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“That’s what I said.”
Annabeth fixed her gaze on the horizon, like she was looking for a solution way out in Yonkers. Do solutions come from Yonkers?
“We’ll figure it out,” she promised. “We’ve been through worse.”
I loved her confidence. And she was right.... We’d been through so much together already, it was hard to imagine anything we couldn’t face.
Occasionally, somebody would ask me if I’d ever dated anybody besides Annabeth, or if I’d ever thought about dating someone else. Honestly? The answer was no. When you’ve helped each other through Tartarus, the deepest and most horrifying place in the universe, and you’ve come out alive and stronger than you were to begin with... well, that isn’t a relationship you could ever replace, or should ever want to. Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t even eighteen yet. Still... no one knew me better, or put up with me more, or held me together as much as Annabeth, and I knew she could say the same about me—because if I were slacking as a boyfriend, she would let me know real quick.
“Maybe they’ll be small quests,” I said hopefully. “Like picking up garbage on the highway on Saturday or something. But this is anIthing and not awething. I don’t want to drag you into it.”
“Hey.” She rested her hand on mine. “You’re notdraggingme into anything. I’m going to help you get through high school and into college with me, whatever it takes.”
“So you’ll write my essays?”
“Nice try.”
We sat in silence for a minute, our shoulders touching. We were both ADHD, but I could’ve stayed like that for hours, perfectly content, appreciating the way the afternoon sunlight glinted in Annabeth’s hair, or the way her pulse aligned with mine when we held hands.
Her blue T-shirt was emblazoned with the gold lettersSODNYC. That sounded like an insult, but it was just the name of her new high school: School of Design, New York City.
I’d asked her about her first day already. After starting to tell me about her architecture teacher and first big homework assignment, she’d abruptly cut herself off with “It was fine. What about you?” I guess she knew I would have more to tell, more problems to solve.
That didn’t seem fair to me—not because she was wrong, but because I didn’t want to put her second. The thing about great problem-solvers is that they often don’t let others help them with their own stuff.
I was getting up my nerve to ask again, to make sure no gods or monsters had visitedherduring her day and given her quests, when my mom called from inside. “Hey, you two. Want to help with dinner?”
“Sure, Sally!” Annabeth pulled her legs up and climbed through the window. If there was anyone Annabeth liked helping more than me, it was my mom.
When we got to the kitchen, Paul was chopping garlic for the stir-fry. He wore an apron one of his students had given him for an end-of-year present. The quote on the front read “A RECIPE IS A STORY THAT ENDS WITH A GOOD MEAL.”—PAT CONROY.
I didn’t know who that was. Probably a literary person, since Paul taught literature. I liked the quote, though, because I liked good meals.
Annabeth grabbed a knife. “Dibs on the broccoli.”
Paul grinned at her. His salt-and-pepper hair had gotten a little longer and curlier over the summer, and he’d taken to shaving only every couple of days, so he looked, as my mom put it, “pleasantly roguish.”
“I cede the chopping board to the daughter of Athena,” he said with a little bow.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Annabeth said, equally formal.
My mother laughed. “You two are adorable.”
Paul winked at Mom, then turned to heat up the wok. Ever since last spring, when Paul had tutored Annabeth in some impossible English project, the two of them had bonded over Shakespeare, of all things, so half the time when they talked to each other, they sounded like they were acting out scenes fromMacbeth.
“Percy,” my mom said, “would you set the table?”
She didn’t really need to ask, since that was my usual job. Five mismatched pastel-colored plates. I got the blue one, always. Paper napkins. Forks. Glasses and a pitcher of tap water. Nothing fancy.
I appreciated having a simple ritual like this—something that did not involve monster-fighting, divine prophecies, or near-death experiences in the depths of the Underworld. Setting a table for dinner might sound boring to you, but when you have no downtime in your lifeever... boring starts to sound pretty great.
My mom checked the rice cooker, then took a bowl of marinated tofu from the fridge. She hummed as she worked—some Nirvana song, I think. “Come as You Are”? From the glow on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, I could tell she was in a good place. She moved like she was floating, or about to burst into some dance moves. It made me smile just seeing her like that.
For too long, she’d been an overstressed, underemployed mom, heartbroken after her short affair with the god of the sea and constantly worried about me, her demigod child who’d been hounded by monsters since I was old enough to crawl.
Now she and Paul had a good life together. And if I felt a little sad about having one foot out the door just when things were getting better, hey, that wasn’t my mom’s or Paul’s fault. They did everything they could to include me. Besides, Iwantedto go to college. If I had to choose between being with Annabeth and... well,anything, that was no choice at all.
Paul dropped a clove of garlic into the wok, which sizzled and steamed like a sneezing dragon. (And yes, I’ve seen dragons sneeze.) “I think we are ready, milady.”
