JASON GRACE

All your life, success has come with a pattern.

Work hard.

Achieve something.

Be rewarded for it.

It was a rhythm you learned early, long before monsters and prophecy and war became part of your life. In school, your report cards had always come home filled with perfect marks and small congratulatory notes scribbled in the margins. Teachers praised your focus. Your parents praised your discipline. Every success stacked neatly on top of the last, building a quiet but undeniable expectation: if you tried, you succeeded.

That was simply how things worked.

Even after discovering you were a demigod—after battles and quests and things that would have shattered most teenagers—you still held onto that pattern.

You fought in two wars and somehow still graduated from high school a semester early.

People liked to joke that you were terrifyingly efficient.

Truthfully, you just didn’t know how to be anything else.

By the time you arrived in New Rome for your first year of university, the pattern continued without much effort. Classes were challenging, yes, but manageable. Your friends were there, the campus was beautiful in a quiet Roman way, and your routine settled comfortably into place.

Study.

Train.

Eat dinner with friends.

Fall asleep with your boyfriend talking quietly beside you.

Life felt stable.

Predictable.

Your second year began the same way.

You returned to the same dorm room, the familiar space greeting you like an old friend. Your bookshelves filled up again, your desk cluttered with notes and half-finished assignments. Your friends were still there—faces you trusted, people who had fought beside you, studied beside you, lived beside you.

The only real change was your schedule.

More advanced classes.

Harder material.

Professors who expected you to already understand the foundations you’d learned last year.

And at first, you thought it would be fine.

After all—

It always had been before.

Until one concept refused to make sense.

At first, you brushed it off.

Everyone gets stuck sometimes, you told yourself.

You reread the chapter once.

Twice.

Three times.

You highlighted passages, rewrote your notes, copied diagrams until your fingers cramped.

Still nothing.

So you asked a friend.

They explained it patiently.

You nodded.

Then tried the practice problems.

Nothing clicked.

You asked another friend.

Then another.

Each explanation sounded slightly different, each person confident in their understanding, each one walking you through the steps carefully.

You followed along.

You really did.

But the moment you tried to apply the concept on your own—

It slipped through your fingers like smoke.

Eventually, even the professor tried helping you.

They sat beside you after class one afternoon, walking through the process again with the calm patience of someone who had explained the same thing to countless confused students.

You nodded.

You thought you understood.

You left feeling hopeful.

And the moment you sat down to try again—

It still didn’t work.

That was three days ago.

Now you’re sitting on your bed in your dorm room, surrounded by textbooks and notes, rereading the same chapter for what has to be the ninth time.

Your fingers twist tightly into your hair, tugging at the strands without realizing how hard you’re pulling.

The words on the page blur together.

You read the same paragraph again.

Then again.

Still nothing.

Frustration coils in your chest like a tightening spring.

This has never happened before.

Not like this.

You’ve struggled with things before, sure. Everyone does. But eventually, with enough effort, things always clicked into place.

This time—

They aren’t.

Your eyes burn slightly as tears gather along the edge of your vision.

You blink hard, trying to push them away.

Getting emotional won’t help.

But the anger is there too.

Anger at the book.

At the stupid diagram on the page.

At yourself.

How can you fight monsters and survive wars and still fail to understand something everyone else seems to grasp so easily?

Your grip on your hair tightens again.

The door to your dorm opens quietly behind you.

You don’t notice.

Your entire world has shrunk down to the words on the page and the rising panic that you might not be able to fix this.

The door closes softly.

Footsteps cross the room.

Still, you don’t look up.

A familiar voice finally breaks through the haze in your mind.

“Hey, amor. I brought dinner to you.”

Your head snaps up instantly.

Your vision clears just enough to see Jason Grace standing a few feet away from your bed.

For a moment, you stare at him like you’ve never seen him before.

Your brain takes a second too long to catch up with reality.

Jason shifts slightly where he stands, balancing two takeout containers in one hand and a soda tucked under his arm.

Concern flickers across his face.

His blond hair is slightly wind-tousled, like he came straight from outside. His usual calm presence fills the room quietly, steady and grounding.

But he pauses when he sees your expression.

“Hey,” he says gently. “You okay?”

You blink.

Then glance down at your wrist.

Your watch.

The time flashes back at you.

Your stomach drops.

You and Jason were supposed to have dinner two hours ago.

You look back up at him slowly.

“Oh.”

Jason’s eyebrows lift slightly.

“Oh?” he repeats.

You lower the textbook from your lap, suddenly aware of the complete disaster your room has become. Papers cover nearly every surface, textbooks stacked in uneven towers, your laptop open on the floor beside the bed.

Your hair is probably a mess.

Your eyes sting suspiciously.

“I…” you start.

Then stop.

Jason studies you quietly for a moment.

He sets the takeout containers on your desk and walks closer.

“Have you been studying this whole time?” he asks.

You nod weakly.

Jason glances down at the open textbook beside you.

Then at the scattered notes.

Then back at you.

His expression softens.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

Your throat tightens unexpectedly.

“I don’t get it,” you admit, your voice smaller than you expected.

Jason sits on the edge of the bed beside you.

“You don’t get what?”

You gesture helplessly at the book.

“This. Any of it. I’ve tried everything and I still can’t understand it.”

The words tumble out faster now.

“I asked three different people to explain it. The professor explained it. I’ve reread the chapter like nine times.”

Your voice cracks slightly.

“It’s supposed to be a simple concept.”

Jason listens without interrupting.

When you finally stop talking, he reaches over and gently pulls the textbook toward him.

He studies the page for a moment.

Then he glances back at you.

“You know something?” he says.

“What?”

“You’re allowed to struggle.”

You frown immediately.

“That’s not how this works.”

Jason tilts his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m supposed to understand things.”

He smiles faintly.

“That sounds exhausting.”

You stare at him.

Jason reaches over and lightly nudges your tangled notes aside.

“Eat first,” he says, nodding toward the takeout containers on the desk. “Then we’ll look at it together.”

You hesitate.

“What if I still don’t get it?”

Jason shrugs lightly.

“Then we try again.”

His voice is calm.

Unbothered.

Certain in a way that makes the knot in your chest loosen just slightly.

Because for the first time all evening—

You’re not trying to solve it alone.