#annabeth

Annabeth hated Texas. She didn’t know why her dad had dragged her away from Virginia to live here of all places. Then again, she also didn’t know why he stayed married to her step-mother, even after she had begged him with tears in her eyes to let it just be the two of them again. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to know any of the things that actually mattered to her.

What she did know was that there was a library in town at the corner of Government and Bay Avenue. It was too far for her to walk there from her house or school, and considering she was fifteen and carless, she couldn’t exactly drive herself, but that was fine. There was a bus stop in front of the library and at the end of her street, and her dad didn’t ask enough questions to notice that her allowance was being spent mostly on bus fare, he was too busy driving her brothers to soccer practice. 

The library itself was nothing too terribly special. It was one of the oldest buildings in the city – which wasn’t saying much, seeing as the city was founded in the mid-1800’s, but it was designed to look much older and grander than it was. It had massive columns inside and out, marble floors polished to a shine, big open cathedral-like ceilings, and massive floor to ceiling windows that let in every last summer sunbeam from dawn until the sun sank back down beneath the waves. It wasn’t special, objectively speaking, but Annabeth had always been a terribly subjective girl. 

More importantly, and far more embarrassingly, the library had the one and only Leo Valdez. He was a year younger than her (he called her a cougar when he found out and she most certainly did not get even a little flustered, but she did sock him in the arm) almost a head shorter, he laughed too loud at his own stupid jokes, and he somehow spent even more time at the library than she did, which she had never said about anyone she’d ever known before. He was always, always moving in some way or another, whether it was tapping his fingers on the table, fidgeting with some little project he fished out of his cargo shorts, or actually bouncing or pacing around their table. Annabeth expected to get irritated with him, she hated being distracted when she was trying to work, but she never did. Leo Valdez was pretty much everything she hated in a study partner, but she never hated him, and she knew exactly why.

He listened. 

No matter how distracted Leo got with words on a page or with sitting still, he never made her feel like he was ignoring her. Every time she opened her mouth to speak, his gaze zeroed in on her face and his expression sharpened into something almost serious. Sometimes when she was done speaking, he’d make a joke about the thing she just said (sometimes they were even funny) but most of the time he’d just think about her words, carefully parse through them, and give her a brilliant answer. Because Leo Valdez was a genius. None of his teachers seemed to notice, nobody seemed to notice, but Annabeth did. She saw right through every last one of his deflections to the actual source of that wit.

She’d asked him one time why none of the teachers realized he was as smart as he was, and he just shrugged. Cognitive dissonance, he dismissed. It was easier to just assume that the class clown was exactly as smart as he looked and any test scores saying otherwise were a fluke and/or proof of cheating. Annabeth, who had dealt with her fair share of teachers taking one look at her and deciding they didn’t need to ask any more questions, felt the injustice burning in her chest, even if Leo seemed to just let it roll off of his back without effort. Annabeth didn’t buy it, but Leo refused to offer anything else. They were at a stalemate, it seemed, and all she could really do was make sure he knew she expected more from him than anyone in the world.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t deck him when he just screwed his face up, got up on his tip toes, and kissed her one Saturday evening when they’d stayed at the library together from its opening minutes until the librarians kicked them out. 

Dating Leo, if she could even call it that, wasn’t all that different from being friends with him, honestly. She got to sit in the chair right next to him instead of across the table, and he’d play with the fingers of her free hand when she was studying, and sometimes they’d both get distracted kissing each other in the fiction section, but other than that, it was all the same. He was still her best friend, and they spent every spare moment together, hidden in the sanctuary of the Government Branch Library.

Then one afternoon Leo asked her a question that changed the track of their relationship. “So, it feels kind stupid to ask after knowing you for, like, eight months, but why do you spend so much time here? I know you’re not studying for school.”

Annabeth brightened immediately. “I’m studying to get into Olympus University.”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up, and he let out a low whistle. “Shooting for the moon, I see. Olympus is that fancy school up in New York, right?”

She nodded. “They have the best architecture and engineering departments in the country. My mom – my real mom, not my step-mom – is a professor there. I’m applying under my dad’s name so nobody knows we’re related, though.”

“Annabeth Chase never takes the easy path out of anything,” he grinned. “So, what’s your mom like?” The air suddenly went very still, and Leo’s expression fell. “Annabeth?”

“I don’t know my mom,” she confessed quietly. Leo squeezed her fingers, and she didn’t know when he’d managed to grab her hand but that tiny gesture made her heart clench. “She gave me up to my dad as soon as I was born, and she hasn’t been around since. My dad told me all about her, though, and I’ve always wanted to meet her. I feel like getting a full-ride academic scholarship to her school is pretty solid as far as first impressions go.”

Leo didn’t joke, which was how Annabeth knew he was listening, and after a moment he finally spoke, “You shouldn’t have to earn your own mom’s attention.”

Annabeth felt the world around her freeze in place, then tilt violently. Neither of them spoke for a very long time until Leo broke the silence with some asinine comment about something Annabeth forgot immediately afterwards but still laughed at. After that, their afternoon went just like it normally did. Annabeth studied, Leo joked, and they stayed side by side the entire time. This time, though, Annabeth held his hand all afternoon.

When the sun was finally setting and the librarians were making their rounds, she pulled him to a stop on the stairs, making sure he was on the step above her. Then she cupped his cheeks in both of her hands and kissed him. Just like he did every time they kissed, Leo’s breath caught in the back of his throat and his hands fluttered around, looking for their assigned place, until they landed on her own cheeks. His hands were warm, like they always were, but his cheeks were warmer still. He smiled against her mouth and she pressed as much affection and gratitude into her kiss as she could. 

Thank you for being here every day.

Thank you for every last one of your ridiculous jokes.

Thank you for asking questions no one’s bothered to ask.

Thank you for looking at the answers no one’s willing to look at.

Thank you for listening to me.

Thank you for actually hearing.

Thank you for seeing more of me than anyone else ever has and deciding you like every bit.