What Happened After Happily Ever After

#9 - San Francisco

Chapter 9 - San Francisco
published: Wednesday, 27 January 2021

Annabeth shrugged the blanket off her. Her limbs were aching from the position she'd slept in in the bath tub, but her head was clearer than ever.

Taking a few seconds, Annabeth tried to muster up her pride to step out of the bathroom and face Percy. She peered at the crack in the door, hearing absolute silence outside.

Huh. Annabeth pulled the handle and the door swung open with a creak, revealing a tiny, empty room. Percy was gone.

Annabeth's first instinct was fear — what if he was taken? What if they'd come in the middle of the night and nabbed him?

Before she could escalate into hysteria, Annabeth caught on a glimpse of a fluttering piece of paper stuck under a mug.

Scribbled in ballpoint ink: Went out to get braekfast. Back by 10.

The misspelt "breakfast" elicited a pang of emotion in Annabeth's chest.

Annabeth glanced at the time on her phone. The digits flashed 9:34. Then she didn't have long until Percy got home.

As she did a pivot and examined the room, Annabeth noticed things she hadn't the night before. For one, the room was even more disgusting than she'd realised. And now, in daylight and with a clear mind, Annabeth grew wary of the cobwebs along the walls — because where there were cobwebs, there were spiders, and Annabeth hated spiders.

Annabeth stared at Percy's things in the corner of the room. The bag was overturned, some things strewn across the bed while he'd gotten dressed this morning.

Their documents were on the pillow. Passport. Birth certificates. Visas. Anything even remotely important.

Annabeth clenched her eyes shut. She didn't know when she'd decided to leave but the choice was become clearer and clearer to her with every passing moment from the time she woke up.

She stepped forward and began packing, methodically running through a list in her head. Logic was easy. It didn't let her think about Percy and what it meant for her to leave him, to actually walk away.

Things had just gotten too—too complicated. It was one thing to sort through feelings for your husband; it was another thing altogether to be a target of a crime family.

Annabeth slid her passport into her coat pocket, trying to come up with some kind of plan. When Percy got home, she'd be packed, Annabeth decided. She would tell him that this was simply too much for her, and she had to go.

Too much déjà vu overwhelmed her right now. It wasn't too long ago when she had been in a similar state, running away from her dad in San Francisco to get to university in New York.

Annabeth recited her speech in her head. Everything she needed to tell Percy before she left. The problem was that every time she looked at Percy and really, really thought about what she was doing, all rational thought left her head. Some tiny part of her, the part that still remembered the List, still remembered how much she'd loved him.

Her birth certificate and other documents were in a folder, slotted into her duffel bag, and her passport was safely zipped up in the pocket of her coat.

Annabeth checked her phone for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes. 9:56.

This time, it seemed to work though. The lock clicked and Percy stepped through, a foot-long wrapped sub in his hand.

His gaze landed on her, standing at the foot of the bed with her coat on, her hair brushed, in a clean set of clothes and carrying her duffel bag.