Losing Games

32.

32.

Back Together

~*~

yeah so im not that good at keeping updating promises am i?

Annabeth POV

Maybe I shouldn't have told him.

His eyes were glazed over, and he looked anywhere but at me, his skin paler than Nico.

The silence was suffocating me.

"Are you okay?" I asked when his breathing sped up.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine..."

"Then look away," he snapped.

And then we were silent again.

"I'm so tired," he finally whispered. "Tired of trying, tired of caring, tired of loving, tired of everything."

He downed the alcohol the rest of the alcohol in one gulp.

"How much did you love me?" I asked him quietly.

"Does it matter?"

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Because it clearly wasn't enough to make you stay."

And I didn't know what to say to that.

He let out a long sigh, forcing a weary smile onto his face. "So when's the wedding?"

"In a few months," I responded, tracing my fingers around the armrest. "We'll have an engagement party soon, though... will you come?"

He didn't look at me.

"Percy?" I repeated again. "Will you come?"

He shrugged, standing up and getting another bottle of alcohol.

"You're going to get a hangover," I warned.

"You don't get to care," he informed me, popping it open and pouring it into his cup.

I turned away, staring at his window. "Are you... mad at me?"

He swirled the red liquid around in his cup. "...No."

"Are you... upset with me?"

"No."

"Can you... tell me how you feel then?"

"I think it should be the other way around. Can you tell me how you feel? Because the way you act is seriously confusing me."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I never meant for this to happen..."

"Yet here we are. Two strangers who know each other all too well."

"He's the one who proposed to me," I explained. "We were having a nice picnic and watching the sunset and he suddenly just asked... I couldn't say no, could I? And then the next thing I know there was a ring on my finger and an engagement party date..."

He downed another glass of the alcohol, swaying slightly with a solemn expression on his face.

"You have remarkably high alcohol tolerance," I commented.

He let out a bitter laugh. "Well you kinda have to when your whole house used to smell like drugs and alcohol."

"That's... not what I meant."

He just shrugged.

I breathed out a sigh. "Percy... do you—"

My voice cut off and he raised an eyebrow at me.