accurate comparison. She, at least, smells good. And she doesn't━ well, okay, she does hit him but that's totally not the point . . . Technically.