This Bed Feels Empty • Reynabeth

The Words of a Goddess

Did you know that the human body requires physical connection? It is one of the most important modes of communication to the human race. It is the ornamentation of replicating our feelings from words into actions. Needed. Required. Longed for.

That's what it was for me. It was something I needed more than anything, but yet I was the only one who was completely barren of it.

I, Reyna Avila Ramírez - Arellano, needed to be held and touched.

Quite a surprise, isn't it?

I needed to be loved, and yet I was always on the opposite side of unreturned feelings. I confessed my love but they never accepted or returned it.

I suppose that's why I'm so "cold and distant" as put by Drew Tanaka. Never did I think I would receive love advice from a daughter of Venus. Never did I think I would find truth in her words.

It all started on a visit to Camp Half Blood. Annabeth had IMed me the day before, saying she missed me. For awhile, these secret conversations had been going on. She would call me, I was usually awake while she was incredibly tired. Relieved of my preatorship duties at 7 o'clock, it took me an hour to shower and make dinner for myself. Usually, I went on a small walk before that. By the time I was actually in bed, it was around 8:30. For Annabeth, it was 11:30 at Camp Half Blood, but yet, she still called every single night.

When our calls first began, I told her I was still busy when she was usually going to bed. She had seemed slightly irritated with my mood that day, and I didn't expect anymore Iris messages.

But 8:33 on the dot, she called the next night. I was surprised, given it was so late for her, almost midnight.

Something had been wrong, I could tell immediately. There was such a broken look in her eyes when she apologized for calling since she had told me the day before,"fine! If you don't want to talk then I guess we won't!"

I could tell our small argument wasn't the source of her distress however.

Annabeth's brows knit in anger and I noticed just how tired she looked. That was when she told me everything.

Apparently, her and Percy had gotten into a large fight and they had broken up. I couldn't say I was surprised, I had always thought Annabeth was too good for him.

My feelings for him were short lived to say the least. The absence of Jason when he went missing left a hole in my heart, although I realized the hole had been there all along. My feelings for Jason had never been true, and neither had the ones been for Percy. I was so endowed by the thought of having someone to love that it felt as if my brain had tricked me into falling for people. I knew that deep down.

As Annabeth explained the cause of their fight, my eyes had filled with such intense rage, I had wanted to leave for Camp Half Blood that exact moment.

"We were talking. It was good, right? Percy made a comment about a girl from the Ares cabin, saying he had seen her making out with a daughter of Aphrodite. I thought nothing of it as I read my book. However, I made a comment, asking him what was wrong with that?" Annabeth had started to tell the story, tears already forming in her eyes. "He said he had seen the girl kissing a boy weeks ago and that it was nasty that she had switched just like that. Without thinking, gods, I wish I wouldn't have been so careless, I said, girls are pretty too, who's to judge who she wants to kiss?"

Annabeth looked down as she threw her face into her hands, pulling at her beautiful blond locks. In that moment, I wanted to reach through the IM and stop her. I wanted to hold her and tell her it was okay.

"Percy was silent for a good two minutes when he asked me if I had ever thought about kissing girls. I still wasn't aware of the fact he seemed to be getting angry. If I would've just put down my stupid book, I could've stopped myself from saying what I did," Annabeth spoke with a sigh, a few tears running down her cheeks. "I told him the truth. I had thought about kissing girls before, in fact before we departed for our next quest when we were 13. I had shared my first kiss with a daughter of Ares. That had set him off, given he had always assumed my first kiss was with him."