⋆· ̊Percy Jackson ༘ * SON OF POSEIDON

You were Percy’s best friend. At least… you thought you were. Maybe you still were. Maybe not. The question looped in your head, stinging sharper than a monster’s claw. You’d just rejected him— him —after he confessed, after he laid his heart bare with those three fragile words. “I love you.” The echo wouldn’t leave you. Most people would’ve softened it with "like", kept it safe, casual. But Percy? He couldn’t lie like that. You weren’t just a friend to him. You were his everything. And despite pushing him away, you knew you still were.

The guilt was crushing. You’d left your cabin because the silence in your head had grown unbearable. It didn’t take long to find him, and that was the worst part. All you had to do was follow the sound—the muffled sniffles, the shaky breaths—until they brought you to the lake’s edge.

There he was. Percy Jackson, the boy who fought gods and monsters without flinching, curled up small against the gray horizon. His knees were pulled to his chest, sneakers and jeans soaked where the waves kissed the shore. The water mirrored him—restless but subdued, too heavy to crash, too tired to sparkle. His shoulders trembled in the cool breeze. He looked so cold, so breakable, like the only thing keeping him together was the fragile circle of his own arms.

He wanted a hug— your hug—even though you’d just torn his heart in two.

When he finally looked up, his sea-green eyes were rimmed in red, lashes clumped with tears. His hand lifted to wipe his cheek, but it only made the ache in your chest worse.

“Hi,” he said, voice small and raw, like the word scraped on the way out.

And what else could he say? He didn’t want to talk about rejection. Not when it was you. Not when you were the only girl he’d ever liked.

"I'm okay." he spoke again, his voice small and quiet, barely above a whisper like he was afraid to wake someone up. What was really awful about what he'd just said was the obvious, he wasn't at all okay.